Cabo Pulmo (Oct 2022)
Be sure to scroll below to view our photos and videos after our story for this trip.
3 Short Days in Cabo Pulmo
Up the Sea of Cortez lies his gem surrounded by beautiful mountains and clear blue water.
Off a literal beaten path and a healthy trip away from the beaches and tourism of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, is a gem that I’ve been wanting to visit for years. Cabo Pulmo is a tiny diver’s town famous for giant balls of schooling fish, mobula rays, and plenty of whale, orca, and marlin sightings, just to name a few. Fortunately, friends of ours organized a short trip that thankfully aligned to our hectic schedule, so off we went for a few days to explore the area and its viability for us to promote marine conversation via photography and videography.
I’ve seen with my own eyes the degradation over time of reefs in places like Playa del Carmen, Mexico and southern Florida, and the negative impact it has on the local ecosystem of marine life. I’m always amazed to see the difference when I visit protected areas; plentiful and colorful coral reefs, thriving schools of reef fish, and a wide variety of pelagic species. As a protected national park established in 1995, Cabo Pulmo was no different and it did not disappoint.
Just barely caught a shot of the dolphins finishing their feed off one of the giant balls of fish
Our first dive was at the Los Morros site where we were instantly met by a huge ball of schooling fish hunted by a trio of hungry dolphins. When I say instantly I literally mean it. My head was just underwater as I began my descend, so I was still fidgeting with my camera when the action was occurring. The only shot I made out was of the dolphins traveling under the fish school, but amazing shots of the two schools we encountered during the dive more than made up for it.
The following days were more of the same. Amazing reef life with hundreds of varieties of fish, pelagics, and shellfish. One of the objectives of the trip was to run into the bull sharks. Unfortunately, our guide was only able to spot them from the surface and they were nowhere to be seen by the time we ascended. However, that disappointment was mitigated by orca and marlin sightings that caused us to jump into the water to snorkel several times (no orcas, but several marlin encounters). We wrapped up the last day diving with a small group of sea lions where we also ran into a couple of eagle rays and a turtle. After three short days we were sold.
We eventually met up in the water with these sun-bathing sea lions.
As I mentioned above, this was a short exploratory trip to see where and how Cabo Pulmo fits into our future plans. A short trip with a short write-up and gallery this time around. Yet with fantastic marine action throughout the year, not only will we return for more trips, but we also plan to put together a Quarterly Spotlight in the future to promote this success story and raise awareness and advocacy for other areas to emulate. CaaS
Check out these photos from our trip:
Check out these videos from our trip on our YouTube channel:
