Eighth, Best, and Final Day at Cocos Island and travel back to San Jose, Costa Rica July 7 (and 9th), 2016

7/7/2016

Final day of diving.  The island saved the best for last.  Our first dive of the day was a return to Dirty Rock – lots of hammerheads and I got my best shots of the trip.  The second dive was Outside Manuelita and we had lots of hammerheads, some close, and were visited again by a very large Tiger Shark which is clearly resident to the Manuelita Island neighborhood.  I finally got some decent shots of the Tiger.  Our final dive was Manuelita Coral Garden where Jerry Wyss and I parked and waited and were finally rewarded with a couple hammerhead visits and another visit by the same big (14 ft or so) Tiger Shark.

Dirty Rock - the last time there was the best

    At last, confident Scalloped Hammerheads.  They were focused on getting cleaned at cleaner stations.  Sharks love to approach from your blind side, this being an example.

      Beautiful Scalloped Hammerhead

    Scalloped Hammerhead with Ryder.

To see more pictures from this great dive at Dirty Rock please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6307216680256110449?authkey=CIS975zy3La6YQ

Manuelita Outside, also the last time was the best!

    A large Dog Snapper and a Scalloped Hammerhead

   Scalloped Hammerhead with a White Tipped Reef Shark

                                  A huge, menacing Tiger Shark approaches - I called it 14 ft, others said 15, 16, 18 ft....

    What an amazing beauty.  No wonder no one sees Sea Turtles at Cocos anymore!

      The Tiger has stripes!

    Another beautiful Scalloped Hammerhead with Creole fish in the foreground.

To see still more shark pictures from this wonderful dive please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6307317855018788593?authkey=CNmg0sGq8NaQGQ

Final Dive, Manuelita Island Coral Garden.  Jerry Wyss and I staked out an area and spent about 50 minutes there.  We were eventually rewarded with visits from a Hammerhead and our resident 14 ft Tiger Shark.

    The Tiger was nearly invisible until he got quite close.  I'm concerned that some diver will eventually get munched by this shark as it gets more and more accustomed to divers.

                                 Two trumpet fish and a grouper hunting together.

                                          Sea Hunter in Chatham Bay, we departed for Puntarena soon after finishing our final dive arriving there about 36 hours later.  The return trip was quite calm.  What a great boat, what a great crew, and what a great island!

    Beautiful colors at sunset in a cloudy sky as we head for Puntarena.

                      Rudy took us to "The Crocodile Bridge" on our drive back to San Jose.  Check out the butterflies.  I flew home the next day.

What a fantastic trip, it totally met and exceeded my expectations!