Los Arcos Marine Park – Puerto Vallarta & Los Arcos

Site Overview

Los Arcos Marine Park is Puerto Vallarta's most iconic dive site featuring dramatic granite arches, caverns, and swim-throughs that create an extraordinary underwater playground teeming with schooling grunts, moray eels, eagle rays, and sea turtles in one of the most accessible and visually stunning diving environments on Mexico's Pacific coast. The massive granite rock formations rise from the seafloor creating natural arches large enough for boats to pass through above while divers explore the caverns and swim-throughs below in a three-dimensional maze of rock and marine life. Schools of grunts number in the thousands, forming dense silver curtains around the arches that part as divers swim through creating spectacular wide-angle photography opportunities. Moray eels are extraordinarily abundant at Los Arcos, with multiple species occupying virtually every suitable crevice in the granite substrate from tiny zebra morays to large green morays exceeding 2 metres in length. Eagle rays cruise the sandy channels between the rock formations while sea turtles feed on the reef algae during the warmer months. The site is equally impressive at night when bioluminescent plankton creates a starfield effect and nocturnal species emerge from their daytime shelters. Los Arcos Marine Park's proximity to Puerto Vallarta, just a 15-minute boat ride from the Romantic Zone, makes it the most accessible quality dive site in the region and a staple of every local operator's daily itinerary. The variety of depths from 3 to 30 metres means divers of all certification levels can enjoy the arches, with beginners exploring the shallower formations while advanced divers penetrate the deeper caverns and explore the outer walls where pelagic species pass. The combination of dramatic geology, abundant marine life, and unmatched accessibility has made Los Arcos the defining dive experience of Puerto Vallarta for decades.