Cocos Island Holidays

Photo courtesy from Undersea Hunter Group

There are many ways on how to spend a vacation and each one of us has its own preference. Some of us would like to go to the mountains, others may travel to an isolated island while some would want to go diving. But what if we tell you that there is a spot somewhere in the Pacific offshore of Costa Rica where you can enjoy all of these relaxing qualities. If you’re interested, then pack your things and head to the virgin paradise of Cocos island.

Stay on a Floating Hotel

Photo courtesy from Diving World

First, you need to be present in Costa Rica for you to start this once in a lifetime journey. You will then travel to one of the southern ports where you will board your vessel and leave the urban life to start a voyage where only a lucky few has ever been.

Photo courtesy from Undersea Hunter Group

While this may sound super adventurous, please do not expect to live in a floating bamboo raft, drift to the open sea and fish out for your own food. What you will be signing-up is a liveaboard cruise where you will stay out at sea onboard a custom built ship.

Technically called as liveaboard dive boats, these vessels offers the same features with a hotel where you can experience a comfortable stay. Their rooms, called cabins, are comparable to a suite that has all the basic amenities like private bathroom, air-conditioning unit, television set and spacious cabinets to store your luggage.

Photo courtesy from Undersea Hunter Group

Speaking of food where we previously joked that you need to fish out and cook for your own, your dining experience with a liveaboard cruise is full of gastronomic feast while dining in mouth-watering meals intricately prepared by their in-house chef. Of course, you can bring in your favorite snacks, but in case you have none, just open the fridge where it is always loaded with food and drinks. There is even a free laundry service where you don’t need to worry about bringing home dirty clothes. Since this is a pacific cruise, going home without getting a tan is a no no. So do not forget to visit the sundeck, and enjoy the benefits of natural solar tanning.

Spending time on the vessel is only half your trip, where in most of the time, you will be exploring the depths of Cocos island or set foot on land and pay a visit to the ranger station who is guarding this paradise we call our playground.

You Ultimate Diving Holiday

There is only one reason why you should sign-up for a liveaboard and go to Cocos Island: to have the best scuba diving vacation of your life without the distraction. The good thing when you go diving in Cocos Island is that there is no signal from any telecommunication company. This means that nobody can call you, like your boss who’s always calling you early in the morning looking for that document he’s been asking you to work on. But do not worry, in case of emergency, there is a satellite phone service that is always available onboard your liveaboard vessel.

Now that nobody will interrupt your vacation, let’s proceed with your diving adventures. What awaits you presence underwater in Cocos island are over 10 amazing dive sites where each site is filled with action-packed experience brought to you by the marine inhabitants of the reef.

Photo courtesy from Dive and Boats

Let’s start your adventure in the offshore seamounts of Bajo Alcyone. Considered as the top spot in Cocos island, you will never forget the experience of this dive as you will see swarms of hammerhead sharks and bigeye trevally as you traverse down a vertical ledge that goes 40 meters (130 feet) deep. There are several cleaning stations within Bajo Alcyone where you can have an upfront and personal interaction with the hammerheads as they often present themselves to barberfish for a quick clean against skin parasites. That’s if you are looking above. But just in case you have time to look under the cracks and crevices, you will realize that the bottom habitat is filled with marine creatures like octopus, snappers and goatfish where you will eventually realize that you are in a middle of a healthy reef system. If it’s your lucky day, your way up to the surface before you end the dive allows you to see whalesharks or manta rays that are passing by.

Photo courtesy from www.raydiving.com

It is seldom that you will dive in the same spot in Cocos island, except for the northern reefs of Manuelita. During the day, you will usually go deep diving in a rocky formation called Manuelita Deep. As you begin to descend, you will see that the top section is filled with hundreds of whitetip reef sharks that are in a relax mode while lying motionless in the reef floor. As you go deeper, you will arrive at a cleaning station where hammerhead sharks take turns to be cleaned. While this cleaning station is often located in an elevated position, this is also a great place to see other large pelagic fish where some had already seen the highly feared Tiger shark. But the real action comes in when the sun sets down. Yes, you will definitely go night diving with hundreds of active whitetip reef sharks. This nocturnal shark becomes active at night while searching for food and our presence underwater triggers their excitement as being caused from the beams of our underwater flashlight.

Photo courtesy from Undersea Hunter

Dos Amigos is a challenging dive where you need to descend down to a sandy channel at 30 meters (100 feet) and choose two separate dive sites where your decision will depend on the direction of the current. If the current will lead you to a swim-through, then you will be exploring Dos Amigos Grande. This underwater arch is relative huge where it can fit an entire dive group without cramming space or bumping other divers. As you traverse and reach the end of the archway, you will arrive at a cleaning station where most diver have seen motionless hammerhead sharks. If in case the current leads you to a sloping reef, then you are heading to Dos Amigos Pequena. Although archways can be found in this site, these are much smaller and diving over it is much better where you will have a great view of the schooling hammerhead sharks. One thing that is common to both Dos Amigos Grande and Pequena is that when you start to ascend, massive population of bigeye travelly will often block the rays of the sun when they pass by over you until you reach the surface.

Those are just a short list of the dive sites that you will be exploring while you are diving in Cocos island. But wait, there’s more than just scuba diving.

Beyond the Limits of Recreational Diving

This is the part that you don’t get wet, and yet, you will be exploring sites that no recreational scuba diver has ever reach. Yes, you will be going to a deep sea adventure onboard a submersible and explore one of the deepest trenches in Cocos Island.

You will usually do this days after you have been diving in Cocos island and already have a feel of what is it down under. Once onboard the submersible, you will be towed out at sea by a skiff boat reaching on top of a site called Everest. Once the go signal is given, you will make a direct descent where you can see the habitats and wildlife that have you been interacting during your previous dives in Cocos island. As you go deeper, you will notice that natural light fades away and the submersible’s light will start turning on signalling your arrival at the twilight zone. While you are traversing down in mid water, you may now see oddly looking sea creatures not commonly seen in the shallows. The possibility of seeing a prickly shark now becomes a reality as these sharks often show up during a deep sea cruise. This journey ends when you arrive at the seafloor at 300 meters (1,000 feet) where you will hover and observe abyssal creatures like the jellynose fish.

Now, please don’t get too excited. You have to remember that you need to sign-up and make a separate reservation for the deep sea submersible as this is not included in your liveaboard package and only few guest may have this once in a lifetime opportunity as each deep sea voyage only allows 2 guest per trip.

For more information, you can read our related article about the Undersea Hunter Group which operates both liveaboard and deep sea submersible.

Reference

Undersea Hunter Group: www.underseahunter.com

Dive Quest: www.divequest-diving-holidays.co.uk

Dive the World: www.dive-the-world.com

About Tristan Paylado
Tristan is a marine biologist and a CMAS 2-Star Dive Instructor
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