I started diving in the Florida Keys in the early eighties. There were a lot of fish there at the time, but not all that many large ones. The old-timers would tell me “you should have been here twenty years ago.” Fishing pressure had reduced numbers and average size. In the nineties I had the chance to dive in Curaçao. I was excited—my first dive in the Caribbean—there had to be lots of great fish, including lots of big ones. Well, not quite what I’d expected. Once again, I was told I should have been there decades ago. Since then we’ve done a lot of diving and snorkeling in Hawaii, Samoa, and Bali. We were always told the same story—it was way better years ago.
The other week Marla and I dove in Cabo Pulmo, about sixty miles northeast of Cabo San Lucas on the Sea of Cortez*. This time it was a different story. It was made clear to us that there were far fewer fish there in the past. The reason: Cabo Pulmo was designated a Mexican National Marine Park in 1995. The region had been seriously overfished in the past, but fishing of any sort has been prohibited since the National Park designation. Fish have responded accordingly, both with respect to abundance and average size. Cabo Pulmo provided some of the best diving we’ve ever had.
* Mexico has just moved to change the name from Sea of Cortez to Gulf of California because Cortez was not a nice man.