Scuba-QC
Guest
Just got back from Costa rica,
we stayed at Hotel Giardini di Papagayo in playa panama which is in the Papagayo bay, north-west Pacific coast. 11 dives at different sites. Our dive operator was Resort Divers.
The Papagayo Bay is in Guanacaste province which is the driest area of Costa Rica so don't expect rainforest there. It's a savanah style area, dry land with cactus and palm trees mixed together..temp was around 94F during the day...
Hotel Giardini: A 3.5 star hotel which is located on a hill. our room was on top of this one with a beautiful view of the entire bay. Needed a shuttle (always available)to go back to the main area of the resort. The room was cleaned, towels changed every day. The buffet was ok beside the dinner time (7pm) and the bar was definitely an issue...really too small so you would always wait and wait for getting served...worth the money for diving but for party I wouldn't go there...
Resort Divers: Located not far from our hotel at the Fiesta Premier resort, they came pick us up free every morning. 4 nice boat to dive with no more than 6-7 divers per group. Our Dive-Master Sergio was great, good briefing at every dive, always ajusting its speed to us and very quick finding critters! we were diving computers and surface time was always about 1 hour. Plenty of water, ananas, cookies, etc. The crew always took great care mounting up our equipement, helping us for entries and for exits. Only did one site twice because the wave were too rough to go farther out of the bay that day. Good price too. A Great Team!
Local Diving: Great challenging dives!!! Water temp is 83 on surface but can reach 70 in the bottom because of currents. Those currents sometimes are changing direction and can affect visibility from 50' to 10' in a second then back to 50'!!..surge can be strong too in shallow water. Those dives were definitely not for beginners and entries were sometimes backroll because of the waves. We were diving rock pinnacles with not much coral. The marine life there is totally awesome! Never seen that many fish at the same time...schools of different kind of fish everywhere! The stingrays..HUGE! About 5 types of moray eels everywhere and BIG ones too!, schools of Spotted eagle rays and lots of turtles. Giant puffer fish, King Angel fish, Moorish Idol (wow) and more...but not to forget the white-tips reef sharks at almost every dive...There was also scorpion fish, frog fish, octopus, marble rays, diamond rays, blue spinny lobster, nudibranch and some other beautiful fish and critters that I don't know the names...sometimes you could almost see all of the above only in one dive!
Catalina Island: Even if the season for Catalina was ending, we decide to try it anyway. Marine life was almost the same as local but saw some Golden Cow nose rays. No luck for the Mantas and big schools of rays that are usually there during Dec and Jan.
Bat Island: or Murcielagos Island, Those dives were adreline rush! One dive site is called The Big Scare where you can see those BIG Bull Sharks! Well I can tell you that when I saw that 12-14 footer Bull sharks in the blue in front of me...Man I was not sure anymore if I made a good decision diving this one...believe me it was scary but worth it... The second dive was Bajo Negro. This dive was the best of the trip. A wall drift dive with about 70' of visibility. Big Schools of BIG fish, some tunas and the favorite moment of the trip...that big manta that was flying gently through all those fish...it was the first manta for us...WOW!
A lot to see also beside diving, volcanos, hot springs, monkeys, all kind of beautiful birds. Of course it was not the hot blue water of the caribean sea but for marine life it was really worth going!...I won't forget the dolphins that were racing in front of our boat....WOW!
A Great Trip!!
we stayed at Hotel Giardini di Papagayo in playa panama which is in the Papagayo bay, north-west Pacific coast. 11 dives at different sites. Our dive operator was Resort Divers.
The Papagayo Bay is in Guanacaste province which is the driest area of Costa Rica so don't expect rainforest there. It's a savanah style area, dry land with cactus and palm trees mixed together..temp was around 94F during the day...
Hotel Giardini: A 3.5 star hotel which is located on a hill. our room was on top of this one with a beautiful view of the entire bay. Needed a shuttle (always available)to go back to the main area of the resort. The room was cleaned, towels changed every day. The buffet was ok beside the dinner time (7pm) and the bar was definitely an issue...really too small so you would always wait and wait for getting served...worth the money for diving but for party I wouldn't go there...
Resort Divers: Located not far from our hotel at the Fiesta Premier resort, they came pick us up free every morning. 4 nice boat to dive with no more than 6-7 divers per group. Our Dive-Master Sergio was great, good briefing at every dive, always ajusting its speed to us and very quick finding critters! we were diving computers and surface time was always about 1 hour. Plenty of water, ananas, cookies, etc. The crew always took great care mounting up our equipement, helping us for entries and for exits. Only did one site twice because the wave were too rough to go farther out of the bay that day. Good price too. A Great Team!
Local Diving: Great challenging dives!!! Water temp is 83 on surface but can reach 70 in the bottom because of currents. Those currents sometimes are changing direction and can affect visibility from 50' to 10' in a second then back to 50'!!..surge can be strong too in shallow water. Those dives were definitely not for beginners and entries were sometimes backroll because of the waves. We were diving rock pinnacles with not much coral. The marine life there is totally awesome! Never seen that many fish at the same time...schools of different kind of fish everywhere! The stingrays..HUGE! About 5 types of moray eels everywhere and BIG ones too!, schools of Spotted eagle rays and lots of turtles. Giant puffer fish, King Angel fish, Moorish Idol (wow) and more...but not to forget the white-tips reef sharks at almost every dive...There was also scorpion fish, frog fish, octopus, marble rays, diamond rays, blue spinny lobster, nudibranch and some other beautiful fish and critters that I don't know the names...sometimes you could almost see all of the above only in one dive!
Catalina Island: Even if the season for Catalina was ending, we decide to try it anyway. Marine life was almost the same as local but saw some Golden Cow nose rays. No luck for the Mantas and big schools of rays that are usually there during Dec and Jan.
Bat Island: or Murcielagos Island, Those dives were adreline rush! One dive site is called The Big Scare where you can see those BIG Bull Sharks! Well I can tell you that when I saw that 12-14 footer Bull sharks in the blue in front of me...Man I was not sure anymore if I made a good decision diving this one...believe me it was scary but worth it... The second dive was Bajo Negro. This dive was the best of the trip. A wall drift dive with about 70' of visibility. Big Schools of BIG fish, some tunas and the favorite moment of the trip...that big manta that was flying gently through all those fish...it was the first manta for us...WOW!
A lot to see also beside diving, volcanos, hot springs, monkeys, all kind of beautiful birds. Of course it was not the hot blue water of the caribean sea but for marine life it was really worth going!...I won't forget the dolphins that were racing in front of our boat....WOW!
A Great Trip!!
