Hi
Hugely excited to say that we're going for 3 weeks in August(2 on a liveaboard out of La Paz and 1 down in Cabo) and I understand that it will be very hot (100F!!), water should also be 3-4mm wetsuit temperature and at its clearest. September ought to be pretty similar - its generally the hottest month with water temps in the 80Fs. There really are only 2 seasons down there - mild, wet winter )late Oct - May and hot dry summer June - Mid Oct. There are a number of good websites to look at: our Sea of Cortez page is a good start, with links to various other sites as well, in particular the Rodale Scuba Diving site gives some up to date and candid opinions from US divers. I notice there are some pix there taken in September 2003 by a visiting diver.
We are going with BAJA Seafaris and they also have a very informative website re Baja
<a href="http://www.bajaseafaris.com/" > <a href="http://www.bajaseafaris.com/" >http://www.bajaseafaris.com/</a></a>
Do you mean Club Cantamar? If so, I don't know them personally but they are a BSAC School and very long established and well known in the area, so that ought to tell you something. They have a hyperbaric facility onsite and area clearly very far removed from a shack on the beach with a sign outside it. La Paz is supposed to be a really nice town - lots of restaurants and a good, fairly genuine atmosphere. Pretty cheap to live once you're there. There are lots of dive sites reasonably near but you need to make sure that the operator you use has fast boats because some of the landbased shops have terribly slow ones that will eat up your day getting to the very best sites. DYOR.
The diving conditions are what you would expect for "out in the blue" diving as many of the sites are on isolated sea mounts - not all though. There are currents generally and the vis can be downright murky - oughtnt to be at this time of year though. There's a lot of big wildlife around at different times of the year and the chances of seeing some exciting fish and mammal life are good. Whale sharks, sharks and mantas are frequently seen but of course can't be guarranteed.
Here's a link to a diver article re summer diving in the area
<a href="http://divermag.com/archives/sept2001/cortez-sept01.html" >http://divermag.com/archives/sept2001/cortez-sept01.html</a>
Have you looked at flights yet???? We have found the most reasonable to be to fly into LAX and then down to La Paz with a local airline called Aero California. When you book your transatlantic tickets ask the airline if they have a reciprocal agreement with Aero California and so can issue their tickets. Not all can, (believe it or not its a question of stationery) and if not, you have to buy the La Paz tickets from a US based travel agent. Don't know where you're flying from but our best price out of London was with Air New Zealand (who could issue Aero California) tickets but being Northerners, we eventually opted to fly out of Leeds with KLM (who couldn't issue AC tickets). If you find yourself in this situation, let me know and I'll tell you the contact details of where I bought mine online in the States. It wasn't a problem at all, so don't be put off.
Have been waiting a long time to get to Baja. The Israeli who taught me to dive (ah, what is it about our first diving instructor??!) had spent a long time down there and used to wax lyrical about it, he thought the Red Sea in the early 80s was somewhat similar, but more commercialised...
Let me know if I can be of any more help.
All the best
Allie