Returning to Cocos Island, Costa Rica

Our first dive site after arriving at the lush, verdant island of Cocos was at Manuleta. What a wonderful check out site - 3 white tips patrolling the bottom, 3 hammerheads saying hello, marble rays, a giant orange frogfish, goatfish schools and a green moray eel, welcomed us.

The next dives were the backside of Manuleta which has 3 cleaning stations for hammerhead sharks – we had from 30 to 60 sharks and everyone was snapping away in excitement at how close they were. Every day we had the greatest fun with the hammerheads, some days were better than others in terms of how close they would get. It was just amazing at how close they would come – I did not have to zoom my camera in and actually had to back up sometimes!

The night dives at Manuleta were the wildest ever! This is the only place documented to have thousands and thousands of swarming whitetip sharks of all sizes. You go in as the sun is setting, get sorted out and start to see the fast moving whitetips combing the bottom like a gang of bandits looking for trouble. To keep this action happening, you all shine torches in the same area. A large black jack fish uses the lights for hunting then the whitetips start this chaotic rolling around and over and under each other trying to get the other fish. It all becomes a mad frenzy of hundreds of sharks trying to get at the small fish... you have to see this to believe it!

We were told to stay 6 foot off the ground so as not to become mince meat, the sharks couldn't care less that we were there. This event alone is worth the price of the trip.