Hey T.
I've been diving in Playa del Coco for 6 months now, but don't think that makes me have a biased decision. The best dive of my life was off the Cano islands about 3 months ago...
I live and work in Coco where we generally have rather poorer visibility in comparison to the Cano islands. I considered the marine life in Coco to be more abundant than what I saw in Drakes bay. Although much of it looked familiar I tend to see much more on any given day here in Coco than I did there and felt a little let down after all the hype, that was until the safety stop on the first dive.
While the local dive master was assisting a diver with his buoyancy myself and my girlfriend witnessed the silhouette of a humpback whale go off into the deep blue. We signaled to the others and kept an eye out for his return. After about 30 seconds he returned, no more than 5 feet from us. We could feel the current from his massive body push us back as he passed. Within 2 minutes his family joined and we saw the mother, and a small baby. They circled us until the very last of us were trying to squeeze the last remaining air from our tank.
Ok... amazing dive aside...the DM, Melvin had just opened his own dive shop called White Tip Divers in Drakes bay. He has only dove with the humpbacks twice in 15 years (this being the second). The shop was only a few months old and everything was new. Having grown up in Drakes Bay he was the epitome of the Pura Vida lifestyle. His wife prepared us a great lunch for our surface interval on the Cano islands that included sandwiches, 3 cold pasta salads, fruit, hard boiled eggs and so on. After the dive we hung out at Melvin's house/dive shop where we had some great coffee and a few cold beers. The service was 5 star but aside from the humpbacks, the diving was the same.
If I could make a recommendation it would be to base your trip on what else you want to do, and not just the diving (since it was pretty much the same). Drakes Bay is a very small and quaint town, good for relaxing and kickin' it with nature. Scarlett macaws fly overhead on a daily basis and it is truly an oasis away from the skyscrapers and harsh influence of mankind. Coco is more upbeat, there are more bars, restaurants and other attractions such as quads and seedoo rentals, fishing, canopy tours and so on. If you want to party a bit, its better to be in a beach town like coco than remote drakes bay.
To answer your question about the Manta's I can't speak for Drakes Bay, as it wasn't really the season for them when I was there and never asked. But in Coco we will be making trips to Catalina Islands (known worldwide for the Manta's) as well as Bat Islands for Bull sharks. The Bull sharks seem to be getting more and more rare as the years go by, but we will still be out there looking for them.
Let me know if you have any questions about specifics or want some tips with info on traveling around CR or anything of that sort.
-Brent
