Puerto Madryn & Península Valdés

Diving is run out of Puerto Madryn, where the shops sit along the seafront and the boats are small enough to be launched off the beach rather than from a pier. Nothing lies far out, so a morning tends to mean a short crossing, a dive or two, and a return to town rather than a full day at sea. Wind more than swell sets the schedule: Golfo Nuevo is a sheltered gulf that stays diveable in most conditions, but Patagonian gusts can undo a plan by mid-morning and push everything round to whichever shore is in the lee.

The ground underwater is low-relief. Sand and shell gravel run out from the beaches, broken by rocky ledges and boulder fields furred with algae, sponges and hydroids, and the deeper sites sit on the same sediment. The two hulls in the gulf were put down deliberately, and they earn their place by standing as isolated structure on open bottom, holding fish the surrounding flats do not. Plan on texture and detail rather than topography.

The colony dive at Punta Loma sits inside a provincial nature reserve a short drive southeast of town, and the encounter runs on the animals' terms: divers settle low in shallow water, the young sea lions come in from behind, mouth fins and blow bubbles at masks, and lose interest the moment anyone turns to follow. Guides brief you to stay down and stay still. The rest of the diving is shallow rock that rewards slow searching over ground covered, which is why it holds up as well by torchlight as by day.

Península Valdés itself is a further drive up the road, inside a protected area entered through a gate on the isthmus, and dives out there stage from Puerto Pirámides and hinge on a calm forecast, so treat them as a bonus rather than a plan. Most visitors are in Patagonia for the land wildlife anyway, and the diving slots alongside whale boats, the Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo and long coastal drives. Photographers get wide-angle at the colony and macro nearly everywhere else.