Trip Report: MV Argo - Cocos Island, Costa Rica Sept 5-17 2013

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Messages
63
Reaction score
12
Location
Cocos Island, Costa Rica
# of dives
I'm a Fish!
05Sep-17Sep 2013 MV Argo



[video=youtube_share;bgNl7rnmjQE]http://youtu.be/bgNl7rnmjQE[/video]

Argo traveled to Cocos Island with a group of very experienced divers from all over the world, one of them was Jorge Cortés. Jorge is the authority for the preservation of marine life in Costa Rica. He is also a professor at the University of Costa Rica's CIMAR.

We had our first check out dive at Manuelita Coral Garden, where the cleaning stations were packed with action. The following days we experienced a sudden drop in water temperatures coupled with strong currents. What was a little uncomfortable for the divers, proved itself ideal for the sharks, as the changes increased the shark action. A good example of this took place on our dive to Punta Maria, which was packed with action; Galapagos sharks were patrolling the cleaning station while clouds of hammerheads were swimming above them. The icing on the cake was the giant manta ray we spotted just near the end of the dive.

Dirty Rock was terrific, cleaning stations were full of hammerheads, schools of big eye jacks and our big friend the whale shark came to play with the divers close to the pinnacle.

At night the white tips were very active, so much so that they peeked the interested of a giant Galapagos shark (10ft in length) that kept on swimming around the group of shocked and excited divers!

Submerged Rock was full of fish, including schools of snappers, groupers, and almaco jacks hunting. We also saw 5 mobula rays which added a dramatic and graceful twist to the reef-fish packed dive.

The lasts days the activity was decreasing on the west side of the island but then all the marine life seemed to move to Alcyone. There were hundreds and hundreds of hammerheads in the blue, as well as white tips mating near the seamount. As if it couldn't get more interesting, we even had as many as 6 Galapagos sharks circling around.

In the afternoons we had more relaxed dives, in which we observed the endemic Cocos Island rosy-lipped batfish and had encounters with tiger sharks in the shallows.

It was a wonderful trip packed with action, excitement, and celebration!

- Till next week, Cruise Director Jim and Dive Guide Brayan

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