Dive Review of
Parguera Divers in
Puerto Rico/La Parguera Wall

Nassau, Bonaire, Great Barrier Reef, wrecks off North Carolina and in St
Lawrence River Canada, Key Largo FL, Ko Samui Thailand, Catalina Island CA,
Monterey CA

Dive Conditions

All divers in boat had to follow a guide as a group  

[None]  

Overall Rating

While attending a big family get together at Rincon, my wife and I decided
to drive an hour and a half to the southwestern side of the island to
explore Parguera Wall for a day.   We dove two sites:  Steps and Mojarra –
both of which averaged about 60-70 feet in depth.  The weather was nice,
the water warm (low 80s), and the waves only a small issue (three feet or
so).

The Steps site was disappointing on various counts.  First, the dive shop
(which was perfectly fine otherwise) had the rule that all divers had to
follow a guide – no exceptions.  I don’t know if that is a law or is in
response to past problems or if the shop gets a lot of beginners and just
wants to be overly safe.  Given we had about a dozen divers, this was
frankly a pain as we had to dive to the proverbial lowest common
denominator.   Indeed, we had to wait at the start for ten minutes under
the boat for a couple of divers who had trouble descending.  In addition,
what few fish there are were scared away by the large group.   Second, our
tanks were only filled to 2800 psi.  Third, the wall itself was not
particularly awe inspiring (compared in my experience anyway to walls off
New Providence and the Great Barrier Reef or even the ledges off Catalina
Island).   On the plus side, the small canyon in the coral that paralleled
the edge of the wall was fun to explore and the soft coral (similar to
Bahamas or Key Largo) seemed quite healthy.   And the visibility was
exquisite.  The fish highlight was a very interestingly colored hogfish who
was definitely not camera shy and hung out with me for quite a while.

Mojarra was a much better dive.   In part, it was because we hung out way
behind the big armada of guided divers chugging away at full steam and took
some time to explore.  It also had more fish (but still pretty
underwhelming), including small black triggerfish and blue chromis above
the reefs, a pair of angelfish, goatfish, grunts, small wrasses, and
butterflyfish.  We did see a couple of nurse sharks under the ledges.  
Indeed, the whole site was basically several very large rock/coral
formations with wide sandy channels in between and many crevasses beneath. 
 The coral, mostly soft, also seemed quite healthy and featured some very
bright green/yellow barrel sponges.

As I said in another entry, overall, diving in western Puerto Rico is
perfectly fine in the sense that any diving in clear tropical water with a
few fish and some reefs is never a bad thing.  However, I don’t think I’d
recommend going only or primarily to dive.  
 

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