Cocos Island, Costa Rica:
2/27/12
Please watch the
wonderful footage by Howard and Michelle Hall, videographers of the IMAX, who
captured the beauty in a short film of diving Cocos. www.vimeo.com/12520722. Thank
you, Michelle and Howard
Day 2: Quiet day as we needed rest. We brought the boat
around to Wafer Bay and hooked up our router so all of us could do internet.
That pretty much says it all……Rest of the day done.
Day 3: Cloudy so we thought it best that Ken take on his big
project….changing the seal on the starboard sail drive by scuba!!! Doesn’t really seem like a monumental task but when
you have to include disassembling the max prop and then reassembling it as the
last thing you do, it’s hard even under the best circumstances (on hard ground
breathing air, not in 80’ of water breathing from scuba and in low light
conditions dealing with very tiny parts).
I dove into making our blog more readable and user friendly and Robin
was helping wherever needed, always the best jack of all trades (and master of
most) that he is!!! Ken will have more detailed discussion of his fix and post
it separate on this same blog (it may be helpful to others that face the same
repair) and I hope you’ve noticed the
fruits of my efforts by now reading this blog with ease.
Wally in Wafer Bay
Day 4: We started out this beautiful day by heading back to
Chatham Bay and tying up to another ball there.
There are around 5 balls in each of the 2 bays where you are allowed to
tie up (no anchoring anywhere here except in one other bay on the S.E. tip of
the island). We loaded our dive gear
into the dingy and were off to our first dive of the day. It is required that the dingy be manned by
one person so that left only 2 of us to dive.
Many of the dives here are reported to be subject to strong currents
although that was not our experience.
Robin and I went first and dropped almost right on top of a hammerhead
which promptly swam away. I got a couple more glimpses of him but they actually
seem kind of shy, curious but when they know you see them they swim away. The
visibility was pretty good and we stayed pretty conservative and saw the usual
suspects, LOTS of white tipped reef sharks, everywhere, sleeping, cruising,
hanging together on the bottom or in and out of the current pockets with their
friends, like a bunch of teenagers.
We saw lots of moray eels of different sizes, lobsters, etc.
but I was on a mission to see the red lipped bat fish, one I’ve been dying to
see for years. But not so lucky! Just to let you see what I’m after, have a
look at this photo!!
Next we came up and
circled the little island, Manuelito, shown below, by dingy. Caves had been dug
in by wave action but none right through.
Wally in Chatham Bay
Next Ken and I saw
something in the water and dingied out to it.
It turned out to be a turtle with 2 crabs on him.
Mr. Turtle with 2 crab friend
Then we decided to dive through the channel between the
island on the right and the main island on the left, where we had seen the
notorious tiger shark the previous day. There were lots of great swim throughs
with up and down currents full of fish and yes lots more white tips, but alas
no tiger..
Ken with white tips
Day 5: We took the boat around again to a dive site
originally discovered by Jacques Cousteau. A sea mount at about 80- 150’ that
you drop down a buoy line to get to. The
buoy and down line had been installed by the dive tour operators and it was
secured at the bottom to a very big boulder (over 10 tons) with a big
chain. Enough to hold most boats on a
calm day like it was.
It was a very quiet day on the island as the last
live-aboard dive boat had left by then. We dropped into the blue…the most
amazing shade with flashes of silver jacks circling under the boat. Grabbing
the line hand over hand into the blue seeing nothing but blue for a few moments
when suddenly the mount comes slowly into focus. It was a day of very little
current so we had the chance to swim around.
This first dive of
the day we saw LOTS of white tips, a cow faced ray (like a spotted eagle ray)
and about 4 hammerheads which swam up but definitely kept their distance. 2nd
dive we saw lots more action as it was getting later and feeding time had
begun. Maybe about 10 hammerheads swam around, a lot less shy and definitely
more curious. Some of them were quite big.
For anyone reading this blog that may want to dive this site the correct
gps reading for it is 05. 30’36” N, 87. 01’ 57” W. We had an offset of .20 nm at
140 degrees to our charts, CM93, though.
After coming up we circumnavigated the rest of the
island. It was gorgeous, with waterfalls and coconut palmed beaches but
mostly cliffs coming straight down to the water. We almost collided with an
occasionally submerged rock well off the South end of the island which I
spotted on the charts just in time.
Apparently there are several more so good charts are a necessity. None the less, thank goodness for gps and
charts! As the (sun was setting we had a group of dolphins escorting us back to
Wafer Bay and a perfect day was ending with a rainbow no less!!
Waterfalls
Day 6: We took the dingy into shore to check out and hike to the waterfall that provides water and electricity on the island. It was about a 20 minute walk. The park rangers provided a free guide which they do for most everything if you ask. Stephanie was our guide and a great English speaker. Thanks Stephanie!! The waterfall was fresh and wonderful and just the right amount of hiking on that hot, sticky day up through the jungle. Cocos gets a lot of rain so everything is very tropical.
After our hike we headed out again to Jacques undersea
mountain spot and did our last dive. Much more current this time and a funny
phenomenon, some kind of Tuna, one
silver the other blackish were parading around the sea mount in pairs as if
someone had choreographed the scene for us. There were hundreds paired like
this.
Tunas on parade
Hammerheads seemed to come a bit closer maybe becoming more
familiar with us. But alas our time in Cocos had ended and it was off to
Galapagos at 1500 hrs.
Bye Bye, Cocos Island….
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