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Published: June 28th 2014
This turned out to be one of the best weekends I've had in a while. During 2012 and 2013 I traveled around the world. Now I'm back home and back to a job with schedules (not complaining, just saying). This year, especially the second semester, I'm planning to do short getaways to lesser known places in Chile and write about them. That weekend I got my outdoor fix which was much needed.
Just when I managed to get a few days off work, the people that work in a dive center with whom I usually dive, planned a dive trip to one of the best spots in continental Chile. It's a not very well known cove: "
Caleta Chañaral de Aceituno". For this same reason, dive sites are just recently being discovered.
The main attraction of this small, dormant fishermen village cove is whale watching - especially during the summer months. Blue whales, Minkes, Finbacks, humpbacks, pods of dolphins and Orcas from time to time and so on.
People usually go there for the day and hop on one of the boats to take the whale watching tour. There are a few small restaurants and a
few sleeping options - nothing fancy. The areas surrounding this cove are made up mainly of dunes and desert. It's actually a very pretty landscape. There are three islands nearby which make up the "Penguin of Humboldt National Reserve": Choros, Damas and Chañaral. This islands are off limits to tourists and can only be visited by scientists with special permits. The sole exception is Damas island, in which it's allowed to visit a small beach for a short period of time. About 25km from Chañaral de Aceituno, there's a bigger town called Punta de Choros which also has whale watching tours and where there are a lot more camping sites, dive operators, restaurants and hostels. It can get quite crowded in summer months. Tourism here revolves around "Damas" island.
Chañaral de Aceituno on the other hand is much more concealed and less visited.
Anyway, the staff from the dive center I mentioned before (
Tiempo de Fondo, located in a very exclusive beach town called
Zapallar) organized this trip and invited customers to join in. In total, we were 9 people, all fairly experienced divers. We left on a Thursday early in the morning from Santiago, made a stop
in Zapallar to pick up gear and the rest of the group and then off to Chañaral de Aceituno. It was a 12 hour drive, more or less, including a few stops.
We arrived in the evening and get settled in a house we rented for the weekend and then someone cooked dinner dinner (on the way, we bought enough food to feed an army). A while later we met the person who would take us diving the next morning - Patricio, a.k.a. "Pato" Ortiz, a local fisherman with vast experience in whale watching tours and someone who knows his way around the dive sites and around the island of Chañaral like the back of his hand. Not to mention his superhuman eyesight to spot whales. A real character.
We had great weather the next 3 days and truly remarkable diving. Possibly the best dives I've had in Chile so far. Friday we set off on the boat at around 10am (pretty late, but it's hard to get 9 people organized who are in no rush) and it took us about 40 minutes to get to the first dive site: "Bajo el Ancla" (Anchor
shoal). The second site was "La Portada Chica" (The small gateway). Both dives were up to about 30 meters and had similar flora and fauna: rock walls with sponges of fluorescent yellow, big schools of small fish and kelp forests. We did a double tank boat dive and during the surface interval we could see sea lions by the hundreds sunbathing on the island coast. This island is also home to numerous types of birds. This were the most "boring" dives we had during those 3 days and they were actually really good and a great way to start the weekend.
On the way back we saw a few whales in the distance, but they didn't come close to the boat. The downside of the dives is the water temperature; around 13ºC, so the surface interval and then the 40 minute boat ride back can get pretty cold. But this is normal for diving anywhere in Chile.
The World Cup was just beginning and that afternoon was the match between Chile and Spain - a match a lot of people were looking forwards to because Spain was the one who eliminated Chile from the last World
Cup. I'm not a football fan, but it's always fun watching these matches among enthusiasts.
Before the match started I took a walk up some hills to get a better view of the village and take photos of the sun setting over Chañaral Island. I really enjoyed that outdoor feeling I had been missing. And I got some good photos as well. I got back just in time for the match and Chile won, so things kept going well for us - no long faces and everyone in a festive mood for the rest of the weekend.
The second day, diving got a lot more interesting and exciting. We had fairly big waves; 2 - 3 meters. We went to do a wreck dive - the "PAM Denise", a fishing vessel of about 25m situated at 32m in the bottom. It was in the middle of nowhere, a few hundred yards from Chañaral island and "Pato" Ortiz dropped us right on top of it (No GPS). The conditions were much better then we expected, with visibility of about 25m. Just awesome. A lot of the guys took the opportunity to take photos with Chile's football team
T-Shirt, party hats and so on.
The wreck can be easily penetrated in the bridge and cargo room. It's pretty small. The bottom surrounding it is made up of sand and crushed shells, so the contrast is really pretty. It was a cool first dive of the day.
After the usual surface interval with great views of the island coast, we got dropped off near a place where a lot of sea lions hang around. No one was really familiar with the site so we split in buddy groups and went looking around. With great luck, my buddy and I separated of the main group and went following the coast in the opposite direction as the others. At the beginning we didn't see much until the sea lions started appearing in the distance. All of a sudden, out of the kelp came a a very curious and playful juvenile sea lion who started approaching us and showing off. Diving doesn't get better than when you get to interact with marine life like that. After a while we continued diving towards the coast and arrived at a shallow canyon at about 10m. From there, the sea lions
were jumping in and out - the juveniles coming straight to us and the bigger ones always keeping their distance. We did almost an hour dive with them. It was incredible and my first interaction with these animals. The rest didn't have the same luck and we came out of the water totally stoked. Great second day.
We saw a few more whales in the distance on the way back, but they were reluctant to get close to the boat.
The rest of that day we spent chilling out and had a massive barbecue at the end of the day.
Sunday and our final day diving. This time we started in a site which was definitely my favorite: "La Portada Grande" (The Big Gateway). It starts in an underwater hill at around 10m. Then it has a beautiful wall covered in sponges that drops to about 35m. And then the bottom gradually keeps dropping. So it's a great spot for technical diving.
The visibility was really good as well - about 25m. It did have strong underwater current with an upwards-downwards movement that took you around 3 to 5 meters up and down.
But that was just near the surface.
We followed the wall and saw, besides the colorful sponges, several huge schools of fish. During the dive we were accompanied by a group of sea lions as well (all of them big and kept far from us). The treat of the dive was two sunfish (Mola Mola) we saw passing by. They weren't very big, but they were the first I've seen while diving.
For the last dive we went back to the first dive site we did ("Bajo el Ancla"). Visibility was a lot better that the first day and for this one, we started as a group, but then went exploring in buddy teams. My buddy and I ended the dive well off the island. We did run into sea lions again and huge schools of fish.
Back on land we had to prepare for the 12 hour ride back home. We ended leaving at around 4pm and on the way had to stop because we had a problem with the trailer towing system which we had to find a place to weld on the road. We were lucky,
as it happened near a small town by the road where it's customary for truck drivers to stop, so the problem was fixed quickly. We took the time to also grab a bite to eat.
I got back home at around 4:30am, which was no problem as I had asked for Monday off at work. Perfect way to end an amazing weekend.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
This is the first Travelblog I've read...
where the diver interacts with sea lions. Most of the other divers concentrate on tropical seas. You might inspire other divers to dance with sea lions. I'm looking forward to your future local blogs.