Trip to La Paz, Mexico April 16th – 23rd
2016
Trip Report Contributor - Ricardo Cruelles @rcruelles
As we stuff our Sportubes with our gear the anticipation
builds, it has been a long winter in New England! The boys and I have been
texting constantly to figure out if we have all the gear we need and talking
about the sea/weather forecast.
At last the day comes, after many trips back and forth to
see Mike at
New England Freedive Spearfishing Co gathering last minute gear add-ons. We left
from Providence and headed out for La Paz, we collected Ed in Baltimore during
our layover and we were off.
Once we got to Cabo San Lucas we were greeted by Don Pedro,
which the guys at Pistoleros del Mar had set up for us, and loaded all the gear
to make the 2 HR trek north to La Paz. The landscape is unlike any other I have
seen anywhere, it is truly a vast and rather barren landscape filled with
cactus with views of the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean.
We arrived at our hotel in La Paz, The 7 Crowns Centro,
unloaded of all our gear and quickly made our way to “El Malecon”( boardwalk )
overlooking at La Paz’s Bay, and we made ourselves at home in one of the many
restaurants along the waterfront. We indulged in some of the local dishes and a
few cold Pacificos before heading back to our hotel to meet Patrick from
Pistoleros. Once we met with him we devised a plan for the upcoming week.
We spent Sunday prepping all of our gear, rigging
wire/lines, making bungies, etc…. as well as taking in some of the local sites
and cuisine and counting down the hours until we got to jump in the water to
start hunting.
Monday morning came around and as planned the guys picked us
up bright and early, we loaded up the pick up truck with gear and we headed to
the marina. Once we arrived at the marina we were pleased to see the 28ft
cat style boat ready to take us to the diving spots. We sorted out our weights and
we made our way out of the manmade marina channel. Once we steamed out of the
channel we were in awe of the landscape that lay before us, Baja is truly a
unique place unlike any I have seen before anywhere.
Day one started off diving at one of the reefs at about 35
to 75ft in depth to get us acclimated to the water and some of the bottom
structure. We were able to wrestle up a couple of good size pargos and a few
cabrillas along with a monster Parrotfish Dave shot that made for a delicious
dinner at the marina restaurant once we made it back to land. Some of the lessons learned from day one where
that the fish here were not going to be easy to get, mainly their speed and the
distances where incredibly difficult to judge as we lined up on them, and we
were going to have to work hard to achieve our daily limits. The depths in
which some of the nicer fish reside are definitely deeper than any fish we are accustomed
to hunt for in New England, between 50 and 90ft. Water temp was around 73
degrees and we were all happy to be wearing our 3mm wetsuits.
Day 2 started off a little bit later in the morning and with
a lot more gear being prepped as we set off to the fishing camp in the Village
of San Evaristo. This was the beginning of our 3 day adventure north of La Paz
inside the Sea Of Cortez, diving the Islands and making camp at night in Mr Antonio’s
compound on the beach in San Evaristo. The family was most accommodating to us
and treated us like kings while we were there. The accommodations are “rustic”
at best and do not look for WIFI there because there is none but the remoteness
and the isolation from the everyday rat race made this a truly wonderful
adventure with a great group of people.
We dove the Islands of San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Dieguito,
Las Animas, Espiritu Santo and many others, all with their unique and distinct
features and marine bottom. We also dove a few Bluewater spots in between that
averaged 150ft to 300ft in depth, were Patrick a nice AJ and we shot few Red
Snappers. I was happy to be using my new Bluewater set up,
Rob Allen 130cm Carbon with
a Mori Slip-Tip coupled with the
Neptonics breakaway system that worked
flawlessly while gliding into the fish balls at 65ft, point and shoot and
BINGO! Guachinango Time! (Local name for Red Snapper)
We ended up the day with a few good Pargos, a couple of
Barred Pargos, some cabrillas and a few good triggers.
The next two days were
similar in the type of diving but we were getting a lot more comfortable with
our dives and understanding the fish behaviors. We loaded up on day 3 on the
pargos along with a couple of monster triggers that weighed in at over 10lbs!
One at 12lbs! Needless to say that Antonio and his family were happy to see all
the fish coming in at the end of the day.
We finished our time on the water with a swim with two
Whalesharks clocking in at over 25ft each! This capped our water time off with
a bang!
I can truly say that this was one the best dive trips of my
life, the crew at Pistoleros del Mar is second to none. Patrick, Victor and
Gonzalo are exceptional at making sure all was set up for us and that we had
everything we needed. They ran the boat flawlessly and brought us to some
amazing spots, they set up the fish camp adventure and ensured we were
comfortable. I really recommend their operation to anyone considering a trip to
Baja to spearfish.
Some of the things we learned about the gear set ups are
that pargo will make playdough out of steel shafts when they want to. I really
recommend using coated wire vs. mono line while targeting this fish. A 130cm or
bigger gun with a breakaway set up is highly recommended here, reels are not
the way to go. My Carbon RA was perfect most of the time.
A 75ft line and a 3ATM float would be preferred with your
breakaway set up, this will ensure that you have all the gear you need on the
reef/wrecks and also in the Bluewater situation.
We were lucky to have loaded up with gear for the occasion
that New England Freedive brought in for us over the winter to set us up for
the trip, it made for a week free of gear mishaps and wishing we had this set
up or that set up, we had everything we needed to get the job done. I can’t
thank Mike Chace enough for that!
This was an amazing adventure with friends! I recommend La
Paz to anyone looking for some challenging spearfishing, some incredibly nice
people, fantastic food and marvelous topography!
Hasta el Año que
viene La Paz! Nos Vemos! Y muchas Gracias por todo!
