The diving
We did 23 diving during the 7-day of diving around Cocos, as shown in Table 1, three dives / day on Day 1, 3 and 4; four dives / day on Day 2, 5 and 6; two dives on Day 7, the last day of the trip, as we had to sail home after the second dive, so we would be in Putarenas in the evening of 10 December at high tide. The divemaster would ring a bell 15 minutes before the scheduled dive, for donning the wetsuit and dive briefing before getting on to the pangas. Typical 3-dives / day schedule is as follows:
06:30 – breakfast
07:30 – dive 1
11:00 – dive 2
13:00 – lunch
15:30 – dive 3
19:00 – dinner
For a four-dive day schedule, dive 1 would be ~ 6:30, before breakfast; dive 2 would be ~ 10:30; dive 3 would be ~ 12:30 and dive 4 would be ~ 15:30. No diving is allowed after 17:00. This rule was set after the diving accident happened in November 2017, when a tiger shark attacked and killed a diver. After each dive, when we were back on the liveaboard, we would be provided with some water, fruit juice, fruit bits (pineapple, watermelon, orange, cantaloupe, mango, etc.) for hydration.
Day 1 at Cocos
The first day of diving was fantastic. Water temperature was about 75-79°F. Dive 1 in Chatham Bay, 50 feet depth. It’s calm & shallow dive site, a good place for checkout dive. We saw White-tip Reef sharks, Marbled ray, Guineafowl puffer, Spiny lobster, schooling snapper & goatfish.
Dive 2 in Manuelita Channel, 92 feet depth, was epic. We saw some Hammerhead sharks and my first Tiger shark, as shown in Figure 6, below.
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Figure 6: Big-mama Tiger shark cruising around Manuelita Channel dive site in Cocos.
Dive 3 in Manuelita Coral Garden, 71 feet depth, was more biodiverse than the first two dives. We saw Hammerhead shark, Whitetip Reef shark, Peacock flounder, Garden eels, Marbled ray, Panamic Green moray, Guineafowl puffer, Pacific creolefish, Glasseye snapper, Leather bass, schooling goatfish & Blue-Gold snapper.
Day 2 at Cocos
This is a four dives / day excursion. So, we started early for Dive 4. We went to Dirty Rock, 95 feet depth. We saw lots of schooling Bigeye jack, which meant not much Hammerhead sharks to be seen, but there were some Galapagos sharks. There were some schoolings of snappers and Panamic soldierfish.
Dive 5 was in Punta Maria, 98 feet depth, with panga tied on to a buoy and we descent along anchor line to the bottom. This site is where Galapagos sharks like to hangout. We also saw Pacific creolefish, free swimming Fine-spotted moray, schooling of Bluefin trevally and Bigeye jack.
Dive 6 was back in Dirty Rock with better daylight for Hammerhead shark sighting, as they don’t like video light. We saw some Hammerhead sharks this time. There were also more sighting of Galapagos sharks, flounder, fuciliers and Pacific creolefish.
Dive 7 was back to Manuelita Channel and Coral Garden,100 feet depth. We saw big-mama Tiger shark again cruising at the bottom. Some Whitetip Reef sharks were swimming below us and Hammerhead sharks in the blue. After nearing to deplete our remaining bottom time and seeing no more shark sighting in the blue, we moved on to shallow towards Manuelita Coral Garden. There we saw Harlequin shrimp munching a piece of sea-star limp inside rock piling cavity, next to giant frogfish, as shown in Figure 7, below.
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Figure 7: Harlequin shrimps munching a piece of sea-star limp inside rock piling
Day 3 at Cocos
This is a three dive / day excursion since the dive sites are on the other side of Cocos island, requiring 20-30 minutes of panga rides from Chatham Bay. Dive 8 was in Submerged Rock, 105 feet depth, seeing another Tiger shark (a skinny one). This site was also very fishy. We saw Whitetip Reef sharks, Marbled ray, Green moray, pufferfish, box fish, Bluefin trevally, and schooling snappers. We also saw reef creatures such as Spiny lobsters and Day octopus.
Dive 9 was in Alcyone, 105 feet depth. It is similar to Punta Maria, where the panga was tied on to a buoy and we descent along anchor line to the bottom. We had thermocline at the bottom with temperature down to 70 °F. We saw octopus, Whitetip Reef shark, Marbled ray, Hammerhead sharks, morays, Galapagos shark, Blue-gold snapper.
Dive 10 was back in Dirty Rock, 108 feet depth. We saw, the usual suspects (Whitetip Reef sharks, Hammerhead sharks, schooling snappers & Bigeye jack).
Day 4 at Cocos
Th is is another three dive / day excursion with long boat rides. Dive 11 was in Small Dos Amigos, 103 feet depth. We saw Galapagos shark, Hammerhead sharks, lots of Barber fish wanting to clean the Hammerhead sharks, swimming Green moray, and schooling Whitemouth jack.
Dive 12 was in Big Dos Amigos, 98 feet depth, We saw Whitetip Reef shark, Galapagos shark, Rockmover wrasse, Giant hawkfish, schooling Bigeye jack, snapper and wahoo in the blue during safety stop.
Dive 13 was in Manuelita Outside, 86 feet depth. We saw the big-mama Tiger shark again and the usual suspects, i.e., Hammerhead sharks.
Day 5 at Cocos
This is another four dives / day excursion. The boat moved to a more centrally located in Wafer Bay to save sometime of panga rides. For Dive 14 was back in Manuelita Outside, 92 feet depth, hoping to see the wall of schooling Hammerhead sharks in the blue, but none had shown up, yet, just some individuals swimming by. ☹ As bottom time dwindling, we decided to move on to the shallow with the wall on our right shoulder. Then some interesting fishes started to show up. An eagle ray went cruising by my side. We swam with it for few minutes. Towards the end of our dive, a Yellow-fin tuna passed by. Huge school of Bigeye jack were swarming us like hail falling from the sky.
Dive 15 was back to Dirty Rock, 84 feet depth. We saw Hammerhead sharks, Whitetip Reef sharks, Marbled ray, Black jack, schooling of Bigeye jack, Blue-gold snappers.
Dive 16 was back in Punta Maria, 100 feet depth, where huge Galapagos sharks cruising by. A fine-spotted moray eel happened to swim by my side while we were hunkered down waiting for the Galapagos shark parade to go by. We also saw Panamic Fang blenny, Marbled ray, schooling snapper and Bluefin trevallies. During our safety stop in the blue, Silvertip shark and Galapagos shark swam by, checking us up.
Dive 17 was back in Manuelita Channel, 84 feet depth. We saw the usual suspects, i.e., big-mama Tiger shark, Hammerhead sharks, Marbled ray. When our bottom time was about spent, we swam up to Manuelita Coral Garden to see the resident Giant frogfish (we saw 3 of them) and the Harlequin shrimp, still fiesting on sea star piece. When I was in Raja Ampat, I knew a DM who brought a sea star to Harlequin shrimp nest to feed them. I wonder if it is similar case here. We also saw schooling of Moorish Idol and Yellow-tail surgeonfish, a unique Snow-flake coral.
Day 6 at Cocos
This is our last four dives / day excursion. Dive 18 was in Shark Fin Rock, 105 feet depth. We saw Marbled ray, Almaco jack, Bluefin trevally, Whitetip Reef shark, various schooling fishes (Yellowfin surgeonfish, Blue-gold snapper, Red snapper, Bigeye jack).
Dive 19 was in Ulloa, 112 feet depth, to see Redlip batfish. We saw 3 of them. We also saw huge Marbled ray, Qoaker fish (jawfish?), Garden eels, Almaco jack, and Mexican hogfish.
Dive 20 was back in Manuelita Outside, 100 feet depth. We saw some Hammerhead sharks being cleaned by Barber fish, Whitetip Reef sharks, schoolings of Burrito grunt, Amarillo snapper and Bigeye jack.
Dive 21 was a repeat of Dive 20, 85 feet depth. Still no schooling of Hammerhead sharks in the blue was seen. We saw the similar fish that we saw earlier in Dive 20, except for a couple additional fishes, i.e., schooling Leather bass and two Yellowfin tuna near the end of our dive.
Day 7 at Cocos
This is our last diving day with two dives in the morning. It was rainy day and dark. Dive 22 was in Dirty Rock, 90 feet depth. We saw the usual suspects.
Dive 23 was in Manuelita Outside, 88 feet depth. Still no schooling of Hammerhead shark had shown up. On the way back to Chatham Bay, the water was muddy from Cocos soil runoff.
Conclusions
The seven days of diving in Cocos this time has been another great diving experience, especially after nine-moth being grounded by the pandemic. Although no Whaleshark, Oceanic manta ray and schooling of Hammerhead sharks were seen this time and poorer visibility in comparison to my previous trip to Cocos in September 2018, we see new fishes that I haven’t seen there before, like the Tiger sharks, Silvertip shark, Eagle ray and Redlip batfish. Kudos to Okeanos Aggressor 1 for allowing us to make 23 dives, 3 more dives than what was normally done in the past.
