Sharkbait: Diving Cocos Island National Park

Never in my life did I think I’d say “Oh look!  Another hammerhead shark.  No big deal…”  But after spending five days in the Cocos Island National Park, and diving 2-4 times a day (thanks to our amazing and awesome employers), that is what I caught myself thinking.  Diving in the Cocos Island National Park was an experience of a lifetime, and something I will most definitely brag about for the rest of my life J  Why did I name this blog “Sharkbait” might you ask?  I will sum it up quickly: we swam with Whale sharks, Tiger sharks, Galapagos sharks, Scalloped Hammerhead sharks, Silky sharks, Black-Tip sharks, and hundreds of White-tip Reef sharks.  It was EPIC! 

The Cocos Island lies about 340 miles southwest of Costa Rica.  It took us 2 days of easy motor sailing in light winds.  We arrived, again, with the welcoming of a huge pod of beautiful bottlenose dolphins.  

We also gained another crew member- an Inca Tern who we named “Jeffry” (don’t worry Dad, it was not after you J).  Jeffry joined us a day into our trip, and he quickly became part of the family.  I was convinced that something was wrong with him because he was not flying away and he was letting us get so close.  We even caught him a fish to eat.  He loved to stare at us through the salon window.  

Jeffry the Inca Tern

Jeffry

Jeffry's food

Cocos Island is a wild looking island.  It its approximately 9.2 square miles with cliffs surrounding the coastline, draped with the most lush green vegetation, and tons of picturesque waterfalls cascading off the cliffs.  It is such a unique and beautiful island that it was in the running to be one of the new "Seven Wonders of the World" in 2009.  Jacques Cousteau called it "The most beautiful island in the world."  So far, I agree.

After we arrived to Cocos and anchored, we were greeted by our diving guide for the week, a joyous young man name Manuel who was from Colombia, and also by a friendly Cocos Island National Park Ranger named Carlos.  The Park Rangers are the only inhabitants of the Island, and they usually rotate schedules by working a month at a time before returning to mainland Costa Rica.  Of their many jobs on Cocos, one is to make sure that visiting yachts take the proper precautions to keep invasive and foreign species from the island.  We all had a laugh about Jeffry, a bird that neither Manuel or Carlos had seen before.  They didn’t seem to mind, and were taking pictures of him.  To our pleasant surprise, soon after we arrived, Jeffry waddled over to the back deck and flew away.

Every boat or visitor that come to Cocos Island is required to have a guide.  Manuel, our guide for the week, is a freelance diver for the Undersea Hunter Group.  Each day, Manuel would lead us on 3-4 dives on various sites around the island: 8:00am, 11:00am, 3:00 am, and 2 night dives at 7:00PM.  Manuel was probably the happiest person I've ever met, a very talented diver, and an incredible guide.  We were lucky to spend our week with him.

  

Manuel and Teal

Cocos Coral Garden

What makes the diving on Cocos Island so unique and incredible are two factors.  The first, is its strong currents that brings nutrient rich waters full of pelagic fish.  Those pelagic fish attract sharks.  Second, are the many cleaning stations.  Cleaning stations are where sharks and rays go to get cleaned.  Groups of reef fish (such as butterfly fish, angel fish, etc.) hang out at these stations, and as the sharks and rays swoop through, they eat the parasites off of them.  The majority of our dives began at these cleaning stations, where we literally had a seat at 70-90 ft of water, and watched as huge hammerhead sharks visited the cleaning stations.  Because we were seated right behind the station, these hammerheads would swim within a couple of feet from us.  It was amazing!  When we began our slow ascent to decompress, the current would take us “into the blue,” or away from land and into the Pacific.  Here is where we swam with huge schools of snapper and jacks, and watched as yellowfin tuna and wahoo hunted.  Accompanying us into the blue were groups of hammerheads, and the occasional black-tip shark.  On one dive we got to witness a huge school of hammerheads circling below us. 

While every dive we went on was spectacular, a few are really worth me writing about.  On one special dive to a hammerhead cleaning station, we were ecstatic to watch as a juvenile whale shark slowly glided overhead.  Seeing a whale shark was at the top of everyone’s list of things to see while at Cocos Island, so you can imagine our excitement to be able to swim with one.  Obviously, he was massive- even as a juvenile. The whale shark was a good ways above us, but we were able to make out its beautiful blue irredescent spots on its side.  He was gone within 30 seconds, but came back 10 minutes later to give us a closer view.

On another dive, we were able to visit a Galapagos shark cleaning station.  And before getting back onboard the dinghy, a curious ray came up from the blue to play with us.  For 10 minutes this huge ray made large circles around us, swooping so close at points we could touch it.

Night dives were a whole other level of excitement.  To get the true gist of how we felt before entering the water on our first night dive, I have to explain Manuels dive briefing.  In a nutshell, he said that we need to stay at least 3 ft from the bottom so that a white-tip reef shark does not accidentally bite us.  Also, if we see a Galapagos shark, we do not need to get out of the water unless it is showing aggressive behavior, such as fins down, back arched, and circling us.  (Seeing a non aggressive Galapagos shark would actually be a neat thing, as they hunt the white-tip reef sharks that we would be watching.)  If we were to see a tiger shark, we need to get the hell out of the water.  Tiger sharks are fairly new to the Cocos Island, only arriving 3 years ago.  They are very aggressive sharks and are known to attack humans.  Because tiger sharks often approach from behind, he said to check behind us occasionally with the flashlight, but make sure not to shine the flashlight in the sharks eye because it provokes them. 

Entering the water that first night, I was full of adrenaline and nerves.  Those nerves quicly diminished as I approached the bottom and saw 20 white tip reef sharks underneath me.  Our purpose for the night dive was to help the white-tip reef sharks hunt.  White-tips have terrible vision, so they rely on movement in the water to find their pray.  Also hunting amongst us where large black jacks.  Because black jacks have better vision, they would follow where we shined our light to better see their prey.  I have to admit that I felt a little sad shining our lights on our victims.  The poor fish were already hiding in the coral, and after we shined our lights on the fish for a few seconds, the black jack would spook the reef fish out of its hiding and the hunt was on!  We’d quickly swim after the fish, trying to keep our lights on him so we could watch him get eaten.  Sometimes the black jack would get lucky right away.  Other times, the fish would escape the jaws of the black jack, but would fall prey to the 40-60 white-tips that were miliseconds behind.  Not even the cover of coral could help these reef fish once the white-tips got wind of them.  White-tips can easily bend their body’s into the smallest of holes in coral to clean out any fish.  It was fascinating to watch, and even more fun to be a part of the hunt.

The second to last day of our time in Cocos, we took advantage of the sunny afternoon to do a hike.  Before the hike, we were able to see where the park rangers live.  There is a small community of cabins circled around a main building which contains a visitor center, a cafeteria and other amenities.  All the buildings are very nicely built, and many had been beautifully painted by one of the rangers.  

Park Ranger Station Painting

Cocos Island National Park Station

Cocos Island National Park Visitor Center

One disturbing building housed hundreds of bags of fishing line that has been confiscated from illegal fisherman.  Illegal fishing is a huge problem, especially for the beautiful and endangered Scalloped Hammerhead sharks.  The fisherman catch these sharks, take their fins, and throw the rest of the body away.  One of the park rangers main tasks is to patrol the waters surrounding Cocos Island, where they confiscate the fishing lines.  When I saw the building full of lines, I imagined it had been collected over the course of years.  Sadly, it had all been collected over the course of 6 months!

Confiscated Fishing Line

Manuel also showed us the famous "Genius River Bridge," which is made entirely out of fishing debris.

Genius River Bridge

Marques swinging into the river after the bridge

The hike took us across the island to a beautiful little waterfall and swimming hole.  It was a tough incline, but once at the top we had beautiful views of the dormant volcano, and the boat anchored in the bay close by.

View from the top

The waterfall

Teal swimming in the waterfall.

During our time at Cocos, we took amazing GoPro Videos of our diving, including the whale sharks and hammerheads.  Marques created an amazing video, which we will upload when we have better internet.  Stay tuned....