Cocos Island on Undersea Hunter

by Sophie Rennie

I joined 5 other intrepid (and now rather poor) divers from various locations round the UK - but all known to each other (scarily four of us National Instructors), and set off for the Cocos Islands which are 300 miles off the coast of Coast Rica.

The trip was in 3 sections. The getting to Costa Rica, the getting to the Cocos Islands and then the diving.

Getting to Costa Rica:

We chose to fly with Continental (the options are limited) and flew to Newark where we had a 2 hour lay over before boarding another 5 hour flight to San Jose in Costa Rica. What should be an easy transfer isn't because the USA insist on every passenger clearing Immigration (finger printing and photos in addition to a smudged passport stamp), picking up luggage, clearing US Customs, replacing luggage and then security clearing again (shoes off and laptops out of bags). If only we could have stayed in transit but this is their policy - highly time consuming and infuriating!

Getting to the Cocos Islands.

Once in Costa Rica we had an over night stay in a Best Western hotel which was fine, before being picked up and transferred some 3 hours down the coast to the point of pick up for the trip to the Cocos. Our tour guide who picked us up was extremely knowledgeable and if ever there is a quiz on the facts about Costa Rica - we are all better prepared to answer the questions. For instance, Coffee and tourism rank high on the income of this third world country trying to get into the modern first world. The Cocos endures seven METRES of rain per annum.

Once on board our 'mother ship' the Sea Hunter, we endured a rather lengthy briefing from our German Guide before setting off into the sunset, sunrise and another sunset for the Cocos Islands.

The boat sleeps 20 in 10 cabins, all en-suite and pretty spacious by most Red Sea liveaboard standards. There are plenty of crew on hand who all have specific jobs to do. The top deck was the daily living place for us 6 Brits as we liked being outdoors in the heat whereas the Americans (who made up a large part of the group) preferred the cool air conditioning and stayed inside as much as possible. The 36 hours transit time were spent kit fondling, reading, eating (great food) and sleeping. We arrived in the middle of the night and woke (4.30am - jetlagged) to a black sky and absolutely nothing to see. The only reason we presumed we were there was that the boat was at anchor and we weren't rocking anymore. Slowly the sky started to lighten with the dawn and we were able to see the island and think about our first day of diving - hurrah!


The Diving.

Imagine 20 of us - all getting into the water at the same dive site. Not a good idea. Fortunately there were two skiffs which were to be our diving platforms. The Gold skiff and the Blue Skiff. Our blue skiff was skippered by a chap called Pepe - who was magnificent in his job and helped us all out. We 6 Brits shared our skiff with 2 South Africans, a Swiss chap and the Uncle of the owner - from Israel.

The Americans took the Gold skiff. No - before you ask - we didn't choose - it was all done by the crew.

The first dive site was the local house reef - a check dive I suppose - which was just as well as we all floundered about in different kit to the UK stuff obviously completed by the nervous anticipation of the Hammerhead shark. I don't think I have ever experienced such a great first dive.

I saw hammerheads, white tip sharks in their droves, turtles, jacks, morays and fish of all kinds. We exited the water excited and enthused, to head up to the poop deck to write logs, relax and get ready for the next dive brief which had us in the water not 2 hours after the first dive. After lunch and a slightly longer surface interval off we went again - one skiff in one direction and ours in another. You could say it was the luck of the draw that the Gold Skiff saw the whale shark, and dived with it for half an hour, when the blue skiff either dived with it but had our eyes shut, or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Needless to say it didn't hang around for a second viewing. But over the 7 days we all experienced schooling scalloped hammerhead sharks (on virtually every dive).

Night dives were on offer most nights. The one I did was just a bizarre melee of white tip sharks all trying to feed off the same fish. If there were a hundred sharks all following each other trying to catch a tiny fish - if only they had stopped and looked up then they would have seen that all the fish were hiding from them on the surface! What made it even more bizarre was the callous attempt from at least 10 other divers, all trying to get their cameras and lighting systems in on the action. I hardly used my torch at all.

Once all 7 days were over and done the skipper plied us with beer and took us on a sunset cruise round the island before heading back across the Pacific Ocean to land. The journey back was as smooth as a smoothy and we were joined by the odd turtle coming up for air and a school of dolphins who rode the bow for about half an hour - awesome! I read 3 books on deck all the way home, others put the finishing touches to their videos and most relaxed, slept and wallowed in the memories!

Anything to sting, hurt, bite etc? Not really - I got a blue bottle jellyfish sting from the tentacles, but a couple of days of scratching and trying not to scratch and it was all but forgotten. Any reason to go back - yes lots - I have to say it was probably some of the best if not the best diving I have ever done. I would not however route through the States though as this was a major downer on the trip. In fact we nearly missed our flight home because the queue for immigration was so long and no one was prepared to help us fast track to our next flight, in a different terminal which was boarding in ten minutes.

The trip is pretty expensive - I think our bills were in the region of £3.500 all up, but I don't think any of us have really checked because it is a little scary! (That's what a credit card is for isn't it!). There were a few remarks to the company such as the fact that they wanted us all to dive on 32% Nitrox but didn't tell us in the joining instructions. So some people had to do a TDI Nitrox course out there and we all got an extra bill of $155 for the gas - slightly cheeky! All in all though - $155 is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the overall trip cost.

Flights - London to San Jose via Newark (US) - Continental Airlines. (We booked direct with the company but you can go through Maldives Scuba Tours if you don't want the hassle of having to pay instalments using faxed or scanned credit card numbers, and finding your hotel on your own). We stayed at the Best Western in San Jose. It was a good standard hotel and don't forget - Happy hour means FREE drinks for the whole hour!

Spanish is the local fare but CERVESA is beer and that's all you really need to know. I have emailed the company to ask them to put our comments up from our trip as all the others are there, but in any event if you want more information look at Here .

Thanks to Maggie Driscoll for organsising it, David Wakeham for coping despite Continental Airlines losing his luggage on the way out, Maggie Cowing for enduring an ear infection, Richard Thrale for being my long distance dive buddy and Lynda for teaching me how to play suduko!

Sophie Rennie