COCOS ISLAND

DAY 1 |  18 Sept 2023 Embarkation

After a seamless bus transfer from our hotel (Marriott Hacienda Belen) in San Jose to the Seahunter jetty at Puntarenas (about 2 hours with stops for food along the way) we met up with Peter Loseke from Behind the Mask - it was great to finally meet this underwater filmmaking maestro! By 5pm we were on our way to the legendary Cocos Island. The rest of the afternoon: general briefing by Brayan the Cruise Director, mingling with divers and crew, unpacking and settling into our cabins.

DAY 2 |  19 Sept 2023 Crossing

The crossing from mainland to Cocos Island takes approximately 33 hours, so we spent this time further building our anticipation for our dives by watching Peter's epic underwater videos, and being absolutely mindblown by Paolo's amazing underwater photographs.

DIVE ONE | CHATHAM BAY - CHECK DIVE

Arriving at Cocos Island in the middle of the night, the Seahunter anchored at Chatham Bay and we started off our dives with an easy and shallow check dive in the morning. Visibility was great, with many whitetip sharks and shoals of yellow snappers. Y's Insta360 came loose from its stick and floated away before he realised what had happened. Later during the day, the camera miraculously floated TOWARD the main boat and the crew simply fished it out of the water.  We took this as a good omen.

DIVE TWO | MANUELITA OUTSIDE

Our entry into Manuelita Outside was greeted with numerous white tip sharks. Visibility was good, and we positioned ourselves on the boulders close to known hammerhead cleaning stations. We didn't get lucky with hammerheads, so we drifted with the current until we encountered a school of jackfish. 

DIVE THREE | MANUELITA CHANNEL

Manuelita is famed for being the lair of tiger sharks, though we had no tiger luck here today. But we did enjoy being surrounded by Pacific Creolefish, more whitetip sharks, blue fin trevallies and other common reef inhabitants.

DIVE ONE | PUNTA MARIA

Punta Maria has very dynamic looking underwater topography: large, stacked boulders rise up impressively, surrounded by thousands of small reef fish.  Although we did not encounter any hammerhead sharks close to the cleaning station, a group of them came to investigate us as we shallowed up in the blue. 

DIVE TWO | DIRTY ROCK

Dirty Rock was where it all started to happen: our first encounter with hammerhead sharks up close! They came to the cleaning station as soon as we dropped in, and we started seeing them materialize out of the deep blue from every direction. Absolutely exhilarating!

DIVE THREE | PÁJARA

Our entry down along a steep slope was met with a lone hammerhead cruising in the shallows. Then we descended further to explore an expansive rhodolith field (Rhodoliths are coral-like structures made up of red algae. They look like rubble on the seafloor). This was a leisurely afternoon macro dive with critters like lobsters, nudibranch and solefish.

DIVE ONE | ALCYONE

Named after the boat Jacques Cousteau used to explore Cocos and touted as one of the best dive sites on the planet, we naturally had high expectations, and it did not disappoint: graceful eagle rays circled among us; we watched a couple of marble rays and leatherbass feed on damselfish eggs; saw several very large hammerheads; and we ended the dive among a large school of jackfish in the blue. A spectacular dive!

DIVE TWO | ALCYONE

Our previous dive with Alcyone was so good that we asked for another dive here again. But this time, it was significantly quieter. The hammerheads have gone (some of us saw a few in a distance), and so have the eagle rays. We were reminded of the fickle nature of the ocean: conditions can change at any moment! We still enjoyed our dive, of course! The leatherbass and marble ray feeding frenzy was still going strong, and the school of jacks in the blue was fun to revisit.

DIVE THREE | VIKING ROCK

The weather had gotten a little downcast so the afternoon dive was quite dim. We saw a as many as 5 marble rays grouped on the sea floor. There were also shoals of blue striped snappers, burrito grunts, bigeyed squirrelfish, a few lobsters and the omnipresent whitetip sharks.

DIVE ONE | SMALL DOS AMIGOS

Peter from Behind the Mask managed to join us on this dive, so it was cool to see the man in action behind his camera. The topography of this site was straightforward: a long stretch of gradually sloping reef. We saw many hammerheads passing by, and glimpsed a couple of Galapagos sharks in the distance.

DIVE TWO | BIG DOS AMIGOS

Big Dos Amigos offered a variety of landscapes in a single dive: from an immense wall of rock that made you feel like you're diving outside a sunken fort, to rivers of undulating white sand between reefs, to a rocky plateau that was a busy hub of activity - so many different shoals of fish rising and falling in the mild current! But the highlight of this dive was an enormous arch that made a very dynamic scene: large schools of fish hugging the rocky wall, against the eerie deep blue backdrop glowing at the end of the tunnel.

DIVE THREE | MANUELITA

Our quest for the tiger shark continues. For the most part of the dive, we encountered the usual characters, but at the end of the dive, just as we were shallowing up for our safety stop, a surprise visitor: an oceanic manta ray! The beautiful creature circled back to us a couple of times before going on its way again. Magical!

DIVE ONE | MANUELITA OUTSIDE

We still haven't found the elusive tiger shark so here we were again at this dive site. We didn't mind repeating sites because they've all been great so far. Although didn't get any tigers again this dive, we were compensated with more than enough hammerhead encounters!

DIVE TWO | ALCYONE

The group of leatherbass and marble rays at the damsel fish eggs buffet that we saw on our first dive at Alcyone were STILL there! This dive we saw a group of hammers in a distance just as we were descending along the buoy line, but again, they were shy - preferring to keep a distance. Some more daring loners did approach, and during our safety stop, a large group passed by us in the blue.

DIVE THREE | ULLOA

This was an easy and shallow afternoon dive. We wove our way between large boulders, keeping our eyes peeled for anything unexpected. It turned out to be a quiet, leisurely dive. The usual suspects were present: whitetip sharks, eagle rays and marble rays.

DIVE ONE| MANUELITA OUTSIDE

Not giving up on our tiger hopes, we revisited this site again. No sign of the stripey shark, but there were an abundance of hammerhead shark encounters, so no complaints!

DIVE TWO | SMALL DOS AMIGOS

Every dive in Cocos was top notch. But nothing compared to this one. We had a very close encounter a group of very large, very curious Galapagos sharks right in the beginning of the dive, and we haven't even recovered from the exhilaration when our dive guide Daniel banged on his tank extra urgently: WHALESHARK!!!!! The juvenile whaleshark seemed to be attracted to our bubbles - it swam right above the bubbles and even took a few gulps! It would swim off after a few minutes with us, only to come back later, TWICE. Oh and a group of hammerheads came very close too.

DIVE THREE | MANUELITA CORAL GARDEN

Yes, Manuelita again. But this dive was in an area we have not yet explored previously. The corals here were mostly if not all hard corals - not like the colourful landscape that we are used to in Asia - but still interesting to keep us occupied. The highlight of this dive was the brilliant yellow giant frogfish! Whitetip sharks here were more than usual, and very obliging for their photos to be taken.

DIVE ONE | DIRTY ROCK

Tiger shark! FINALLY! Not in Manuelita as we expected, but at Dirty Rock! We set out for another dose of hammerheads and we encountered a few both at the reef and in the blue. But nothing prepared us for this very unexpected surprise visit from the elusive tiger shark! This beauty made a beeline toward us from the deep as we were shallowing up in the blue, eyeballed us for a few moments then shot away again. What a dive!!

DIVE TWO | SMALL DOS AMIGOS

One of our favorite dive sites by now, because of all the exciting encounters! The group of Galapagos sharks were still prowling this area, and gave us a beautiful show of their grace and prowes. The hammerheads seem to sense that today was our last day of diving in Cocos and decided to give us a nice show as well, even coming up to us as shallow as 7 metres for a send off.

DIVE THREE| MANUELITA CHANNEL

Bolsted by our luck with the tiger at Small Dos Amigos, we decided on a last ditch attempt at Manuelita. No tigers, but we didn't expect much at this point. Our last dive was spent in high spirits because we have had such an amazing week here, so this dive was really for us to have one last look around and say goodbye, for this time!

We arrived back in Puntarenas the previous night, and in the morning after a big breakfast, it was time to say goodbye to the fantastic crew of Seahunter! It was truly an unforgettable experience diving this holy grail of scuba divers, and we vow to return again. Talks about a comeback in 2025 are in progress, so stay tuned if you'd like to join us!