Cabo Pulmo · Mexico · Reef
El Cantil
Cracked shallow reef where big-eye trevally school.
Area photo: Peter Potrowl · CC BY-SA 4.0
El Cantil is a shallow reef inside Cabo Pulmo National Park, running from about 5 metres down to 17. The rock is cut with cracks and small caverns that hold moray eels, groupers and snapper, and the clear, easy profile makes it a dive any certification level can work. Big-eye trevally school over it, and humpback whales pass through in season.
Where it is and how deep
23.4432° N, 109.4180° WPublished position for this site.
The dive
The site is shallow and it stays shallow: roughly 5 metres over the top of the reef and 17 at its deepest, so bottom time is long and the light holds all dive. The rock is broken up with cracks and small caverns rather than running as a clean slope, and most of the dive goes into working along it and looking into those gaps, where morays — green, zebra, fine-spotted and jewel — and groupers sit tucked back out of the way.
Off the rock, schools of big-eye trevally turn above the reef and large groups of groupers and snapper hold in the open water. Turtles come through, and stingrays and electric rays lie on the sand between the rock. Seasonally, guitarfish appear and humpback whales move through the area; bull sharks are listed as a possible encounter here rather than the reliable one they are on the wreck to the north.
Marine life and season
- Trevally & jacks
- Groupers
- Sea turtles
- Stingrays
- Reef fish swarms
- Whales
- Bull sharks
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair |
Season follows Cabo Pulmo: Warm water June-November brings bull sharks and large mobula aggregations; winter is cooler and calmer but still diveable.
Questions divers ask
How deep is El Cantil?+
It runs from about 5 metres at the top of the reef to around 17 at the deepest point, so it works as a long, easy dive for any certification level.
Sources
- El Cantil — Scubago
- Dive Sites Cabo Pulmo — Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort
More dive sites in Cabo Pulmo
Reef
Reef topography that mirrors the cliffs above, at 11 to 18 metres.
Pinnacle
A rock pinnacle circled in one easy lap, out to 20 m.
Wreck
A sunken tuna trawler that gathers bull sharks in season.
Reef
Sea lions in 3 to 9 metres, on a rock bottom with no coral.
Reef
Rated advanced for swift current rather than for depth.
Similar dives elsewhere
Thirty-two mooring buoys along one spur-and-groove reef
A King Neptune statue set down in the late 1970s marks the north end
Fields of coral drifted to 18 m with goliath grouper and sharks
Coral fingers and sand canyons on an SPA reef a mile east of Sand Key light