On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:46:33 -0500, Tim McDonough wrote
(in article ):

Wayne Dernoncourt writes:

My in-laws have a timeshare in Mazatlan and they've invited us to stay
for about a week with them. Valerie wants to go diving. Marilyn says
that Mazatlan is safe and from what I've been able to find out on the
web, as long as you don't go looking for trouble, we'll be fine.

Any recommendations for a dive operator?

BTW, UNEXSO in Freeport was terrific.

My wife and I did a Panama Canal cruise over Xmas/NY
2009-2010 and I worked to make us scuba diving reservation
in most of the ports of call. Mazatlan was one of those ports.
The reservation I made were via:

* Mazatlan, Mexico (January 5th)
http://www.mazatlantours.org/mazatlan-scuba-diving.htm

which is basically the dive shop with the El Cid Castilla.

FWIW, I wouldn't recommend diving in Mazatlan. As I wrote in the
album:

"Before the cruise I had been in contact with Mazatlan Tours
http://www.mazatlantours.org/mazatlan-scuba-diving.htm and they
convinced me that due to the poor diving condition in Mazatlan that I
should just pre-pay for one tank dives and if we wanted a second we
could arrange that on site. As it turned out, after one (long and cool)
dive we'd seen enough. Why is it that when the DM wears gloves
everything underwater looks like something to be touched? Goes
counter to the saying "Take only pictures, leave only bubbles" if you
ask me..."

The details of our single dive:
Eagle's Head, Mazatlan, Mexico - water temp of 73F - 67 minutes
of bottom time - 36 feet max depth

I wish I had better news to report, but sadly Mazatlan just isn't a place
known for its diving (shallow and murky)...

Back from MZT (a couple of weeks ago)
We ended up signing up for a cruise on a catamaran. We were told they
would take us to a spot for snorkeling. Our in-laws wanted to go sailing
which was fine by us. The catamaran was broke so we went on a tri-maran.
Also on board was a bunch of firemen on vacation. A half-dozen of the
firemen ended up drinking rum straight from a cup...

We did go anchor at Deer Island for swimming. We couldn't see more than
two feet in the water, snorkeling was pointless. On the other hand body
surfing and using a boogie board at the resort was great fun. I also bought
an underwater camera from Amazon for about $50, it's supposed to be
good down to 130'. I'm happy if it goes to 60' as long as it takes images
at least comparable to the disposable dive cameras that go to 40' I'm
happy.