Blue Whale in Costa Rica
October 30th, 2012
My girlfriend Yasmin and I, along with my partner at Anamaya, Joseph Mikrut, went for a day’s dive at Caño Island, which is just north of the Osa Peninsula, with Uvita dive company “Mad About Diving”. We were taking a break from the Envision Festival to explore the area a bit, and the Island had been a place I’d been wanting to go diving at ever since I read about it while researching the best scuba spots in Costa Rica for this website. And since then, many people had recommended the diving here.
I had been working on this scuba diving website and had never heard of them, because their excellent website, while beautiful and full of information, doesn’t come up easily in searches. This goes to show the importance of SEO - Search Engine Optimization. But luckily for Mad, their dive shop is very well position so you can’t miss it.
It had rained hard the day before and was still sprinkling when we arrived at their office at 7am. Joseph even suggested to them that if they needed to cancel the dive, it was okay with him and we could try the next day. But, the divemaster Pablo assured us that the diving would be good and the ride out shouldn’t be too rough. He was right on both counts.
Their office is very close to the beach, and we were able to walk there after getting all our gear sized and packed. Pablo’s team carried everything for us so we just had to take our personal belongings and walk to the water’s edge. The boat was beached there and large waves were crashing around us. It was very exciting getting onto the boat and seeing how they timed the wave sets to zoom out so that we wouldn’t get swamped by a big one. Obviously they were pros and did this every day, but for us it was pretty thrilling to experience.
The ride to the island was cold… eighty minutes at high speed with light rain and clouds. The darkest sky and clouds was hovering over Caño Island, so we seemed to be riding right into the heart of the storm. Joseph put on his wetsuit to help him stay warm, and we took turns blocking the wind so poor skinny Yasmin would be too miserable. It turned out that despite the rain and clouds, the diving (and the entire experience) was great, and I would recommend this trip to others who may be in Uvita or Dominical and looking for something to do on such a day, when hanging out on the beach isn’t ideal.
We hoped to see some whales, dolphins, or manta rays, but didn’t see any of the large pelagics that the area is known for. Eventually, we arrived at the dark sandy beach on the island, which was incredibly lush and beautiful. I had expected it to be covered with sugarcane, because of its name, but it turns out that Caño also means springs of water. Apparently early sailors and pirates used the island as a freshwater source, which I found surprising due to its relatively small size.
After checking in at the ranger station, we went for our first dive, which was almost immediately one of the best experiences of my life. There were four of us divers with some experience, but only I had more than 20 dives. We dropped down to about 12-14 meters and waited while Pablo held the hands of two first-time divers doing the “discovery dive” program. After they reached the bottom, we headed towards the reef and just about the first thing we saw was an incredibly huge fish, which Pablo later told us was called a “Goliath Sea Bass” It was longer than any of us and most have weighed 500-600 pounds! I had never seen a fish that big except once when I was a kid at Sea World in California.
Pablo told us that there are two of these that they know about, but they’re rarely seen. I’ve done some research online and haven’t been able to figure out what species this really is. No “goliath sea bass” is listed, but it seems instead to be a Pacific Goliath Grouper which is said to live in this part of the ocean and grow up to 800 pounds. I’m just very happy they have a sanctuary such as this island to live in without being fished.
Even more info on Goliath Sea Bass is here.
Note: this video wasn’t from our dive, but one I found on YouTube from another group that visited the same spot.
In addition to the giant fish, there were very impressive schools of fish all around. It’s amazingly fun to swim inside these dense groups. The fish move out of your way, always just inches out of reach.
Everywhere we looked, there were sharks. We saw dozens of them, nearly continually so that I actually started ignoring them after a while. They were hanging out on the sandy bottom, apparently sleeping. Whoever said that sharks have to keep swimming or they die hasn’t been here. I wasn’t worried about them biting me except for the fact that they were so common I was worried about bumping into one of them by accident and making it angry.
We saw many sting rays, including one that was very active and huge, seeming to be about 1.6 - 1.8 meters across the body, with a tail even longer. This one was very active, swimming in various arcs and vertically, almost acting as if was going to make a loop-de-loop. It came right next to us many times, and like that giant grouper, it wasn’t afraid of divers at all. I suppose that with the huge number of divers coming here every day, these big animals get quite accustomed to us.
I finally also saw something that I had been wanting to see, and had overlooked on previous dives… garden eels! There was a spot with many dozens of them on the sandy bottom, hanging outside of their holes like small hooks, waiting for a bite to eat. As I approached, they would disappear into the sand.
By the time of our second dive, the drizzle had completely stopped and the sky was a bit brighter. We once again saw many of the same animals, but no giant grouper. Apparently that was a very rare experience. Pablo said that after hundreds of dives there, he had only seen one of these beasts four times. So we were extremely lucky and that may have been a once-in-a-lifetimes experience for me.
The ride back was warmer since it was early afternoon and there wasn’t any rain. Landing on the beach was the same experience as launching, but in reverse, and equally exciting. They backed the boat onto sand, timing it perfectly with the sets.
In all, Caño Island was all that everyone had said it would be… lots of fish and big ones… an incredibly beautiful experience that I would recommend to anyone who loves the scuba, snorkeling and the ocean.
Written by Geoff McCabe. He is the CEO of Anamaya Resort, and a big fan of scuba diving, which is offered from is resort in Montezuma, Costa Rica. You can find him on Google+.