Outside the whale season, the deep-water port of Puerto San Carlos and the Bahía Magdalena in the south are considered a tourist no man’s land.

The port city with almost 4000 inhabitants has little to offer that could attract tourists, but the wide sand dunes of the islands, which act as a protective wall between the Bahía Magdalena and the open Pacific Ocean, are also worth seeing outside the winter months. In Puerto San Carlos there are only a handful of accommodations and a number of restaurants, which naturally offer mainly fresh fish and seafood. The waters rich in fish, marshes and mangrove swamps of the coastal section are habitat and food reservoirs for ospreys and Canada geese, which have settled near Puerto San Carlos and Magdalena Bay as well as frigate birds, endangered brown pelicans and specimens of the American national bird, the bald eagle. Boat tours to the islands of the bay can also be undertaken with the local providers outside the whale season.

The islands Magdalena and Margarita shield the 50km long Bahía Magdalena from the open Pacific. Both are flat and consist predominantly of sand dunes, so that one can see the calm bay and the waves of the open sea at the same time from the highest point.