Aboard the Sea Hunter, August 2001 

 We left Pittsburgh on a Sunday morning, met Deborah in Houston, and then continued on to San Jose, Costa Rica.  We spent two nights at the Residencias de Golf hotel, which has a pool, large rooms, and is close to a few small shops and a grocery store.  When we arrived at the hotel, there were messages for us from the Sea Hunter, our Cocos Island liveaboard, and the rafting company.

 Bright and early Monday morning, we began our rafting adventure with a hearty breakfast, while meeting other rafters.  We ended up rafting a different river than planned, due to high waters and a truck wreck, but we had a great time, especially Paul, who had never river rafted before.  After our river trip we were fed another great local-style meal, then taken back to our hotel.  We checked out a near-by souvenir shop, and then raided the grocery store for snacks and cuba libres (rum and coke already in a can—what a nifty idea!) and had ourselves a little party under the stars, next to the pool.

 Tuesday morning it was back to the souvenir shop and the grocery store, where we purchased home baked goodies, fruit, and juice for our poolside breakfast.  We packed up and hoisted our luggage to the lobby for our 11 A.M. pick-up by the Sea Hunter staff.  A couple more hotel stops and we were headed out into the countryside toward Puntarenas, where the boat was waiting.  After a three-hour drive, including a lunch break at a local restaurant, we arrived at the dock.  The Sea Hunter was anchored out in the bay due to the low tide, so we transferred via a smaller boat, which took only a few minutes.

 Once on the boat, we were given drinks, orientation, and room assignments, and then turned loose to explore while the boat got underway.  We passed the Undersea Hunter, our sister ship, on the way out of the harbor; that boat had recently returned from an IMAX film project in Fiji.  During the thirty hours it took us to arrive at Cocos Island we unpacked, put together scuba gear, read, got to know the other divers, ate several wonderful meals, watched videos from the extensive collection, and caught up on our sleep.  Most people used some kind of seasickness medication; once out at Cocos the Sea Hunter was anchored in flat water.

 We arrived at Cocos Island about 4:30 A.M. Thursday morning. The two pangas were already lowered from the sundeck before our 7:00 breakfast, after which tanks were loaded and we were on our way to our “check-out” dive at Manuelita.  Here’s what we saw on our “check-out” dive:  dozens of hammerheads, dozens of marbled rays, lobsters, a turtle, and numerous schools of fish—not bad!

 The routine for the seven days of diving was fairly consistent—breakfast at 7:00 A.M., dive #1 at 8:00, snack, dive #2 at 11:00, sumptuous lunch, dive #3 at 3:00 P.M., snack, dusk/night dive at 6:00, sumptuous dinner with killer dessert at 7:00.  Soft drinks and cookies were always available; beer and wine were extra.  After supper we read, watched a video, talked or crashed for the night.  One evening we had a barbecue on the sundeck, with music and dancing—Mario the divemaster can really move!  Some of us explored the ranger station on Cocos Island one afternoon and took a short hike across the way cool swinging bridge.  Ocean kayaks are also available.

 The diving at Cocos is definitely worth the long boat ride and the cost.  We saw hammerheads on all but three day-time dives, marbled rays doing their mating dance (30 males following one female), dozens of white-tip sharks either resting on the bottom or having a feeding frenzy, two dozen or more lobsters in one crack, manta rays, eagle rays, mobula rays, turtles, silvertip sharks, black-tip sharks, silky sharks, huge schools of jacks, dolphins, etc.—whew!  There were more fish and critters packed into a small area than anywhere else we’ve been.  There was plenty of smaller stuff, too, but we didn’t have time to look at it!  This was not what you’d call “relaxed” diving—it was a thrill a minute.

 Between dives and during the panga rides, we watched for things like bait balls and whale sharks, which unfortunately we didn’t spot.  We did spot David Hasselhoff (Baywatch and Knight Rider fans know who he is) filming on the Aggressor, and the pirate ship-looking Sea Shepherd, a more radical offshoot of Greenpeace, was patrolling, looking for illegal long-line fishing boats, which they found.  The Ecuadorian skiffs were brought back to their mother boat and the crew was put under guard by the Cocos Island rangers while they waited for the coast guard to arrive.  We took pictures of many dead hammers, marlin, and sailfish lying in the skiffs—very sad.

 It was time to leave after seven full days of awesome diving; the pangas were returned to the sundeck immediately after our last 3:00 P.M. dive, the anchor was brought up and we were on our way back to Puntarenas.  As a final farewell, a large pod of dolphins rode our bow wave for nearly an hour, taking turns leaping out of the water, until one by one they left, finally leaving us on our own.  We arrived back at Puntarenas at midnight, anchoring in the bay until 6:00 A.M.  We departed the Sea Hunter about 8:00 A.M., after a last breakfast.  Those of us heading straight home were taken to the airport, and the others were then dropped at various hotels to continue their Costa Rican adventures.  We arrived back in Pittsburgh after uneventful, on-time flights, already planning our next trip back to Cocos Island!