Costa Rica - Drake Bay ??

[cra2]

I'm researching a trip to Drake Bay in Costa Rica this Spring.
I've searched these forums and found some great information so far.
But I still have a few questions for those who've been...

* Do you know where (online) I can find a map of Drake Bay and the surrounding area that includes any details like lodge locations, distances, trails, etc? I've looked online and the closest I've found are generic overview maps of the whole peninsula. For example, I wanna know how to get from one lodge to the other.

* Is there any diving/snorkeling other than Cano Island? Any lagoons, mangroves, or beaches where you'd do that stuff?

* What can/can't you take on the planes down there? Dive knife? Snorkel gear? etc.

* Do all of the lodges send you to one place for the dolphin encounters, and another for the canopy tours, and another for the diving, etc? Or does each lodge offer each of these things? They all advertise these activities... but on other sites I seem to be getting the impression that there's only ONE company that does dolphin encounters, and ONE company that does canopy tours, and only ONE "bug lady" with the night-vision goggles, etc, etc.

Thanks for any help,
cra2 "at" mindspring "dot" com

 

[cra2]

*tumbleweed rolling by*

 

[Reel Crazy14]

I have only been to the northern part of CR. The south is hard to get to and in the butt crack of no where. However, ive heard the diving is spectacular and the rain forest and scenery in the south is awesome. There can be some real adventures had there. It will be fairly hard finding info for the south so good luck.

 

[Hack]

Hello cra2
I have been to augilla de osa at drake bay
one of the most breath taking places in the world
it is truely an indiana jones trip just getting there
diving was so so at cano island
staff at augi was superb
have a travel agent that is one have of the rest from what the people down there say
been to costa rica 4 times and is still my favorite place

 

[cra2]

Just got back from Drake Bay in Costa!
(well.. a couple of weeks ago)

Thanks for all the advice, it was awesome.
We stayed at the Jinetes de Osa and did about every single activity possible.
Night bug tours, canopy zip-line tours, horseback rides, kayaking up the river, kayak surfing on the beaches, Corcovado Nat'l Park tours, scuba diving Canos Island, whale/dolphin watch, etc, etc. Tons of fun. Tons of pics.

The only bad parts were ...
a) getting seasick on the whale/dolphin watch boat ride.
b) my wife having (we suspect) an allergic reaction to the white fruit juice the resort served causing her lips and fingers to swell up.
c) the resort not getting ANY kind of breeze, so the heat & humidity in late March was so bad it was difficult to get any sleep.
d) the diving was a bit cooler than I had thought - shivered much of the time.

 

[scuba jeff]

Just got back from Drake Bay in Costa!
(well.. a couple of weeks ago)

Thanks for all the advice, it was awesome.
We stayed at the Jinetes de Osa and did about every single activity possible.
Night bug tours, canopy zip-line tours, horseback rides, kayaking up the river, kayak surfing on the beaches, Corcovado Nat'l Park tours, scuba diving Canos Island, whale/dolphin watch, etc, etc. Tons of fun. Tons of pics.

.

Please give me some more scoop on the diving. Water temp, vis, what did you see? I am trying to plan my next trip for March 2006 and I am looking at Costa Rica, Key Largo, Grand Cayman, or Aruba. Give me the scoop on the diving in CR

 

[cra2]

Jeff,

If you do a search of these forums you'll find far more experienced divers on here who've done every part of Costa multiple times. Their input would be more valid than mine as it will be averaged out over a number of trips.
Viz/temp/critters can vary from day to day anywhere, so what I experienced one day, may be totally different the next.
We had about 45' viz at about 50' depth where the temps were mid-low 70's. Very chilly for me in a rented 3 mil.
We dove "The Arches" and "The Shipwreck" (no actual wreck there).
Both had huge boulders and rock formations sometimes from the surface all the way to the bottom. Many swim-throughs where you had to fight a steady current and lots of dark ledges so you should bring a light. Huge swarms of bait fish, average amounts of reef fish, and a few white-tipped reef sharks and lobster. I've seen more (and less) diving right here in Florida. I've heard the diving's better farther North in Costa, but wouldn't know yet.
In contrast, the folks who dived the day before us had miserable viz of 15', but said they saw Orcas feeding on mantas during their boat ride out. (we had only seen turtles at the surface and dolphins feeding)
And the group who dove the day after us said they saw a whale shark cruise by while they were diving. Every day's different.

We dove with the dive master at the Jinetes where we were staying.
Very friendly and helpful and a good diver.
There were only 2 other divers on our boat that day. So there were 4 divers, the divemaster, and the boat handler.
The boats, by the way, are 8-seaters with no way to store/organize your gear other than piling it up at your feet. A bit challenging for those used to roomier 30-person boats with seated tank straps and giant-stride entries and rinse buckets and ladders for re-entering the boat. On these little boats, you have to don your wetsuit & gear when you reach the site while managing the waves, then you do back-entries over the side, and when you return, you need to hand up your weights, fins, and BC/tanks before being helped up over the outboard motor.

I've heard more experienced divers say diving where we did is worth it just to get wet (and the off-chance you'll see something exciting like a whale shark). But that they wouldn't plan a multi-day diving vacation there. Not good enough sites.

So, like I said in my post, we did so many activities that the diving was just one small part of the trip. We just made sure they scheduled us early enough in the week so that if the dive sites were AMAZING, we could fit in another dive day later in the week. Put it this way - we didn't schedule another dive day. But then again, we're not like some divers we know who HAVE to get wet every single opportunity they get, no matter what the conditions are - even if it's a quarry they've dived 25 times before. So, if you're one of those, I'm sure you can make a dive vacation out of it and have a blast. By no means as boring as a quarry must be. Just nothing amazing - we've had better dive conditions and more fish right off the coast here.

my .02

 

[c-dog]

Hello,

I also just returned from a trip to Jinetes de Osa in Drake Bay, Costa Rica.
We got back on 4/11. My wife and I had a great time and I agree with
many things that were previously mentioned in this thread. It was very hot and they definatley do not have AC or a pool. We only dove one day because of all of the other activites we did.

Both dives were around Cano Island. The first dive was "the shipwreck". This site included some rock formations seperated by sand in about 60 feet of water. We had about 40 foot of vis. The water temp was about 80F on the surface and about 70F on the bottom. We saw several types of rays, white tip reef sharks laying on the bottom and lots of jacks and snapper. There was a slight current.

Our second dive was at "Devils Pinnicales" This was a larger rock formation about a 1/2 mile past Cano Island. The rock was in about 70 feet of water and rose to about 20 feet from the surface. The vis and water temp were similar here but there was much more life. The sharks were swimming around and the jacks and snapper were thick. We saw several free swimming green moray eels and some tropicals. The current was stronger here and there were no other dive boats. We liked this site better.

Diving was only a small part of our Costa Rica adventure. We especially liked the Corcovado Rain Forest. We saw a Tapir. We enjoyed our dives. Some other people were dissapointed in the diving. I think they expected great vis and coral.

The dive boats were very smalll. Fortunately on our trip there were only four divers and the wind was calm.