Best dive operation on the West Side of Costa Rica?

[Kevin Floyd]

My wife and I have decided to take two weeks in July and go to Costa Rica. At this point all we have planed is when and what coast, everything else is still undecided.

I thought that maybe picking a dive operation would be a good way to narrow down what part of the country we want to stay. We have done a lot of backpacking trips in our life and now with a kid we are more into basecamping, where we find a nice house to stay and only take short day trips instead of moving locations every few days, see less of a country but relax way more.

I would like to find a dive operation that can be our go to shop while we are in town, will probably only dive 5-7 days out of 18.

Any thoughts?

 

[jonhall]

I've yet to read anything from a SB member that has been diving along the whole west coast of CR that can compare multiple dive ops. The Pacific coastline is ~800 miles long compared the the Caribbean coast which is only about 132 miles long.

Based on my one time travel to CR (making me an expert - lol) and research into diving, I knew, staying in the town of Jaco, if I wanted to get to a better diving location, it would have involved a 2-4 hour drive south or north. Wound up 15 minutes away in Playa Herradura, where it wasn't what I would consider fantastic diving - just a place to get wet and say I dove in CR..

If I were able to stay anywhere (I'm not because my travel is tied to timeshares) along the coast, I would probably base it on the better diving location as opposed to what someone considers the best dive op. Consider factors such as the season you are going - some ops close during the rainy season.

Tip: Using the search field on the upper right of this page can help you piece together some info about the diving and ops where people have been along the coast.

 

[DeputyDan]

Two that you can research are:

Rich Coast Diving – Diving in Costa Rica

Scuba Diving Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica | Rocket Frog Divers Rocket Frog Divers

 

[uiowa96]

I dove with Rocket Frog Divers about 10 months ago while on a work trip. I have nothing to compare them to but they are closer to some of the sites I had read about. They ran a nice operation. I did 2-2 tank dives during my stay on Pennisula Papagayo. On one of the days, I was the only diver. On the other other day there were 6-7 of us with two Dive Masters. i would use them again, if I get the chance to go to CR again. The appear to have enough people and boats to be flexible with how many dive groups they have and how experienced.