By the time you read this we will be hundreds of miles off the coast of Costa Rica on board a live aboard dive boat called the M/V Argo (operated by Undersea Hunter) in the Pacific Ocean near Cocos Island National Park where, with any luck, we will find ourselves in the water surrounded by hammerhead sharks.

Cocos Island, Costa Rica

Cocos Island, an uninhabited island and national park 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica. © copyright by Undersea Hunter Group

Cocos Island is the largest uninhabited island in the world and one of the most remote national parks in the world. The island is mostly rainforest covered (the only rainforest in the Pacific) and boasts more than 300 waterfalls, some plunging directly into the ocean.

Waterfall at Cocos Island

There are more than 300 waterfalls on Cocos Island, some of them plunging directly into the Pacific.  © copyright by Undersea Hunter Group

Cocos Island is also said to be the site of buried treasure, perhaps as much as a billion dollars worth. Pirates used Cocos as a sort of bank before the Costa Rican government took it over in the late 1800s. A few people have actually managed to get permission to search the island for the treasure—one man spent 19 years and millions of dollars but couldn’t find a penny.

Jurassic Park is said to have been based on a landscape inspired by Cocos Island. Treasure Island may have also been based on Cocos Island. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Cocos Island three times and Jacques Cousteau called Cocos “the most beautiful island in the world” then he carved some graffiti into a rock on the shore and left.

MV Argo - Undersea Hunter

Our home for 10 days, the M/V Argo live aboard dive boat. © copyright by Undersea Hunter

That’s all well and good but what we’re interested in are what dive geeks call pelagics–large rays and sharks. The waters around Cocos Island have the densest concentration of large marine predators including silky sharks, Galapagos sharks, reef sharks and more hammerheads than anywhere else in the world. Enormous manta rays and whale sharks are also seen here.

School of Hammerhead sharks

We hope to be in the midst of a school of hammerheads like this during dives around Cocos Island in Costa Rica.  © copyright by Avi Klapfer

As if that’s not enough adrenaline, we may also get a submarine ride in the Undersea Hunter DeepSee submersible which takes two people at a time down to depths of 300, 700, or even 1,000 feet. It’s darker down there and the marine life gets weirder and weirder the deeper you go.

DeepSee - Undersea Hunter

In search of even deeper creatures in the DeepSee submersible.  © copyright by Undersea Hunter

Here’s a video about Cocos Island from the UNESCO YouTube channel.

Here’s more about travel in Costa Rica

 

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