Cocos and Malpelo – MV Sea Hunter – July 2008
by Charlie Stewart

Nothing can ever really perpare you for finally seeing, in person, the things that you have only ever seen on nature documentaries before.

Moving off Manuelita Outside reef, towards the end of our dive, we ascended up into the blue. Wilson, our dive guide, was pointing furiously ahead. It could only mean one thing – more hammerheads! Even though we had just been watching hammerheads, in abundance, on the reef, as the shadows before us materialised into a massive wall of these amazing creatures, the vision still took my breath away.

For most of us, hammerhead sharks were the reason we had travelled to Costa Rica and then sailed some further 470 miles off the coast, into the Pacific Ocean.
We had spent four days diving at Malpelo, a rocky island, south west of Columbia. Malpelo was to give us a taster of hammerheads. Although not in the abundance we were to find at Cocos, it was still exciting to have our first glimpses, including the vague outline of a school. As well as hammerheads, we had a close encounter with silkies at the end of an amazing dive at a site called Escuba. We got used to the numerous moray eels, both free-swimming and hidden amongst the rocks. Our Malpelo experience was completed with a sighting of some humpback whales on the surface, which some of our group managed to do a quick snorkel with.

Having taken forty two hours to get to Malpelo, we then set sail for Cocos, some forty hours (and a further 390 miles) away. The time was filled with reading, eating, scrabble, eating and watching various Cocos based documentaries and ….eating! The documentaries raised the excitement levels even more and one group had to absorb themselves in intensive games of canasta to keep themselves calm.

On the 8th July we woke to find ourselves anchored in Chatham Bay. Our bleary eyes adjusted to the beautiful sight of Cocos Island, covered in a lush, green, tropical rainforest. Here we were, in paradise with the water beckoning us. We were given a specific briefing regarding our diving here and soon were kitted up and on our way in the skiff, to our first Cocos dive.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats, the show is about to begin’! Our briefing made it clear to descend to the reef and position ourselves behind the huge rocks, close to the cleaning stations, being careful not to get a Costa Rican tattoo from the numerous sea urchins. This passive position encouraged the hammerheads to come closer when they were being cleaned. Small yellow barberfish got busy cleaning the parasites off the hammerheads. And the sharks arrived in huge numbers! Like a good massage, this cleaning process left them in a trance like state and somewhat oblivious to our presence, which made for good picture taking. The mating scars, on their dorsal fins and flanks, could be clearly seen. When they came to and spotted the papparazzi, they shot off. The hammerheads were everywhere and never failed to disappoint. Could we ever become blasé with repeated sightings? No, for me, their presence, whether a fleeting glimpse or being surrounded by a huge school, always demanded my utmost attention, each and every time!

Quite often, when we were in position, we would have whitetips lounging very close to us. How funny that the briefest sighting of a whitetip in the Red Sea can create an enormous buzz and yet, here we were, in Cocos, practically ignoring them. We made up for our lack of interest by doing a couple of night dives to watch them hunting with big black trevallies. Suddenly we were captivated and ultimately, very careful! We hung several meters above them as they went in for the kill and then we moved back another meter or so as all hell broke lose in the most extrodinary feeding frenzy.

In contrast, and as if to worship at an altar, we settled at 10m on the sandy bottom at Silverado. Staring at this huge rock our wait was eventually rewarded with two very big silvertip sharks which had come to the cleaning station. They circled the rock for some ten minutes and their passes got closer and closer, which got our pulses racing just a little. With the show over we then went along the seabed searching for what can best be described as a tired old tranny with too much lippy – the endemic rosy-lipped batfish walks, instead of swimming, and even stops for pictures…..that’s right, just like a tired old trannny!

Although, for me, the hammerheads were undoubtedly the stars of Cocos, there was still a huge amount to see and experience besides. I ticked off many firsts, including a juvenile tiger shark, galapagos sharks, mobula rays, marbled rays, amazing schools of horse-eyed jacks, curious mexican hogfish, starry morays, tiger reef eels, and leather bass. There was also an abundance of pufferfish and chinese trumpetfish. I could go on!
The Seahunter Crew were excellent – feeding us some of the best food I have ever had on a liveaboard (Sashimi, anyone?!), looking after our safety, and making every dive special. We became part of Wilson’s extended family (or so he told us).
I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather have been for my 300th dive than on Alcyone reef in Cocos, with schooling hammerheads!
And, on an amusing note, one dive that was never going to happen, was when, as gay men, we were told to look for boobies, which should have led us to a baitball! Alas, no!

We had been out in the Pacific for fourteen days and, as we set sail for Puntarenas, it was with a certain sadness that we watched the beautiful, but fragile, Cocos Island dispappear below the horizon. Each day, their twenty five mile fishing exclusion zone is violated, specifically for the barbaric shark finning industry.
I can only hope that, when I return, in the near future, this vunerable World Heritage Site has not been damaged any further and that Cocos, the jewel in Costa Rica’s crown, continues to enthrall divers as much as it did me.

Thank you to everyone who shared this experience with me. I hope to go again in 2010 – watch this space. But, for now…. pura vida!