Cocos Island
Jacques Cousteau reportedly called Cocos Island “the most beautiful island in the world” in 1994. The lush green cloud forest on the island and the wonderful topography below the ocean surface are both striking! An abundance of sharks and marine diversity attract seasoned divers, many who return again and again.
Many see migrating schools of scalloped hammerheads as the holy grail in diving at Cocos. The migrating sharks are skittish of divers’ bubbles but often come into local “cleaning stations” while barberfish or angelfish clean parasites off of their skin. Divers can find numerous shark species at Cocos including white tip, black tip, Galapagos, Tiger, silky sharks and more. On occasion too, divers may find dolphin, tuna, whale sharks or humpback whales. Marble rays, eagle rays, boxfish, frogfish, batfish and more can also be found in the bays, pinnacles and swim throughs at Cocos. Eels, stonefish, octopus
This island is 340 miles Southwest of Puntarenas in Costa Rica and can only be accessed by liveaboard. The trip to Cocos requires a 36-hour boat ride each way.
Strong currents are common on some of the shark-filled dives, so divers should have open water certifications and be comfortable ascending from 80 to 100-foot dives “in the blue.”
Getting there
I have visited Cocos Island three times on the Argo operated by the Undersea Hunter Group. This is a well-engineered that is well managed. OMy three trips to Cocos were citizen science trips helping biologists tag and track sharks that migrate through the Eastern Pacific. On my second trip I successfully “tagged” (applied an acoustic tracking tag to) a tiger shark at Manuelita Island using a speargun.
Underseahunter runs the Sea Hunter and Argo to Cocos Island year-round.
Okeanos Aggressor runs two boats to Cocos Island.
