TRIP
REPORT FOR CLUB CANTAMAR,
Most of
us had never been to the
GETTING
THERE
The
flight down on United was quite pleasant and uneventful. Customs and immigration were a snap. We were met as promised at the airport and
headed off in two vans for the resort.
We had flown directly from
THE
RESORT
Club
Cantamar is situated right next to a large ferry terminal on a small island
connected to the mainland by a causeway.
The resort consists of half a dozen or so pinkish adobe 2 and 3 story
buildings which are actually quite attractive in the sunshine against the
bright blue sky so typical of that region.
The resort has a small marina adjacent to it with the resort dive boats
as well as some half a dozen other boats moored there. There was an open air bar adjacent to the
waterfront and marina. There was a swim
up bar, too. There is a small beach at
one edge of the property along with a small seaplane hangar, but the beach
isn’t really all that scenic since there are sea walls along the edges and a
couple large PVC tubes running into and out of the water for unexplained
purposes. Perhaps cooling water for
something? To get to the beach you had
to walk past a large pile of rubble that used to be a building of some
sort. There was also some sort of boat
storage area there. One old crappy boat
sitting on blocks is pretty much standard at every dive resort I have visited,
but 5 crappy old boats makes a junkyard.
OK, take the old boats and sink them for dive sites already. In all fairness to the resort, the boats and
the rubble may have been damaged by the recent hurricane.
As soon
as we began to check in, we began to experience the infuriatingly inefficient
front office. In due time we got our
keys and remotes for the air conditioner and the TV and headed to our
rooms. However there was really no one
there to greet us except the desk clerk.
A better way would have been to have someone take us all as a group to
the bar and give us a 5 or 10 minute orientation. No one told us where or when to go for
dinner. No one told us where to put our
dive gear. No one told us much of
anything. By sheer determination and some
detective work, we figured out where to put our dive gear. More importantly we figured out where the bar
and restaurant were and prepared to enjoy the week and leave the little
annoyances behind. All of us were
looking forward to diving the next day and we were especially encouraged when
we talked with the divers just arriving from a day on the
Despite
the inefficient front office, the staff we dealt with were
pleasant and at least seemed to want to help us even if they didn’t exactly
know how.
The resort is quite compact and everything (restaurant, beach, bar, pool, dive
shop) is very close by and convenient. There is not much in the way of green and
growing stuff. There were some palm
trees around the pool (which was quite nice and very clean) and some plants,
bushes, and a few trees between and in front of some of the buildings, but most
was open space. Hurricane John had come
through a few months before, so maybe some of the plants and trees got blown
away. Who knows? It did appear as if some landscaping work was
being done.
The rooms
were not especially fancy, but were quite nice and clean. Most of the rooms had a small patio or
balcony with a table and chairs. The
patio was nice, but in my room getting to the patio was somewhat awkward in
that you had to climb over one of the beds to open the sliding door. There was a single dresser/desk combo and a
closet which provided very little storage for clothes and sundries. The beds were fine even for my 6’4” frame and
I had no back pain all week which is more than I can claim from my mattress at
home (perhaps
THE FOOD
The
on-site restaurant was pleasant and clean, with nice décor, a reasonably good
view of the bay, and ample seating. We
had real padded chairs, not plastic lawn furniture like some other resorts. Breakfast and dinner are served buffet
style. For breakfast we typically had an
egg dish or an omelet, toast, pancakes, potatoes, fruit, yogurt, cereal, juice,
and coffee. For dinner we had a choice
of 2 or 3 entrees and salad and vegetable and dessert. A couple times we had outdoor barbeques along
the pool, as well. Drinks were not
included except a small glass of juice.
However, bottled water was always available. The bar was right next door, too, and the
prices seemed reasonable for drinks; $2 for a beer, $1 for a coke. The bartender, Ruiz (?), was very attentive
and he kept very good records of tabs even with 2 separate people on the same
room tab. As anyone in my dive club can
tell you, being a bachelor, I am a lousy food critic. If it doesn’t come out of a pop tart box or a
microwave it is practically gourmet for me.
Even so, I felt the quality and quantity of the food at breakfast and
dinner was quite good. All meals were
buffet style, so if you went away hungry it was your own fault.
Since we did 3 dives without coming back to the dock, lunch was served on the
boat between the 2nd and 3rd dives. Lunch was either a sandwich or a couple
tamales and some cookies, chips, and pop.
I thought the lunches were fine, but a couple people did complain about
some nausea after eating lunch on the boat.
Hard to say if that was due to the lunch or the rocking dive boat. I had no problem with the lunches on the boat
all week.
Those non divers staying back at the resort were disappointed by lunch. They thought they should have more of a
selection than the few items offered. As
I never ate lunch at the resort all week, I cannot comment on that.
THE
DIVING
Club
Cantamar has its own fleet of dive boats operated by Baja Diving and Service. Each boat had a divemaster and captain. The
divemaster often doubled as the boat crewman.
A couple times we had a second crewman aboard to help with the tanks and
anchoring. All the dive boats were quite
large and roomy with lots of seating.
They all had private heads, more than ample gear storage, and even
plenty of dry storage. They had
reasonable camera tanks aboard and the staff eventually got us even more camera
tanks once we showed them how many cameras our group had. The divemasters gave good briefings before
each site, and most site briefings include a rudimentary map of the area. Our divemaster, Marco, spoke quite
understandable English, which is not always a given at dive resorts. The divemasters were helpful with gear and
fins, but as always, I wish the divemasters would realize that I would much
rather have them take my camera from me at the stern ladder than help me change
my tank. It is significantly easier to
change over a tank than to climb up a ladder with fins in one hand and my large
camera rig in the other. As often as
not, a fellow diver had to take my camera because the DM was helping some other
diver with his/her gear. Oh yeah…my
first gripe about the dive op: Get rid of the round steps on the ladders. Anyone who has climbed a round rung ladder in
soft sole dive boots with a weight integrated BC and tank on their back can
tell you it hurts!! Weld or bolt some
non-skid flat plates on the rungs. The
boat ladders were quite good in all other ways.
The scuba
tanks were all AL80s. Tank fills were
for the most part a consistent 28-2900 psi, however, a few times I got a
2600psi fill. The DMs were good about
setting out full tanks for us between dives.
All the tanks I checked were in hydro (again, not always the case at
dive resorts). Since we did 3 dives each
day without returning to the dock, there were a
The water
temperature in the second week of November was about 79F. Most of us had been expecting water temps a
few degrees cooler and had brought 5mm suits.
Actually that turned out to be OK seeing as we were essentially doing 3
dives in a row. We were allowed to
pretty much buddy up as we saw fit and to dive our own profiles on most of the
dive sites. The only limitation was that
we were limited to a dive time of 55 minutes on most sites.
The rides
out to the dive sites were typically about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour
and a half.
Unlike
many dive destinations, however, the shoreline scenery in the
My only
other gripe about the dive op is that if you had a problem out on the water or
got seasick, you were stuck all day on the boat. Unlike most resorts which do one or two dives
and then return to the dock, we left the dock at 830AM (OK, OK; 845-9AM) and
typically did not return until 4PM. Woe
betide the diver who forgot some crucial piece of equipment or got a sinus
block. With the high cost of fuel and
the distances involved, there was really no other practical way to run the
dives, though, and to be honest, there were few complaints about the long days
except from the non diving spouses.
Typically the first dive would be about 10:15 or so. Then a quick fruit snack and surface interval
followed by another dive at 12:30 or so.
During the second surface interval we ate a lunch prepared by the
captain during our second dive. Then we
made a third dive about 230PM. Typically
the first dive was the furthest away from the resort with the second two being
on the way back. Usually we were back at
the resort by 4 – 430PM.
Overall,
I would rate the dive operation at Club Cantamar as excellent.
Most dive
sites were rocky walls/slopes starting about 50-60 feet deep in the coarse sand
and rising up to the rock and in some cases small islands. Where the dive site was adjacent to an island
there was often quite a bit of surge which actually seemed to improve the fish
life and visibility. It was in the sites
closer to the resort that we encountered the worst visibility. Most sites had 40-50 feet or more of
visibility, but some, especially the close in wrecks, had only 20-30 feet or
so. Some of the closer in sites also had
a great deal of suspended particulate matter which ironically accounts for the
abundance of marine life. There was very
little current on most dives. Most of
the topography was large boulders which had tumbled from a nearby rock
formation or just solid bedrock. There
was almost no hard coral at all except in a few spots like Swanee reef, instead
there were rocks covered with marine growth.
Starfish of many colors were abundant as were sea urchins. Some sites had a few sea fans on some of the
rock walls, but most had just a grayish green coating of marine growth or
patches of cup coral. Almost no seaweed
or sponges of any kind were seen except in some of the caves and wrecks.
Despite the somewhat Spartan appearance of the rock/reefs in the
Club
Cantamar offers a few unique and adrenaline producing dives. The first day we took a fairly long boat ride
of about an hour and 30 minutes to La Islotes which is an active sea lion
colony. The site is an island of maybe
700 yards long by 100 yards wide which rises out of the ocean at the end of a
string of islands. Beyond that island is
the open
Another
unique dive was the Whale shark experience.
This was not a true dive in that no scuba equipment is used. Club Cantamar has a small two seat spotter
plane which flies ahead of the boat and spots whale sharks in the water. Each diver chips in twenty dollars for the
fuel and pilot. When a shark is spotted,
the pilot radios the boat and the captain positions the boat ahead and to one
side of the shark. Small groups of divers
enter the water and try to swim alongside the shark. It works best when the water is calm and
clear which unfortunately was not the case on the day we went out. We had about six feet of vis and it was very
rough. It was really tough to get the
snorkelers into the water and onto the boat in the high seas especially because
the shark we spotted was in only fifteen feet of water. The wind was blowing toward shore and the
captain had to anchor the boat to keep from running aground. I give the captain credit for handing the
boat in those difficult conditions. The
snorkelers then had to swim to the boat.
Several snorkelers were really not up to the task. Despite all the problems, I got my turn and
right after jumping in I was face to face with a real WHALE SHARK!!! It was only about 12-15 feet long, but who
cares? It was my first whale shark in 27
years of diving. I only had time to snap
off a couple photos before the shark outran me despite my swimming as hard as I
could. Eventually all the divers got to
see the shark at least once before the spotter plane ran out of gas. Count that day as a success.
Yet
another unusual dive is the hammerhead shark experience. We took a rather long boat ride out to El
Bajo which is a seamount about 5 miles offshore. The weather was pretty calm, but still it was
a long bouncy ride in the open ocean.
Once at the sea mount we divided into two groups. Those not wanting to dive deep could stay and
dive the seamount at about 60 feet or so.
Those who wanted to see the hammerheads swam up current at a depth of
about eighty feet until we spotted the first shark below us. Then we dropped down to about 110 feet and
were treated to several more sharks.
Some lucky individuals saw schools of twenty or more sharks. The sharks were all hammerheads about 6-10
feet in length. In all my years diving and
in thousands of dives, I have seen 2 (two) hammerheads before. Here we saw dozens. The only bad thing about this dive was the
depth. We had very little bottom time at
110 feet and the sharks were not being very friendly. They tended to be somewhat afraid of
divers. We were cautioned not to bang
tanks or use quackers or to make any sudden movements to scare away the
sharks. After the deep portion of the
dive was over, the rest of the dive was just drifting in the blue back to the
sea mount. Occasionally a school of
little bonitas, triggerfish, or baitfish would come up
to check us out as we hung there.
There are
a surprising number of shipwrecks in and around the
One thing
that is always really nice to have at a dive resort is gear storage. Club Cantamar had one of the best gear storage
setups I have seen. Each diver got a
closet sized cage complete with hangars for all the gear. Each cage could be locked and the entire room
was locked each night. There was
moderate air flow in the room and the gear was at least reasonably dry in the
morning. There were pretty nice rinse
tanks with hoses to rinse off the salt water.
There were no camera tanks, though unless one wanted to risk tossing a
camera in the gear tanks. Divers who did
not bring a lock could rent one at the front desk (provided the perennial
unsolvable problem was not going on at that time). The gear storage area was right next to the
dive boat dock so loading and unloading gear was no problem at all. The dive shop provided weights and belts and
also had plastic crates which neatly fit under the dive boat seats for all our
gear. Some felt this worked better than
the classic mesh bag for carrying gear.
I stuck with my mesh bag, though.
Nitrox was available, but no one in our group used it so I really don’t
have any info on price or O2%.
We came
as a group of 12 divers and 3 non divers, but as the week progressed, we
started picking up additions to our group.
There was another group of divers from
THE CITY
OF
Pretty
much the only thing for non divers to do once they tired of reading, laying at
the beach or by the pool, or watching TNT and ESPN was to head to
THE
BOTTOM LINE
Club Cantamar is not a dive resort for someone who must have top end
luxury. It is not a 5-star resort, but
it is clean and comfortable and the food is good. The rooms and facilities are comparable to
most other dive resorts and considering the price we paid it was fine.
The
difficulties with the infuriatingly inefficient front office never did go
away. Pretty much any inquiry to the
front desk more complicated than getting an extra towel was met with the reply
"oh, can you check back later".
That was if you could actually get to talk to the desk clerk. There seemed to be a perpetual unsolvable
problem between some guest and the front desk staff going on every time we
checked in at the front office. In all
fairness to the office staff, almost all the issues did EVENTUALLY get
resolved.
And
finally, there is pretty much nothing for a non diver to do at the resort
except hang out at the pool or beach, and the dive schedule is such that the
divers are gone most of the day.
But in
one week of diving, in addition to excellent diving in general, we saw a large
number of sea lions, my first WHALE SHARK!!!
and quite a large number of hammerhead sharks. All this an hour and a half
or less from the resort. In
addition to the tremendous amount of marine life, there are at least 5 diveable
shipwrecks in and around the area.
There are
problems at some dive resorts which are very difficult to solve such as local
cultural differences, rotten weather, lack of marine
life, poor visibility, or extreme difficulty in getting to the resort. Club Cantamar has none of those problems. The area boasts great weather, an incredible
amount of marine life, high adrenaline dives, and is easy to get to. The terrain is quite beautiful. The dive operation is top notch. The locals are very friendly to
Americans. The few problems with the
resort are in my mind easily solved.
With a little upgrading of the grounds, a new bookkeeping system, and
some butt-kicking of the front office staff, Club Cantamar could be a real
winner for divers. To his credit, Pedro,
the manager (who was offsite most of the week purchasing a new dive boat) did
make it a point to intercept me at the airport and apologize for the
inconvenience the front office caused the week we were there. He explained that there had just been an
almost 100% turnover in the office staff recently and that was the cause of
much of the difficulty. He expressed a
real desire to correct the situation with us and wanted us to return in the
future.
I would
hesitate to recommend Club Cantamar to non-divers or kids as there isn’t much
for them to do. But for divers who don’t
have to be in the lap of luxury and who want to experience the wonderful
weather and unique diving opportunities offered by the