| Costa Rica is an eco-tourism paradise with rain | | | | example, the trumpet fish we saw down here are |
| forests, exotic wildlife, volcanoes and much more. This | | | | significantly larger than the ones found in Caribbean |
| little Central American country is also an interesting | | | | waters. Also, there are much more porcupine puffer |
| place to scuba dive. Most of the diving in Costa Rica is | | | | fish here. Previously in Caribbean waters, I've seen only |
| done on the west coast Pacific Ocean side with an | | | | a few porcupine fish and they are usually alone. Here |
| area up in the Guanacaste region located in the | | | | in Costa Rica, I saw large schools of them. We |
| northwestern part of the country and another south of | | | | encountered large schools of other fish types on a |
| the capital city of San Jose near the middle of its west | | | | regular basis as well. |
| coast. If flying into San Jose, one would have to do | | | | The local divemasters here definitely work in a |
| some internal traveling to get to either of these two | | | | different way compared to their counterparts |
| locations. | | | | elsewhere. In many Caribbean locations, the |
| The Guanacaste area is a bit easier to get to | | | | divemasters would promote a 'look only, no touch' rule. |
| especially if one could arrange a flight right to the town | | | | Here, the divemasters actively turned over every rock |
| of Liberia in northern Costa Rica. There are some | | | | to find interesting creatures for us. They would catch |
| seasonal charter flights from North America directly to | | | | them in their hands and pass them over to the other |
| Liberia. The town of Playas del Coco which is used as | | | | divers. Over three days of diving, I held a seahorse, an |
| the main base for divers is a short cab ride from the | | | | octopus, a spotted eel, an orange color frogfish and a |
| Liberia airport. There are restaurants and small hotels in | | | | puffed up porcupine fish. Of course this practice of |
| Playa del Coco including a few American owned | | | | handling marine wildlife is debatable in terms of ethics |
| scuba dive operators. These dive operators usually | | | | but it was certainly an interesting experience holding |
| have special package deals available which include | | | | these creatures in my hands. The divemasters were |
| both diving and accommodations with one of the local | | | | certainly hard working for sure though as they were |
| hotels. Everything in town is within easy walking | | | | eager to make sure that the guests had good dive |
| distance. | | | | trips. |
| I made a trip for scuba diving here during the late fall | | | | Large animals such as giant sea turtles, stingrays and |
| season. The operator I used was Rich Coast Diving. | | | | white tip sharks were also spotted. On one occasion |
| The local Costa Rican divemasters from Rich Coast | | | | which I will never forget for the rest of my life is when |
| they took all of the scuba equipment including tanks | | | | a very large school of cow-nose rays headed straight |
| down to the beach every morning by pickup truck. | | | | for our group of divers. They looked like a huge |
| The dives ranged from about 60 feet to 85 feet with | | | | squadron of alien spaceships. They went right through |
| mild to moderate currents. One thing that all divers will | | | | and past us while we watched in wonder. Then they |
| notice here is that the diving in Costa Rica is very | | | | disappeared. This memorable experience was much |
| different from the usual Caribbean reef diving. The | | | | too short lived. |
| visibility is a lot poorer and there are some noticeably | | | | So for a very different type of scuba diving compared |
| colder thermoclines. The poor visibility is due to higher | | | | to the Caribbean without traveling too much further, |
| amounts of plankton in the local waters compared to | | | | Costa Rica is an interesting destination for divers to |
| the Caribbean Sea. In some dive sites, we had to | | | | consider. There won't be crystal clear visibility but the |
| swim through sections of water which turned into an | | | | marine life will be different with more large animals to |
| almost brown color soup. This cut the sunlight from the | | | | see. The diving itself is also very reasonable in cost |
| top drastically. However, there is a huge plus side to | | | | being significantly lower than in premium priced |
| this poorer visibility. The plankton attracts larger marine | | | | locations such as the Cayman Islands and the |
| animals and if divers came here to see the big ones, | | | | Bahamas. In addition, there are many other things to |
| they will not be disappointed. | | | | see and activities to do on land besides the scuba |
| Even some of the reef fish here are larger. For | | | | diving which makes Costa Rica a very full vacation. |