Argo Aug 31 – Sep 10, 2022 | Cocos Island Trip Report

Photos by Clinton Bauder Videos by Brayan Gonzalez

Dirty Rock was on fire this week! There were so many hammerheads in the cleaning station, plus giant eagle rays soaring past us. We saw a giant Pacific manta ray, and of course the large schools of hammerheads and jacks out in the blue. On one of our best dives there we spent 15 minutes in the middle of a giant school of hammerheads – it was simply magical!

Manuelita was spectacular, with lots of hammerheads along the sandy bottom, large schools of jacks and –the icing on the cake – a whale shark while we were drifting by the wall! The cleaning station at Manuelita Outside was very active with blacktips, Galapagos and hammerhead sharks. Drifting out into the blue we came face to face with a massive school of jacks followed by a wall of hammerheads! Other species we observed around Manuelita include: cownose rays, mobula rays and yellowfin tuna.

On afternoon dives at Pajara we saw lots of macro life (like mantis shrimp and reef fish) and some large creatures (like a huge manta ray feeding). During one immersion there we saw a huge female marble ray being pursued by 9 smaller males. Punta Maria may have been a bit quiet in terms of hammerheads, but it made up for it in whitetip reef sharks and bluefin trevally hunting around the pinnacle.

Our final day at Cocos, the island gave us a spectacular sendoff. Dirty Rock was just bursting with life – snappers, black jacks, bluefin trevally, mullet snappers, schools of jacks, three huge eagle rays that hovered near our group for about 40 minutes, so many hammerhead and Galapagos sharks using the cleaning station…plus an immense wall of hammerheads out in the blue. It was just phenomenal!