Vessel: Sea Hunter
Water Temperature: 80°F average
Visibility: 60 ft average (up to 100 ft)
Current: Light to moderate (avg 3/10)
Highlights: A whale shark, schooling scalloped hammerheads, a melanistic manta and a 20-minute manta encounter at Alcyone, tiger sharks, dolphins and Galápagos sharks hunting a bait ball, silvertips, silky sharks, big-eye jacks, frogfish, and eagle rays
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Day 1 opened at Manuelita Coral Garden, and it opened big! One of our guides called it the best check-out dive of his years at Cocos, with huge schools of female hammerheads working the sand, big-eye jacks over the coral, an eagle ray hunting the flats, a lone Galápagos, and a silky in the distance. One group closed the day along the Manuelita wall with a whale shark, an early and thrilling sign of things to come.
Day 2 was full of action. Dirty Rock delivered big schools of jacks and hammerheads together, crowned by a melanistic, all-black manta. Porites gave us four juvenile silvertips circling close to our divers, and Pajara was a macro treat with harlequin shrimp and mantis shrimp.
Day 3 mixed the quiet with the memorable. Manuelita Coral Garden had a wall of hammerheads with more drifting in the thermocline. Alcyone began cold and slow with a dead cleaning station, then a manta settled in and stayed with the group for around 20 minutes at 25 ft, turning the dive around completely. Dirty Rock added jacks and a few hammerheads in the blue.
Day 4 was a mixed bag. Shark Fin Rock was a green-water dive with very low visibility, though a group of 8+ eagle rays moved through. Dos Amigos Pequeño had good cleaning-station action with Galápagos, and a small, curious tiger shark made a brief appearance at Manuelita Outside.
Day 5 brought a giant school of jacks and hammerheads in the blue at Dirty Rock, with bottlenose dolphins hunting among the jacks at the end of the dive. Punta Maria produced a manta and a large moray.
Day 6 was a quieter stretch around Manuelita Inside and Coral Garden, hammerheads near the cleaning stations, and for one group, two frogfish in a mating ritual.
Day 7 belonged to the whale shark! At Manuelita Outside it worked the cleaning stations and made repeated close passes by the group, an unforgettable encounter with the biggest fish in the sea. Dirty Rock backed it up with a large school of juvenile jacks and hammerheads coming in over the pinnacle, and hammerhead action held steady in the blue.
Day 8 kept the hammerheads coming at the cleaning stations of Dirty Rock and Manuelita Outside, while Manuelita Inside offered a hunting octopus and a hole packed with green spiny lobsters. Guests also went ashore for the island hike.
Day 9 Dos Amigos showed off a large, pregnant female tiger shark crossing calmly through the blue, Galápagos cleaning near the buoy and curious about divers, and two zebra moray eels hunting. A pack of dolphins moved into Dos Amigos Pequeño and stayed a good while, and Chatham Bay closed the day.
Day 10 was one of our favorite days. Alcyone was a magnet for hammerheads and Galápagos at the cleaning station, a wall of hammerheads in the blue, and silky sharks up in the shallows. Then, on the way back to the island, the group came upon a pack of dolphins and 30+ Galápagos sharks hunting a bait ball at the surface, and guests jumped in to snorkel with them. Manuelita added two Commerson’s frogfish to finish.
Day 11 was a relaxed close, hammerheads in the blue at Dirty Rock, Galápagos crossings at Dos Amigos Pequeño, and a last pass of hammerheads at the Manuelita Outside cleaning station before we turned for home.