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Scuba Forum / General / March 2004Good diving locations in Central America
I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any diving there. I hear that Roatan (Bay Islands) is very nice and was wondering if there are any other places which are worthwhile such as Panama etc. Thanks, Sy  SignaturePlease post and reply to sytech@yahoo.com > I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any > diving there. > I hear that Roatan (Bay Islands) is very nice and was wondering if > there are any other places which are worthwhile such as Panama etc. How about the Colombian Island of 'San Andres'? http://www.scubasanandres.com/ http://www.diversdream.com/english/sai.html http://www.scubasanandres.com/ http://www.san-andres.com/ Greetz, *hmz?* > > I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any > > diving there. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > *hmz?* > > > I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any > > > diving there. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > > > *hmz?* Whoops. Sorry folks I had this saved for my own info an accidentally sent it back to rec.scuba. > I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any > diving there. > > I hear that Roatan (Bay Islands) is very nice and was wondering if > there are any other places which are worthwhile such as Panama etc. Only a little island named Cocos. Some of the best diving around IMO. Buck [[ This message was both posted and mailed: see the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]] The only "Cocos" I could find is near Australia. Are there othere "Cocos"? > > I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any > > diving there. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Buck SignaturePlease post and reply to sytech@yahoo.com Coco Island, off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Only diveable through a liveaboard. Some of the greatest diving in the world. One of the operators has a web site at http://www.costaricaetravel.com/adivingcoco.htm . Very expensive. RM > [[ This message was both posted and mailed: see > the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]] [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Buck > [[ This message was both posted and mailed: see > the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]] [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Buck I'm sorry, I didn't see your reply, but I see that it was answered. Cocos, 300+ miles off of the coast of Costa Rica, is a wonderful place to dive. I wouldn't recommend it to novices due to chop and current, but we had some divers with only 200-300 dives who managed pretty well. This is the spot for large animals. Schools of hammerheads, silkies, spinner dolphins, tuna, bait balls, mantas ( we swam with a friendly one for an hour), marble rays, and the everpresent whitetips provide nice entertainment. We were not there at the right time of year, but whale sharks are common as well. Enjoy, if you get the opportunity. Buck > The only "Cocos" I could find is near Australia. That's the Keeling Cocos, in the Indian Ocean, much better known to non-scuba divers: http://www.dotrs.gov.au/terr/cocos/index.htm > Are there othere "Cocos"? Isla del Cocos, the uninhibited island 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica is the one much better known to scuba divers. Schooling hammerheads by the hundreds, marble rays, blacktip sharks are the main attractions. On the Okeanos Aggressor, it's about a 30-36 hour journey (one-way) of very rough crossing. -- Bob. Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com (Reef Fish) pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: :On the Okeanos Aggressor, it's about a 30-36 hour journey (one-way) :of very rough crossing. When I did it, the water was like glass, much to my delight. Dan Bracuk If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ > Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com (Reef Fish) pounded away at his > keyboard resulting in: [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. > The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ Consider yourself lucky. Our crossing was just as Reef Fish states, except one engine went on the fritz and it took 38 hours to get there. My wife was praising the maker of Scopolomine patches. > > Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com (Reef Fish) pounded away at his > > keyboard resulting in: > > :On the Okeanos Aggressor, it's about a 30-36 hour journey (one-way) > > :of very rough crossing. > > > > When I did it, the water was like glass, much to my delight. I'll have to go do some searching in groups.google.com to see if anyone else had ever said that crossing was 'smooth'. > Consider yourself lucky. Our crossing was just as Reef Fish states, except > one engine went on the fritz and it took 38 hours to get there. My wife was > praising the maker of Scopolomine patches. On my 1992 trip (report still in the archives), the Scop patch lasted all of 8 hours, and I spent the rest of the time feeding fish (on what's left of the chum <BG>). The mascot on the boat, the parrot, was sich as a dog, and apparently suffered that fate on every trip. NBC Dateline did a 10-minute section Special on Cocos diving on the Okeanos Aggressor (I not only had a tape of it, but 30 minutes of out takes given to me by Wayne Hasson) which featured a couple of New England lawyers on their honeymoon. For my sea-sickness on crossing, as soon as the boat stops, I am good as new. But for that lady lawyer, she was in bed the first few days after the boat got to Coco, and didn't do any dive until much later in the week, and her remark was, "it was worth EVERY bit of it, the sea sickness, the suffering ..." to have dived with the hammerheads. I would have gone back every year if not for the LONG and ROUGH CROSSING that has become the trademark of the trip. It wasn't until 2000 that I did the trip again, armed with the strongest motion sickness pill I know -- not yet approved for use in the USA, but available in Europe and Mexico -- Sturgeron fort (medical ingredient cinnerisin -- with varied spellings). It worked wonders, for the first 24 hours. :-) And I was sick as a dog again. Again, as soon as the boat stopped, I was ready to dive! I think that trip report is in the archives too. I think Dan probably was dreaming about his crossing to the OTHER Cocos in the Indian Ocean. <g> With his LUCK, he would be buying lottery tickets instead of doing on dive trips! -- Bob. > > > Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com (Reef Fish) pounded away at his > > > keyboard resulting in: [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] > > -- Bob. Another medicine that works great and IS available in the USA is Zofran. We use it to help nausea in chemotherapy patients, but it works well for any type of nausea. The wife has made many dives while using Zofran without problems, although anecdotal. The trip to Cocos is worth it in my opinion. It's not a trip that I would do every year due to the long crossing, but then again it takes forever to reach Truk, Palau and PNG by jet. Six one way, a half-dozen the other. Sounds like you had quite a dive in Cozumel. I've seen a lot of critters there, but not on one dive like you did. Buck "Randy Buckner" <Randybuckner@att.net> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: :The trip to Cocos is worth it in my opinion. It's not a trip that I would :do every year due to the long crossing, but then again it takes forever to :reach Truk, Palau and PNG by jet. Six one way, a half-dozen the other. Can't speak for PNG but, for Palau and Truk, once you land and get on the boat, you don't have a 36 hour boat trip to get to the dive sites. Plus, when I went to Cocos, we spent a couple of days in San Jose coming and going because of boat schedules vs airline schedules. Then there is the bus ride to and from the coast. It is a nice trip though. Dan Bracuk If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ > "Randy Buckner" <Randybuckner@att.net> pounded away at his keyboard > resulting in: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Dan Bracuk Yep, the bus trip to Puntarenas is a trip in itself. We dove off of the Okeanos. I hear that the Sea Hunter is a better boat, but the Okeanos had the basics which is all that I needed. The currents there could be a hoot at times. Buck > > For my sea-sickness on crossing, as soon as the boat stops, I am good > > as new. But for that lady lawyer, she was in bed the first few days [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > I would have gone back every year if not for the LONG and ROUGH CROSSING > > that has become the trademark of the trip. > The trip to Cocos is worth it in my opinion. It's not a trip that I would > do every year due to the long crossing, but then again it takes forever to > reach Truk, Palau and PNG by jet. Six one way, a half-dozen the other. I would do it EVERY YEAR, as I do the Cayman Aggressor every year (except 1996) since 1990. The only deterrant is the long ROUGH crossing, not the time it takes to get there. For us East Coasters, a 30-hour trip to get to a Pacific dive location is NOTHING! It takes that long to get to Palau, Cairns (the GBR), and a few others. The longest return trip I ever had was Sydney -- Cairns -- Guam -- Honolulu -- Los Angeles -- Houston -- Atlanta, with 1-2 hour stop at each airport to change planes. The total FLIGHT time was about 30 hours. But I got a lot of Frequent Flyer Miles out of it. :0)) The Coco's trip is as gruelling in total travel hours, because we have to stay overnight in San Jose (Costa Rica), take the 3-4 hour bus ride to Puncharina (sp?) to board the boat BEFORE the 30-hour crossing. -- Bob. > Only a little island named Cocos. Some of the best diving around IMO. I think everyone agrees with the diving part. Geographically, it belongs to Costa Rica, but it's an uninhabited island 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, completely inaccessible except by liveaboard boats and fishing or private boats. Divingwise, I always associated it with Melpelo (250 miles off Colombia of South America) and Galapagos (Ecuador) because of their similarities in high current diving and hammerheads! http://www.underseahunter.com/ Cocos, Melpelo, and Galapagos are sometimes referred to as the Golden Triangle of hammerhead diving. -- Bob. > > Only a little island named Cocos. Some of the best diving around IMO. > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Cocos, Melpelo, and Galapagos are sometimes referred to as the Golden > Triangle of hammerhead diving. What shape do you get if you stretch your polygon to include the seamounts off La Paz (El Bajo)? I have dived in Roatan and it is wonderful diving! The other places in Central America pale by comparison, but of course every place does have its defenders. Panama is not the greatest place and I had some problems there. I tried diving on Isla Grande but the dive shop was closed, then tried Isla Taboga on the Pacific side and there the dive shop was closed too. The two more reliable areas of diving in Panama are the islands on the Caribbean side called Bocas del Toro and Isla Contadora off Panama City. But I wouldn't go to Panama or Costa Rica specifically for diving. If I were to go just for diving, I would go to the Bay Islands (Roatan, Utila and Guanaja) off the coast of Honduras or to Belize which also has great diving. Hilda > I have traveled throughout Central America but have never done any > diving there. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Sy Cozumel is easy to get to, very good and affordable. I thought Roatan was ok, but the sand flies there made my trip less enjoyable. Good luck finding a place! -sc |
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