The fabled Isla del Coco is situated in the Golden Triangle, 550 kilometers from Costa Rica’s mainland, at the midway point between that nation and the Galapagos. World renowned as “The” place to see huge pelagics in action, it is a Costa Rican marine national park and a world heritage site. With more than twenty dive sites to see, all of them spectacular in their own right, Cocos Island offers the experience of a lifetime. Here are seven amazing dives to start you on your way.
Bajo Alcyone
Named in honor of Jacques Cousteau’s famous yacht, this seamount is shaped much like an upside down boat. Deep, and swept by strong currents, it is best known for its hammerhead and marble ray sightings. With its top accessible at 80 feet, and the sides dropping to meet the seabed at 150 feet, it is also a good place to encounter free swimming moray eels.
One of the best ways to get a good look at the schooling hammerheads that feed here is to find a hiding place on top of the seamount that affords a look to the depths below as well as up toward the surface, and wait patiently for them to resume their normal activities above and below you. They prefer to swim below the thermocline, which is right near the top of the seamount, so this position allows you to get an unparalleled view.
You can sometimes see whale sharks and eagle rays, silky sharks, and yellowfin tuna. There are shark cleaning stations atop this sunken mountain, making it one of the best places in the world to see the interaction between the diverse creatures that live here.
Dirty Rock
Not just a single rock, but an entire series of pinnacles that reach up from the seabed 200 feet below to break the surface, await at Dirty Rock. With lovely little coral formations and little grottoes where lobsters, snapper, and glassy sweepers hide, this magnificent site is frequented by schooling marble groupers, turtles, manta rays, and whale sharks. Between 70 feet and the bottom of the pinnacles, schooling hammerheads can be seen on just about every dive.
Here, you can watch the barberfish attend to the rays and sharks, and as the site is teeming with fish that can create a thick curtain of continuous movement, it is often easier to take underwater videos instead of trying to get a decent shot of a single subject. Watch for leather bass and Amarillo snapper, shoaling bigeye and goatfish as you ascend, and while you make that final safety stop, don’t be surprised if you are joined by bottlenose dolphins or even a pair of turtles.
Due to depth and variable currents, Dirty Rock is best for intermediate divers and up. Good buoyancy control is a must!
Everest
The only way to enjoy a dive on Everest, which is just off Manuelita Island, is to take a ride down to unimaginable depths inside the DeepSee Submersible, which is housed on the MV Argo. Once you and your buddy are seated inside with the sub captain, the boat tows you to the descent point. The submersible has a pressurized cabin which means that you can take a comfortable and private voyage beneath the sea, and come back up again, without worrying about decompression.
During the first portion of the dive, you descend at a rate of about 10 meters per minute, until arriving at the seabed 90 meters below. Watch for mobula rays and the curious-looking endemic redlipped Cocos batfish, which looks for all the world as though it broke into somebody’s cosmetics bag and tried out the reddest lipstick it could find. In addition to this fabulously comical character, you’ll see other benthics, like crabs and flounder, snake eels, and skipjack tuna, as well as Hammerhead sharks by the dozen.
Covered in white octo-corals, and towering toward the surface, but still missing by some 40 meters, Everest is home to brotula fish, tiny gobies and anthia hiding in huge black coral bushes, and lots of bigeyes, scythe butterflyfish, cabrilla groupers, and others rarely seen on standard dives.
The DeepSee sometimes takes even deeper dives to other locales, so be sure to check with the operators to find out where the little vessel can take you.
Manuelita
Located on the north coast of Cocos, with a steep slope off to the west and a shallow fringing reef on its east side, Manuelita is the largest of the islets surrounding the island. With a large cave on its seaward point, and hammerheads and manta rays rising up from the depth to enjoy the attentions of the angelfish and wrasse that operate the many cleaning stations which are found here, it is another world class dive site that has to be seen to be believed.
A good place to sit at about 20 meters and wait for shark action to happen, Manuelita’s rocky western slope is sometimes visited by hundreds of white tip reef sharks at a time, which will sometimes pile one on top of another in a toothy, somewhat less than graceful mass. Schooling hammerheads can be seen with regularity, and there is no shortage of smaller species to prevent boredom from settling in while you wait for your chosen quarry to arrive.
Shark Fin Rock
Nearly grazing the surface, and dropping all the way down to more than 200 feet beneath the surface, Shark Fin Rock is full of caves and swim-throughs, as well as small trenches where an abundance of fish, including jacks and marble groupers can be seen. You can find huge lobsters, moray eels, and mobula rays en masse here, making it another excellent site for underwater videography. With multiple levels to explore, it is best suited to intermediate divers and up. The shallower portions are frequently washed by swift currents, so confidence and fitness are vital to an enjoyable dive here.
Silverado
A small pinnacle just about two meters high sits on the sandy bottom here, in only 13 meters of water. Surprisingly, it is a silver tip reef shark hot spot. This is no doubt due to the fact that there is a cleaning station atop the pinnacle. Sharks wait patiently in line, like cars at a full service carwash, and though they normally leave when divers arrive, they return cautiously until they are sure they won’t be harmed, at which point you can simply rest on the bottom and watch the action take place. There is very little current here, making this a great place for a first shark experience.
Submerged Rock
A well-known hazard to navigation, Submerged Rock can be seen breaking the surface at times. While the bottom of the sea below is at 160 feet below, this rock is actually a flat-topped pinnacle that is stacked atop an underwater seamount. Descend to your chosen depth, then spiral your way up and around the mount. There is a small arch filled with fish at about 30 meters, and all the way up, you run a good chance of encountering everything from hammerheads to whale sharks to yellowfin tuna, among countless other creatures.
The world’s largest uninhabited island, and the only eastern Pacific island to have intact rainforest, Cocos Island is best visited by liveaboard. Topside, you’ll find a handful of forest rangers and if you take a hike, you’ll see beautiful waterfalls – there are more than 200 on the island. Needless to say, it is very important to make plans well in advance of traveling, since space is limited. This is a once-in-a-lifetime journey – make the most of it!