Diving in Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico

Cabo Pulmo Marine National Park in the sea of Cortez in the East Cape of Baja California Sur is a Unesco world heritage site. The national park was established in 1995, in the area that suffered from significant overfishing. Since then, conservation has been successful and Cabo Pulmo is a case study in what effective marine protection can do to restore reef and fish populations. Bull sharks, rays, big schools of fish, cool topography and corals – all make for a very nice diving. The video has highlights from our 4 dives in Cabo Pulmo in January of 2023.

Cabo Pulmo is a little village with a population of about 60 and a dozen dive shops. Diving is the main reason to visit. Accommodation is basic but comfortable. There are a couple of restaurants with good food. Any groceries or other supplies must be brought in. The nearest shops are in La Ribera 27km away, and those are small shops not big supermarkets. Cell signal is patchy. It is perfect for getting away from it all.

View on Cabo Pulmo from the road, Mexico
View on Cabo Pulmo from the road, Mexico

We drove down to Cabo Pulmo from La Paz via Los Barriles. It took about 3 hours. The last 10km or so are not paved but reasonably flat and we made it in a small 2 wheel drive car without any problems. You do not need to drive on sand at any point to get to the town. After Cabo Pulmo, we were heading to San Jose del Cabo. While google maps shows a road along the coast going south from Cabo Pulmo, that road is not paved. Advise from locals was to go back via La Ribera and onto route 1 and that’s what we did.

Downtown Cabo Pulmo with dive boats and a number of dive shops, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
Downtown Cabo Pulmo with dive boats and a number of dive shops, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico

Dive sites are very close to shore – 10 min or less. Most dive shops do two dives out and may be coming back to shore in between the dives, depending on whether all divers do two dives. There is a possibility of afternoon dive depending on weather conditions. When we were there winds picked up in the afternoon and besides visibility was not fantastic so we only did two morning dives each day.

Tractor pulling out dive boat, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
Tractor pulling out dive boat, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico

Even though Cabo Pulmo is known for its coral reef, it is not the tropical kind of reef one has in mind, understandably. There is some hard coral and a few areas with very pretty little fans and sponges. The rock formations are very cool. When we were there visibility dropped to less than 7m and water was pretty green. Water temperatures were about C21, diving in 5mil and with a hood. We hear that late summer and early fall has much warmer water, good vis and thats when one sees those huge schools of jacks Cabo Pulmo is famous for. For all we know, all sorts of schools of fish could have been around, and we saw some, but with poor vis we could not quite see that far. We did get very lucky with so many bull sharks. Was a very unique experience.

Porcupinefish, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
Porcupinefish, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
Corals, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico
Corals, Cabo Pulmo, Mexico

Definitely a repeat destination for when the vis is better and the water is warmer. It was a great addition to our La Paz diving and before we were getting on Socorro liveaboard.

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