Piedras Altas

The descent goes straight to the boulder zone at about 25 metres, and the first instruction is to keep looking up. The water column over the blocks is where the headland's pelagic life moves: amberjack schools cut through the blue, dentex pass in loose hunting groups, and the shallow rocks have a long-standing reputation as a Mola mola stop, with older local accounts describing groups of several sunfish together at the same spot. The route then weaves between the leaning blocks, with candelabra coral bushes on the block faces and groupers holed up in crevices. One pocket inside the tunnel formed by two leaning blocks holds an oversized conger, with morays in the next set of cracks and a small group of corvina nearby; the tunnel's seaward exit opens onto some of the densest orange coral on the route. Divers who go for the full profile leave the boulder field and swim about 50 metres across featureless sand to La 41, two leaning rocks pressed together with the deeper one's base at 45 metres. The return uses the line of smaller rocks behind the main wall as terrain for the deco stop, ideally with the slight westward current carrying the dive out onto the western face of the cliffs.

Piedras Altas is the local pick when divers want deep coral architecture rather than the bay's gentler reef diving. The boulder field carries the area's densest concentration of Dendrophyllia ramea, in large bush-form colonies rather than scattered patches, and the La 41 rocks hold some of the best Astroides calycularis specimens on this stretch of coast. The other half of the site's character is the open column overhead: dentex, amberjack, the recurring sunfish chance and occasional bonito or tuna when baitballs are working. The boulders form a corridor between the cliff wall above and a parallel block-wall, with passageways and tunnels that let divers move under, not just along, the geology — a different kind of underwater architecture from the bay sites a few kilometres west.

Wide-angle is the lens for the main profile. The Dendrophyllia ramea bushes on the deep blocks and the Astroides wall above the boulder zone read as the signature shots, with artificial light needed to bring the orange through at depth. La 41 is a photographer's destination on its own — the deeper of the two rocks is the one to frame, and the orange coral colonies there are rated locally as the best on the coast. A 2024 site write-up noted some line-contact damage to Dendrophyllia specimens worth being aware of when composing; macro divers also work the lobster pocket at Piedra de las Langostas, where ten or more individuals have been seen together. The atmospheric shots — pale silhouetted blocks in low contrast, old trawl-net remnants over the La 41 rocks — are what gave the site its older name.

Plan the dive with the guide before entry, particularly whether La 41 is on the agenda; appending it to a no-deco Piedras Altas main profile burns the buffer fast at 36-45 metres. EAN32 is worth booking for the main profile. The sand crossing to La 41 is featureless and is run on a bearing rather than by sight, so confirm guide intent in the briefing. Current is permanent on the headland; check the morning's wind direction with the centre, because strong poniente or northerlies generally close the cape and the boats run the bay sites instead. There is no mooring; pickup is a drift recovery, and an SMB is essential. Old trawl-net remnants drape the La 41 boulders and are part of the substrate rather than active hazards, but standard advanced kit including a cutting tool applies. Divers who cap their profile at 25-30 metres get the orange coral, the candelabra coral bushes and the best pelagic viewing positions without the deep-deco pressure.