Hello,
I have searched the previous threads that mention this area, but found little, especially anything that is current.
I am at a business conference in the Puntarenas area next week and could break away to dive a couple of days. It looks like Herradura Divers may be the only dive shop in the area??
Do any of you have any experiance diving in this area. Is Tortula Island worth the extra time and expense? I saw a reference from a couple of years ago that mentioned cruise ships, am I going to be competing for a place on a boat with the pod people?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Good Diving,
Dave
Well I thought I would give a trip report to help another that might have an opportunity to dive in this area. We stayed at the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort where I attended a business conference for a couple of days. Very nice resort with beautiful views of the Pacific and lush mountains. Food at the resort and at the little cafes in town was very good. There are also several high end restaurants in the area trying to cater to “rich” Americans. We ate at a couple for work related activities and they were only fair in quality and not worth the cost. Stick with the luncherias and you will not be sorry.
We had two days that we could dive. We did dive with Herradura Divers (the only shop in the area) located in a small town (Playa Herradura) about 5 miles north of Jaco and about 2 mile east of the resort. The dive shop is owned by an Italian family and has a small family business atmosphere. They were friendly and once they got to know us a little they seemed to relax and we all enjoyed each others company.
The Diving:
They hauled us to the beach about 1 mile from the shop in an old VW bus. There is no pier or dock here so we were ferried to the dive boat by a motorized skiff. The dive boat is a 28ft open skiff with a bimini top and a large outboard motor. All newer and in good condition. There was oxygen and other safety equipment on board.
Day One
Dive One
Isla Herradura West. This dive site is at the point of an island that protects Herradura Bay. About a 5 minute boat ride. The water was a little choppy with some strong currents. There were three divers on the boat and our dive master Francisco. A small Italian gentleman with very large bleached out dreadlocks. The water was a reasonable 79 degrees. We back rolled into the water and went down the safety line to about 45’. The visibility was only about 3’ due to a recent tormentos that had pass trough a couple of days before. Francisco was concerned about what we thought about the visibility and offered to call the dive, we indicated lets go head figuring we could always call the dive if things got out of hand. The bottom was lots of red volcanic rock with numerous caves and holes to peer into. We saw very few fish and one 3ft green moray on this dive and the fauna was mostly a white soft coral. We stayed close together and “crept” along the boulders the best we could for about a 40 minute dive. The currents were extremely fast and as were neared the island the surge was very strong. This was not a beginner’s dive or for someone who is out of shape or has poor skills, but we did get our reward for toughing it out. As peered into the caves and holes we found large white tip sharks in many of them. Most all that we saw were at least 5-6ft long. One of the early caves I stuck my face into cause me a start since the visibility was poor and there was a white tips large face looking back at me less than a arms lengths away. The sharks face was much larger then mine and he didn’t seem too concerned that I was there. All in all we saw many sharks on this dive with one cave holding four, and another three white tips. Safety stops were interesting with no viz. and a lot of sharks.
Dive Two
Punta Herradura. Our second dive was across the mouth of the bay on some partially submerged rocks. The currents again were ripping, but the visibility improved to 6-8ft. my wife and dive buddy had enough fun on the earlier dive and decided to sit this one out. Not typical for her but I think the low visibility shark dive was not what she had hoped for. This dive was in 45’ of water for only 35 minutes. This dive was a washing machine and now my new dive buddy had only about 20 dives. Hmm, could get interesting. Rookie, Francisco and I back rolled in and decided to stay clear of the point because of the ripping current. The visibility was better and we rode the current and occasionally stopped and grabbed a rock to investigate something that looked interesting. We saw more fish on this dive and an occasional sponge. There were large schools of porkfish overhead for most of the dive. We found a very beautiful scorpion fish that posed for us as I tried to take its picture in a 4 knot current. We also looked down into a deep slash in the rock and had a huge 8ft white tip come crashing out and almost knocked off my mask. Man they have a lot of white tips here. Anyway the other interesting critter we saw was another 5ft whitetip. Back to my new dive buddy, I have always tried to be patient with new divers knowing we all have been one at some point, but when were going down the anchor line I had a feeling of dread hit me. About half way into the dive Rookie and I got separated from the DM. Francisco went right and the rookie went left, with me following him in the rear. I rattled my noisemaker and pointed the direction to the right to find and catch up with Francisco, unfortunately, Rookie decides to keep going the way he was, and was heading with the surge into the rocks at the point. I knew I wasn’t willing to follow him into that death trap but he was ignoring my hand signals. It donned on me that he wasn’t being stubborn, but just ignorant, so I dove down a few feet to the bottom and grabbed a hold and start shaking furiously my noise maker. Literally at the point of no return for him, he even recognized he was getting in trouble, he turned around and was barely able to get back to me to see what was “wrong” with me. After that, he stayed close and followed me in the right direction and we ran into a much relieved Francisco, who was searching for us, after about three or four minutes. Still was a good dive though I still wonder if the rookie knows how close he came to being injured or killed.
Day Two
Dive One
The Aquarium, Isla Tortuga, DM Nicola. Isla Tortuga is about 15 miles off the coastline. Very beautiful island with white sand beaches. We dove another volcanic rock face after dropping a group of snorkelers off at the beach. The water was 80 degrees and the visibility improved to 10-12ft. We dove at 60ft for 44 minutes. Man what a difference a few feet of viz. make. There are very large fish populations here. The pacific tropical’s here are very interesting to me since I have not dove the warm Pacific except in Hawaii. Large schools of Panamic pork fish and golden jacks. Lots of trunk and box fish, of several varieties. Graysbys, bicolor parrot fish, many kings angel fish, a yellow phase puffer, giant hawksfish, barber fish, orangeside triggerfish, porcupines, pink cardinal fish, giant damselfish, and on and on. Wow, this was a very cool dive. Oh, we did see three more whitetips, but they were smaller than the day before.
Dive Two
Labyrinth, Isla Tortuga. 60ft 42 minutes. Viz about 10ft. This dive was a mini-wall. There were numerous thermo climes on this dive. According to my computer the temperature varied 8 degrees. We about froze our buns off since we were only wearing 1mm wet suits. The dive was interesting and again we saw schools of porkfish, bar jacks , king angels, etc. and got a quick glimpse of a good sized turtle, and a reef cornet fish. Lots of soft coral, large clams, and dinner plate sized scallops on this dive. I suspect with their typical visibility this would be a great dive sight. With the thermo climes and large schools of fish we were kept very interested.
After the dive we had lunch on the beach and enjoyed the island. A fisherman came to the beah in a dug out canoe. He had been free diving and had several clams in his launch. With a larger knife he opened and cleaned a clam, cut a lime in two, sqeezed on the clam still in the shell and gave me the best ceviche I have ever eaten. Isla Tortuga was a very beautiful red volcanic island with white sand beaches and large palm trees. It would be worth a visit even without the diving.
We finished the week with a canopy/zip line tour and a boat trip to the crocodile persevere. Both were very good. I had know idea there were 14ft crocs. in this hemisphere until I saw one of the Ticos tempt him on to a sandbar and feed him a chicken.
Anyway, the dive shop was a hoot, the sharks and other local tropicals were very cool to someone who hasn’t dived them before. Isla Tortuga is worth the extra cost and effort to see and dive. If you want to visit the beautiful country of Costa Rica and have a combination dive topside trip this might be a destination to visit. If you going to Costa Rica for just a dive trip I am confident that there is better diving north or south of Herradura.
HERRADURA DIVERS :: Playa Herradura, Costa Rica
