Dive Conditions

Visibility: 60ft

Water Temp. 74°F

Currents

mild

strong

Weather

Climate

sunny

rainy

Sea

calm

choppy

Crossings

to Cocos Island

calm

choppy

to Puntarenas

calm

choppy

Sea Hunter

Photo by Timothy Lucas

We’re just back from another trip to Cocos Island!

Our check out dive in Chatham Bay was full of life – snappers, creolefish, whitetips and a box crab all came by to welcome us. 

Manuelita Island was on FIRE and there we saw a big female tiger shark, 3 Galapagos sharks, and two giant manta rays feeding in the middle of the channel. Alycone was also hot this week: yellowfin tuna, Galapagos and blacktip sharks were observed hunting around the rock and of course schools of hammerheads out in the blue.

Dirty Rock gave us spectacular encounters with hammerheads using the cleaning stations, and a larger-than-life school of jacks around the pinnacle. Big Dos Amigos had good viz, a few hammerheads, a mobula and an eagle ray. 

Small Dos Amigos was even better, with Galapagos and hammerheads coming into use the cleaning station. There were a lot of fish close to the rock (trying desperately to avoid the yellowfin tunas that were hunting). Then a dolphin came by to say hello at the safety stop.

The cleaning station at Punta Maria wasn’t very active this week, but we saw a lot of whitetip reef shark action above the thermocline there. Afternoon dives at Viking Rock were full of macro life, and the coral was spawning!!  We couldn’t believe our luck to witness this firsthand. At Pajara we saw several seahorses and mantis shrimp. 

A big fat tiger shark swam by at the Coral Garden along with some hammerheads, a blacktip and many whitetips. We also saw several frogfish there, including two orange and a yellow (one of them was pregnant and just about to give birth!) 

Our dive at Submerged Rock was a bit challenging because of the strong current, but it was worth it because we saw more than 20+ whitetip reef sharks aggregating above the thermocline. 

Our last two days at Cocos we visited our favorite dive sites of the week and saw many Galapagos sharks and hammerheads (including a big school of hammerheads at Dirty Rock when we were drifting out in the blue). 

Photo by Alexander Habermann