Mexico
La Paz, Baja California Sur | December 2025
When J and I initially received our scuba diving certification in 2023, all we knew is we wanted to use it when we visited Mafia Island off the coast of Tanzania. We loved our experience there but struggled to find a way to squeeze in another trip that incorporated our new skill set. Before we knew it, almost two years had passed. We decided to dedicate the winter break of 2025 to a trip that was exclusively oriented around scuba, hoping to reactivate and deepen our skills with several repeated days of dives. We also threw the invite out to my sister and her husband to see if they wanted to join and get scuba certified themselves — and were delighted when they said they were all in.
We did some research and collectively identified a PADI-accredited shop in La Paz, Mexico, the capital of Baja California Sur, located about a 2.5 hour drive north of Cabo on the Gulf of California. We liked that La Paz seemed less touristy and more low-key than Cabo or other Mexican resort areas that catered to divers. We booked a week of lodging and diving through a little B&B that is run by a couple named Kristi & Richard: She the chef, he the dive master.
There were a lot of highlights from the trip. Days slipped by without a thought spared for life back home as we all focused on learning and improving our scuba skills. So many enjoyable conversations with each other and the other divers who came and went during the week. My brother-in-law saw a seahorse, my sister generated a list of almost 30 different kinds of fish she identified, J spotted a moral eel, and I had the delight of coming across a California two-spotted octopus (my proudest scuba achievement thus far!). The four of us spent a fun afternoon walking around La Paz and enjoying an incredible dinner at a restaurant that Evan found; that aguachile will forever be seared into my mind as one of the top dishes I’ve eaten while traveling. The fun, joy, and luxury of simply being away felt almost profound, especially after the heaviness that 2025 held. It was a breath, a pause, a moment of stillness within adventurous activity that I am very grateful for.
There were, however, a fair amount of lowlights too. After the first day of diving, I developed a severe toothache which turned into round-the-clock headaches and/or full migraines for the majority of the week. I managed it all week with Tylenol and ibuprofen on rotation, but it significantly curtailed my ability to relax, talk to people, or enjoy the experience. I was in bed by 8pm every night, trying to claw back to a baseline where I could function at a high enough level the next day. There were a couple nights I was wide awake at 2am with a throbbing jaw, wondering if I should pull out our trip insurance and call the trip early so I could get my toothache addressed. In the end, I decided to push through the pain for the full week and tend to it once we were back stateside.
In addition to this, we ended up having incredibly bad luck with the weather. After one perfectly clear day where we all managed to get out on the boat to dive (one of which, unfortunately, was poorly planned and basically needed to be aborted by all the divers; the second of which was a shallow reef dive), winds coming from a big storm over the Pacific descended on La Paz. Turns out if the winds and currents are too strong, the Port of La Paz is closed to vessels the size of our diving boat. And close it did… for three days in a row. We tried to make the best of it by going to Pinchilingue Beach, a protected cove, for a couple days of shallow shore dives, but this was more akin to snorkeling than true scuba, although we did get the chance to hone our buoyancy during those days. This meant we didn’t get to see whale sharks and didn’t get to dive at the famous sea lion colony, which La Paz diving is best known for and was the only thing I truly wanted to see while in the area.
We toyed with trying to extend our trip for an extra day because of course, the winds were gone, the port opened, and all the other folks staying at the B&B left to dive off the boat the very morning we had to leave for the airport. In the end, that didn’t feel quite right and we left as scheduled on New Year’s Eve. All four of us felt our own mixture of frustration, sadness, and disappointment as the time wound down. While I wish we’d had spectacular weather, dives in all the places we’d envisioned going to, and no toothaches or migraines, the reality of life and travel is that much is out of your control. Sometimes not everything works out exactly as you hope for. Highlight reels too often present a veneer of effortlessness, perfection, and ease, glossing over the bad luck, mistakes, and disappointments. I think it’s important to include it all: The gorgeous, the painful, the mundane.
And so. Despite having a few more lows than hoped for when we first envisioned and planned this trip, there are a lot of things that I will look back on fondly from this experience. Incredible sunrises over the bay. Traveling with family who share our love of the ocean, adventure, good food, and different cultures. That sweet octopus and the beautiful reefs and the way the sunlight filtered down and danced across to the white sandy ocean floor at Playa Balandra.
Maybe one day we’ll be back to (hopefully) see the sea lions pups, whale sharks, and mobula rays. Maybe not. No matter what, I’ll hold La Paz with a mixture of ruefulness and gratitude, thankful for what it was and learning to accept what it wasn’t. ¡Hasta la próxima!
