Costa Rica Ecotourism Scuba Diving At Cocos Island

Hammerhead shark

Not For The Faint Of Heart: Costa Rica Ecotourism Scuba Diving At Cocos Island

Cocos Island is a national park of Costa Rica nearly halfway to the Galapagos Islands from Costa Rica’s Pacific shoreline. It is one of the world’s natural gems though most people who take Costa Rica vacations have never heard of it and never get to see it.

Indeed, though Costa Rica ecotourism is world famous and tens of thousands of visitors come expressly for that experience, remote, wild Cocos Island is little known.

The famous adventurer Jacque Yves Cousteau called it “The most beautiful island in the world”, Costa Ricans declared it one of their country’s Seven Wonders, and it is being considered for one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The island is about 340 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Though it is a very small island, only about nine square miles, its fame today comes from its undersea treasure—and a fellow named Michael Crichton.

You probably never heard of this island but you’ve visited it in your imagination.

Reef Diving

Unquestionably it is one of the truly great places for scuba diving, considered by many authorities to be the best place in the world for large marine animal viewing. The island sometimes has so many sharks around it that it has also been known as Shark Island.

There are an incredible variety of species of rays, tuna, sharks and other fish, not to mention sea turtles, porpoises, and whales in the waters surrounding Cocos.

Hammerhead sharks are common and some of the largest Hammerheads ever reported have been seen off this island.

The Island has long been famous for pirates, real and imagined. Some people think that it served as inspiration for Robert Lewis Stevenson’s famous novel Treasure Island but real pirates often  hid off  it to get away from the English fleet,  to bury treasure, and to rest up for their next adventure.

In fact,  to this day two great treasures, called the Devonshire Treasure and the Lima Treasure, may still be buried there.  How big is the treasure that may still be on the island?  Think hundreds of millions of dollars. Intrigued?  We found a real treasure map of the fabulous Cocos Island Lima Treasure.  Imagine great Costa Rica ecotourism AND fabulous pirate booty!

This remote, shrouded in mystery island also ignited the imagination of novelist Michael Crichton whose epic  Jurassic Park is set off the coast of Costa Rica.

Except for a few Costa Rica park rangers whose job it is to protect its waters from poaching, the island is uninhabited. Its isolation has protected its rain forest from depredation, and for centuries its magnificent underwater splendor was protected from foreign fishing fleets.

Because of its remote location and complete lack of tourist facilities, Cocos Island is not a heavily visited Costa Rica vacation spot.  The only way of getting to it is by boat.  Several operators offer Costa Rica scuba diving tours to Cocos Island but plan for at least 30 hours on open water.  And be sure to bring Dramamine!

If you are fortunate enough to visit Cocos, you will only be allowed ashore with prior permission of the rangers and no one is allowed to stay overnight except on their boats.

But, if you are allowed to go onto the island be sure to walk its coast because there are boulders and rocks bearing inscriptions from sailors over the centuries.  A hundred years or more before “ Kilroy was here”, sailors wrote their names and dates of visits on Cocos Island rocks.  You may even find one with the name of Jacque Cousteau’s son, who signed it a couple of decades ago.

And, should you have the good fortune to Travel To incomparable Cocos Island, remember what Captain Cousteau said: “A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it.“

If you’re an adventurous scuba diver who wants to experience big marine animal diving at its finest, Cocos Island is for you.  Make it part of your wonderful Costa Rica ecotourism experience.