Diving Santa Marta, Colombia
The colonial city of Santa Marta, Colombia, is rich with historic architecture, restaurants and a vibrant nightlife. It also has a treasure trove of underwater life.
Training
Many people come to Santa Marta to learn to dive because of the exceptionally affordable prices. There are also many people who travel to Santa Marta to complete their instructor training. In 2023, I paid $40 for two dives! The prices are competitive in part due to the exchange rate between the dollar and peso, but also the cost of labor here. Additionally, the gear one finds here is pretty beat up and dated by at least a decade, if not more, and the boats are more basic than one finds in Caribbean dive excursions. Taganga, a ten-minute drive from Santa Marta, also has many dive shops, but the town is much less developed than Santa Marta.
Operators include gear rentals in the price of the dives. They provide a vest BCD, 3mm wetsuit, boots, fins, first and second stage regulator, mask, and 80 cu inch aluminum cylinders. In my experience, they fill to about 2,600–2,800 psi. Between dives they offer a package of generic Oreos and a fruit juice box. There are no bathrooms on the boat. Instead, number one is conducted between dives in the water. Meeting at the marine park at 7:15 am, with an 8 am departure time, puts you in the water at 9:00, back on the boat at 10 and after a 1 hour surface interval to thaw, you’ll be back in the water at 11 and on the boat at 11:45, arriving at the docks at 12 noon.
The boat ride is about 15–20 minutes from the marine port to one of the local dive sites. It’s a good idea to wear reef-safe sunblock on the ride, short though it be, as the sun is intense here. The visibility is 50–80 feet, which is pretty good by world standards. The marine life includes diverse fish, but the abundance of fish was below what I found in Belize and the Dominican Republic, but more than I’ve encountered in Fort Lauderdale, Croatia and some of the dive sites of Oahu. I’ve heard that the marine life in Santa Marta is better than Cartagena’s Isla Rosario, though I’ve never dived in the latter. While the dive sites are legally marine reserves, I’m not sure how robustly they are protected; I saw fishing nets on one dive. And with the abundance of new divers, it’s not unusual to see an azure vase sponge knocked over.
I saw box fish, angel fish, lion fish, barracuda, puffer fish, nudibranchs, and moray eels. Spiral coral, sea fans, sea grass, vase sponges, and much more.
Dive Sites
While sites like Malpelo and Gorgona Island offer more interesting and challenging dive experiences, they are also more expensive and challenging to schedule. Santa Marta is an easy dive town, with daily excursions through the many dive operators. The several dive operators, which get out to sites in Taganga, off Playa Escondida, as well nearer to Santa Marta’s Punta Betin and Isla el Morro, appeal toward recreational divers. Santa Marta dive sites include gorgonian sea fan fields and reefs, but the best dive I had was on a wall that connected two wrecks. The wall extended down to about 75 feet, with most of the life between 30 and 50 feet. On the wrecks, I came across a nudibranch. Be aware that Parque Tayrona closes for a few weeks in the months of February, March and April. If you want the most diverse diving experience on this shore, try to dive Parque Tayrona.
Conditions
The water temperature is in the high 60s and low 72s. We were given 3mm wetsuits, which were not only insufficient for that water temperature, but had long lost their insulating capacities. I’ve heard an explanation as to why people think or feel the water to be too cold being that they were experiencing a shock between the intense, nearly equatorial sun while they’re on the boat, and the sudden loss of that heat when they hit the water. That may be partially true, but I didn’t buy it and both years that I’ve dived Santa Marta, I’ve requested two wetsuits, which I doubled up. Uniformly, everyone on the boat said they were cold coming out of the water. I suggest wearing two wetsuits, or bringing a 7mm suit, as well as a hood, gloves, and socks, in addition to your dive computer.
