The most beautiful dive site in the world – according to Cmdt. Cousteau
In August 2003 I travelled from the south of France where I live to an island 36 hours sailing south west of Costa Rica called Isla del Coco for one thing and one thing only: to dive with hammerhead sharks. As usual, this was greeted with comments like: you are nuts, crazy, mad, fou, etc by my friends.But I went there and got to dive with the famed hammerheads and much more.
I had read all there was to read, and tried to see all there was to see
before going to Isla del Coco, but these were only pictures and words compared
to what i actually saw and experienced. This place is truly amazing and will awe
even the most jaded person out there.
Oh well here we go, my first time to Isla del Coco, my first trip with the Oly
5050, my first trip report. The words that follow are totally inadequate to
describe what I experienced out there. If you have not been there yet, do it.
This is a truly amazing and unique place to visit. Plus the Undersea Hunter and
its crew will ensure that all you have to worry about is living the experience.
All comments are welcome and especially if you look at my photos. I am a
beginner in all this and would appreciate all tips and hints and experience.
The trip – 10-20AUG 2003
Getting to Isla del Coco is not easy, and from Europe it is even more difficult. My trip took me from Nice to Madrid to Miami to San Jose: total 24 hours of traveling door to door. I had planned a buffer of 36 hours before leaving for the Undersea Hunter just in case my luggage did not make it, but surprisingly at 130am in San Jose when I finally arrived here comes my dive bag :))
36 hours later, Rudy from the Undersea Hunter came to pick us up and drove the 14 divers to Puntarenas where the boat was waiting for us.
Ironically, the Undersea Hunter is moored right next to the shark killing bastards that try kill the sharks of the region. In fact, once the USH and its customers were taking photos of the catch of these boats. They then proceeded to build a wall between the 2 moorings to try and hide what they are doing.
You should know that Costa Rica has really started to prosecute the captains of the killing ships that venture into the national parc. BUT and it’s a big but, Taiwan, who is the country to come kill the sharks, lobbies very hardly in Costa Rica. They build roads, bridges and are basically trying to buy the right to kill the sharks.
Getting to Isla del Coco – Thank you Scop patch!!!
Once we got to the boat, our luggage was brought onto the boat and Ofer, the main dive guide, gave us a boat briefing and the cabin assignments.
Each diver gets a tank pod and a foot locker in which you can store huge amounts of gear.
For photographers there is also a shelf for storing your photo gear with access to 220 and 110 volt plugs.
but still, the scop patches were useful. The number of people was decreasing as we got into the trip. Just to make sure we understood it was the rainy season the clouds were there as well as some drops.
Dive schedule – Eat (a lot), sleep (a lot), dive (never enough)
- 7am Breakfast
- 8am 1st dive
- 11am 2nd dive
- 1pm lunch
- 3pm 3rd dive
- 6pm 4th dive (night)
- 730pm dinner
- 930pm latest in bed sleeping
- Repeat for 7 days
The Island – Treasure Island meets T-Rex
Well one word that can be used to describe the island is green. Most of the island is high cliffs with water falls coming down all over the place. You can just imagine a T-Rex coming out of there. You can also see how a treasure can be hidden and never found!!!!
Anyway you have the opportunity to going ashore during the week, funny enough I got earth sick and stopped climbing because I was dizzy!!!
If you want you can arrange for longer treks with the rangers but that will replace one or more dives. Nobody in our group elected to do this.
We got to see a few deer as we were cruising back and forth to dive sites and of course the ubiquitous brown boobies (birds that is) were all over the place.
The weather – It’s the rainy season, what do you expect?
We got rain and sun but I think there is only one day where it did not rain. From what the crew was saying we got it lucky as the rain was not too bad, the seas did not get too rough. Our only issue was the tail end of El Nino and warmer than normal waters (27-28 C at 30m which meant that the HH
were a bit deeper than usual).
The diving mechanics – Praise to the Panga divers
All dives are done from the skiffs, known here as Pangas, entry is a back roll and then whenever you come up the panga is there to pick you up. These guys are amazing, I don’t think anyone waited more that 1 mn to be picked up, and that only because other divers were being picked up
Nitrox is recommended and if you want it, you get a full week of N32. No deco is asked for, though some of the divers (the so-called professionals more on them later) were constantly in deco. Max bottom time is 60mn based on the emergency plan that the boat has in place. If you want you, can rent semi closed rebreathers but no course is given unless prior requests are made. Don’t see the point of using it as most divers are blowing bubbles so… Buddy diving is not the norm as most pairs get separated during the dive. (See comments section for more on this).
A part from the check out dive, the two pangas are never on the same site at the same time, which means that there is at most 8 people on the site at the same time. And this whether all the boats (undersea hunter, sea
aggressor) are there at the same time which was not the case for most of the week for us, as we had 5 days alone out there.
The Diving – What can I say? AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here are the dive sites we did:
Manuelita, Inside, Outside and Channel
Isla Pajara
Dirty Rock
Amigo Pequeno
Amigo Grande
Submerged Rock
Bajo Alcyone
Silverado
Punta Maria
Lobster Rock
More about the choice of dive sites later as I don’t think we got a good sample of what Cocos has to offer.
My highlights –
Manuelita, Dirty Rock and Silverado, and the swim in the middle of the Pacific on the way back
Our 1st dive and check out dive is at Manuelita Inside. This is where the white tips hunt at night, but during the day they rest on the bottom or swim lazy around the bay. Jumping in is like jumping into an aquarium: there’s fish all over the place, and they barely move out of the way when you get near them. Maybe only the lobsters are a bit shy, probably because for a while every diver was allowed to take one during his/her trip there. I don’t think that rule exists anymore, and none of our group tried to do it.
My first dive and the last dive at Dirty Rock. For me this site really has all that Cocos has to offer: the hammerheads and the other large sharks, the huge schools of jacks, the squadrons of marbled rays, and the sheer quantity and variety of fish. I have images in my mind of my first dive there that will stay with me forever: 1st hammerhead, 1st silky, 1st galapagos, 1st marbled ray, 1st squadron of marbled rays, 1st school of HH (10 or them), largest school of jacks I have ever seen and the list goes on. On top of that the sun was shining and the vis was great 15-20+meters.
Silverado and the silver tip cleaning station. Talk about thrilling. When the 1st sivertip came swimming above our shoulders and turned around the rocks a few times then left just above our heads about 1.5 meters away. ARGH!!!!!!! What a feeling!!!!!
On our trip back the sea was as flat as a lake, so we were making very good time. As we would need to slow down, Nelson the captain, decided to allow us a quick dip in the middle of nowhere. So at 12noon he stops in the middle of the pacific, no land to be seen anywhere and we all go in for a swim with 10000 meters of water below us!!! Wah!!! What a trip! And just at the moment the US coast guard decides to fly over us checking us out!!! Ha Ha, no smuggling from us, just a bunch of tripping divers!!!!
The crew – A fantastic group of professionals
From Nelson the captain, Elio, Pedro and “Sunny Side Up” Warren the cook and his assistants, to Jose and Muno the Panga drivers and dive guides, and Ofer head dive guide they all worked their b..ts off to make sure that we had a great time. From day 2 they knew what you liked and not liked in terms of drinks, food, etc.. Their enthousiasm, skills and professionalism were an integral part of the success of the trip.
The boat – The Undersea Hunter, now that’s a liveaboard
Very comfortable, in excellent condition all over, all ensuite cabins, individual air con, clean towels every day and after every dive, you feel really safe and comfortable on this ship. Plus when you see a crew cleaning and maintaining the boat every single day you know that you are in the hands of professionals. In fact this is the cleanest liveaboard I have ever been on. Bravo Nelson you run a really tight ship!!!!
Comments
Buddy diving – Now, Cocos is advanced diving and you are expected to know how to behave. However, I feel that buddy diving is not enforced enough. On each dive, especially those of us who came alone, were without a buddy. Now, as usual if nothing goes wrong that’s not an issue, however, given the diving here, this is a mistake and could lead to accidents. And let’s not forget that the closest recompression chamber is 40 hours away so… Anyway I ended up following most of the time either the dive master or a couple of italians and was usually in sight of someone should an emergency arise. 60mn is the max bottom time, and people will go to the limit, this leads us to the next topic.
15L steels – We dive with 12L (80-cubic feet) AL tanks, That means that most people end up the dive with10 or 20 bar left as everyone wants to take advantage of every second of bottom time. I know that 15L (120cubic feet) steel tanks are more a european thing, but I feel that safety would be better served with these types of tanks while still keeping the 60mn limit.
Also given the strong currents that exist, it would allow for divers who get caught in one and especially down currents, to be able to come up safely and if required do deco stops (obviously this should only happen in an emergency as the operation asks you not to do deco dives). Nitrox – Everyone should dive nitrox in Cocos. Yes I know your depth is limited, but if you really want to go to 40 meters, you can asssuming N32 and a 1.6PpO2. Frankly there does not seem to be any point to go deeper. I think safety should prime over anything else out there and N32 certainly plays a big part in that.
Plus it allows you to stay 35mn down there at Alcyone with the HH without deco stops!!!
Conclusion
Was it worth it? YES!!!!!!!!!!
Will I go back to Cocos? YESSSSSSSSS Well I need to see the whale sharks and
the huge schools of hammerheads!!!
Will I go back to the Undersea Hunter? In a heartbeat. They also sometimes
organise trips elsewhere and I would jump on any opportunity to dive off that
ship Questions and comments are more than welcome. In fact this boat sets the
standard for all other liveaboards. They are also testing EPIRBS and I think
that it should not be too long before all divers are issued with them out there.
That will greatly enhance security for all.
PS. Did I mention the white tips?
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