Marietas Islands From Punta Mita: a National Park, by Boat

The boat slows a hundred metres out and the guide turns the engine off, because the noise matters here. What you hear instead is birds — thousands of them, on rock that has no soil and no shade, nesting on ledges a few metres above the water. Somebody in the group says oh before anybody has seen a fish.

The Marietas are two small islands off the end of the peninsula and they are one of the best half-days on this coast. They are also a national park with rules, and the rules are the reason the day is worth having.

What the islands are

CONANP, the federal protected-areas commission, decreed them a national park on 25 April 2005: two islands — Isla Redonda and Isla Larga — plus two islets and several rocky shallows, directly off Punta de Mita. They carry three international designations on top of that: a RAMSAR wetland site from 2004, part of the Islands of the Gulf of California World Heritage property from 2005, and a UNESCO biosphere reserve from 2008.

CONANP names two reasons to come, and only two. Humpback observation in the winter season, and seabird breeding colonies in the thousands.

What you are actually allowed to do

This is the part worth reading before you book anything, because it shapes the day.

Inside the protected area, CONANP permits swimming, snorkelling, diving and the beach — and nothing else. Alcohol is prohibited in the park. Food and drink are served aboard the boats rather than ashore. And you must be with an operator holding a CONANP permit; it is not a place you take a rented panga to because somebody at the marina offered.

None of that is a hardship. It is why there are still thousands of birds on the rock and fish thick enough to swim through.

The hidden beach, plainly

Everyone has seen the photograph: a circle of sand inside a crater, open to the sky, reached through a tunnel at water level. It is real and it is called Playa del Amor.

Here is the honest part. CONANP's own page sets out the park's rules and names no access arrangement for that beach at all — no cap, no permit tier, no fee, nothing. So when an operator guarantees you will get in, that guarantee is theirs and not the park's. Swell, tide and the permit the boat holds all come into it on the day. Ask what your operator is permitted to do, go early, and treat the beach as a possibility rather than the plan. The islands are worth the morning without it.

Which boat, and why the permit matters

A permitted operator knows where the cave mouths are, which side is sheltered on a given wind, and when to stay out. An unpermitted one does not, and is also breaking the rule that keeps the place intact.

The trip we point guests to is a snorkelling safari with a local guide, because it leaves from Punta de Mita rather than from across the bay, and because it is the one Marietas trip our own readers have booked through us. If the group would rather have the boat to itself, the house manager will arrange a private charter with a permitted operator instead — same rules, your own timetable.

Getting there

By boat, and only by boat. CONANP lists the departure points: Sayulita, Punta de Mita, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Nuevo Vallarta, Puerto Vallarta, Mismaloya and Yelapa.

From a house on the peninsula, Punta de Mita is the short crossing and the obvious one — you are off the beach and out there before the boats from the far side of the bay have finished boarding. That matters more than it sounds: the earlier you are there, the fewer boats are in the water with you and the better the snorkelling is.

In the water

The Riviera Nayarit tourism board names what is down there: giant manta rays, sea turtles, tropical fish and coral formations. The islands sit far enough out that the water clears, and on a calm morning you can see the bottom from the boat.

If anyone has never snorkelled, this is a kind place to start — the sheltered side of the islands is calm water, and the guide stays close. More on snorkelling here.

When to come

Mid-December to the end of March is the whale months in Banderas Bay, and a Marietas morning in February often becomes a whale morning on the way out and back. CONANP names the winter season for exactly this reason.

The rest of the year the birds are the event, the water is warmer and the boats are emptier. There is no bad month; there is only a different reason to be out there.

Go early whatever the season. By eleven the wind gets up on this coast and the sea turns from glass into chop.

Where you stay

Any house on the peninsula puts you twenty minutes from the boats, and the house manager books the morning. Casa Mare up in Kupuri looks straight out at the islands from the terrace, which is a pleasant way to decide you are going tomorrow.

Start with our fully staffed houses in Punta Mita and ask Rocío to have the boat held for the morning after you land, before the week fills up.