Just back from two weeks near Playa del Coco in Gunacaste CR (north Pacific Coast). We stayed a week at the Allegro Papagayo and a week at the Fiesta Premier. It would have been an hour or so to drive or a $45 cab ride each way to Rich Coast or Dive Safaris, so I ended up diving with Resort Divers, based out of the Fiesta Premier. The first week they picked me up by boat on the beach at the Allegro - and they did free ground pick ups for some of the other resorts in the area.
I got in 8 days of diving over two weeks, and the DMs I dove with were all great - Pony, Felix and Mike. Drinks, fruit and cookies were provided, and the DMs look after getting your gear ready, getting you weighted up, switching tanks for you between dives, etc. After losing a DM installed weight pouch on a dive in the Bahamas I'm one of those people who likes to prep their own rig, but everybody else seemed to like it. They also store and rinse your gear at the end of each dive day.
Unfortunately I only got to the Catalina Islands once. The first week they had a bunch of trips go, but I booked late, so they were full. Some of those trips had as many as 13-15 divers. For most of the second week we couldn't get enough people to go. They require four two tank divers or two three tank divers to book a Cats trip - which I think is pretty standard for operators in the area. That one day was definitely the highlight of the trip though. We only saw one Manta, but it came back and circled us three times so we got a really good look at it, and some of the pictures turned out pretty good. I couldn't find any operator that was willing to go out to the Bat Islands this time of year though. With that many dives, I ended up seeing most of the major local sites like Tortuga, Argentina and Monkey Head twice.
On a couple of surface intervals we saw Humpback whales, and a pod of dolphins but despite the captains best efforts, we never got close enough to dive or snorkel with them.
In terms of numbers, the biggest group I was in was 8 divers, and the biggest I heard of was the group of 13 going to Cats. For the most part, the average was 3-5 people per group with one DM. Even the group of 8 I went with had two guides.
Resort Divers policy is usually to start the safety stop at around 45min or 1,000 PSI, but they use the buddy system to send divers who hit 1,000 early up without interrupting the dive for everybody else. Looking at my logbook, most of my dives were in the 45-55 min range with plenty of gas left in the tank. One guy I met was cheating the system just by not telling them he was at 1,000 until he got to 500 or so and I don't think anybody noticed or cared enough to talk to him about it.
Visibility was not great. Probably 25' on the best day, and more like 15' on average. On the day it was 25', our guide had a massive grin on his face and told us it was the best visibilty he'd had all year. He was so enthusiastic about it you could only smile and agree that it was great.
Surface water temperature was usually 83-84 degrees, and the coldest I saw it get was 79 below the thermocline.
The fish were abundant - including a lot of white tip reef sharks, some Tuna, King Angel Fish, Moorish Idols, a frogfish and a couple of turtles. It was actually Sargeant Major mating season, so there were huge groups of butterflyfish swarming and eating the eggs while the Sgt. Major tried to chase them off.
I really want to do a Cocos liveaboard, but I'd definitely go back to Guanacaste earlier in the year when you can get to Bats and with a bigger group to make sure we could get more Cats trips in.
If you're going, take your insect repellent and one of those after bite sticks. My wife and I both got bitten pretty good the first week. Everybody else we talk to who have been are surprised by that, but we didn't imagine the bites.
I got in 8 days of diving over two weeks, and the DMs I dove with were all great - Pony, Felix and Mike. Drinks, fruit and cookies were provided, and the DMs look after getting your gear ready, getting you weighted up, switching tanks for you between dives, etc. After losing a DM installed weight pouch on a dive in the Bahamas I'm one of those people who likes to prep their own rig, but everybody else seemed to like it. They also store and rinse your gear at the end of each dive day.
Unfortunately I only got to the Catalina Islands once. The first week they had a bunch of trips go, but I booked late, so they were full. Some of those trips had as many as 13-15 divers. For most of the second week we couldn't get enough people to go. They require four two tank divers or two three tank divers to book a Cats trip - which I think is pretty standard for operators in the area. That one day was definitely the highlight of the trip though. We only saw one Manta, but it came back and circled us three times so we got a really good look at it, and some of the pictures turned out pretty good. I couldn't find any operator that was willing to go out to the Bat Islands this time of year though. With that many dives, I ended up seeing most of the major local sites like Tortuga, Argentina and Monkey Head twice.
On a couple of surface intervals we saw Humpback whales, and a pod of dolphins but despite the captains best efforts, we never got close enough to dive or snorkel with them.
In terms of numbers, the biggest group I was in was 8 divers, and the biggest I heard of was the group of 13 going to Cats. For the most part, the average was 3-5 people per group with one DM. Even the group of 8 I went with had two guides.
Resort Divers policy is usually to start the safety stop at around 45min or 1,000 PSI, but they use the buddy system to send divers who hit 1,000 early up without interrupting the dive for everybody else. Looking at my logbook, most of my dives were in the 45-55 min range with plenty of gas left in the tank. One guy I met was cheating the system just by not telling them he was at 1,000 until he got to 500 or so and I don't think anybody noticed or cared enough to talk to him about it.
Visibility was not great. Probably 25' on the best day, and more like 15' on average. On the day it was 25', our guide had a massive grin on his face and told us it was the best visibilty he'd had all year. He was so enthusiastic about it you could only smile and agree that it was great.
Surface water temperature was usually 83-84 degrees, and the coldest I saw it get was 79 below the thermocline.
The fish were abundant - including a lot of white tip reef sharks, some Tuna, King Angel Fish, Moorish Idols, a frogfish and a couple of turtles. It was actually Sargeant Major mating season, so there were huge groups of butterflyfish swarming and eating the eggs while the Sgt. Major tried to chase them off.
I really want to do a Cocos liveaboard, but I'd definitely go back to Guanacaste earlier in the year when you can get to Bats and with a bigger group to make sure we could get more Cats trips in.
If you're going, take your insect repellent and one of those after bite sticks. My wife and I both got bitten pretty good the first week. Everybody else we talk to who have been are surprised by that, but we didn't imagine the bites.
