The Diveblog

Kiss me sweetie!

 

The rosy-lipped batfish.

Shhhh......be vewy vewy quiet

The whitetips are hunting....anything.  Pack hunting by the whitetip reef sharks is a sight to behold.  They remind one of a pack of wild dogs, except without the social structure.  This is purely opportunistic and its every shark for himself!  The pics aren't great, because the sharks kick up a bunch of sand when they hunt.  Oh, they didn't let us night dive the site where this happens for the first half of the trip because this also happens to be the dive site where the tigers had taken up residence and the divemasters didn't want us in the water at night with the tigers.

 

 

Other Cocos Sealife

Every dive is so focused on the "big action" (i.e. sharks) that its sometimes easy to ignore the other wildlife in these very rich waters.  I think the other fish get used to being ignored, because I had them swimming right in my face sometimes.  Like this guy, who nearly bumped into my camera as I was waiting for hammerheads:

 

Normally, there are hundreds of marbled stingrays swimming about the Cocos sites, but they were making themselves scarce during our week.  I wonder of the tiger sharks had anything to do with it (they love eating stingrays).

 

More pics after the continuation 

 

 

Hammer Time

So after a couple of days swimming with the tigers, it was time for some hammerhead action.  Scalloped hammerheads gather into schools and come into Cocos for one reason, to get cleaned by the little barber fish.  Hammerheads get easily spooked by divers' bubbles, so the technique to get good photos or videos as follows:

Find a cleaning station....get close, but not too close...wedge yourself between a couple of rocks....every time a hammerhead comes in, hold your breath a hope he gets close enough for a shot before you pass out.  The second you exhale, it will bolt away.

Did I mention you need to do this in a current/surge with the bottom littered with sea urchins?  They call it a "Cocos tattoo" and most of us got nailed once or twice (right through the wetsuit).  Hurts like hell right when it happens, but the pain fades through the course of the dive and a little vinegar spritz when your back on the boat helps dissolve the spines over a day or two.

Anyway.....hammer time!  Its an awesome sight when they do the initial flyby:

 

 

 

And if you hold your breath long enough, you may get one to come in real close:

 

[breeeeeeeathe!]

 

Tigers at Cocos

So after a pretty smooth 35 hour crossing from Puntarenas to Cocos Island, we prepared to do a checkout dive on the shallow side of Manuelita Island.  Almost every dive charter begins with one of these dives to help the divers get the kinks out and make sure everything is OK.  These dives are almost universally shallow and generally boring.

We take the short boat ride out to Manuelita and as I'm getting into my gear one of the divemasters calls out "tigre!"  A tiger shark in Cocos!  That's when I realized that divers are probably the only people in the world who jump INTO the water when someone yells "shark".  You never saw a group of people suit up so quickly to get in the water.  Now, unless they are baited or chummed-in, tiger sharks are usually very skittish and will swim off as soon as the first divers enter the water, so I wasn't expecting to see it.  As I slid in, much to my surprise, there wasn't one tiger shark, but THREE!  Here's a shot of a pair.

 

So we spread out, settled in on the bottom (25ft) and enjoyed the show.  And they DID get close.....

 

Next dive, there were SEVEN in the water.  The divemasters were giddy.  They had never seen tiger sharks in Cocos waters before......and now there were seven!  The sharks stuck around for two days and we got four dives in with them.  It was a truly special time.....particularly because they weren't baited in or fed.  More pics after the continuation.

Costa Rica - La Selva Biological Station

I'm in the beautiful country of Costa Rica to dive Cocos Island from the Undersea Hunter.  Given the itinerary, I've got an extra day on the front end to do a little ecotourism.  We've chosen to go to La Selva Biological Station, mostly because it is an active research center and quite a different ecosystem (tropical rainforest) than what we will experience in the mountains at the end of the trip (more on that later).  Jesus was it hot and steamy.  I grew up in New Orleans, I thought I knew hot and humid, but I have never experienced it like THIS!  [.....that's why they call it the rainforest, dumbass!].  We were guided by a naturalist from the park who was instrumental in teaching us about the various flora and fauna.  Some pics

Leafcutter ants

Red dart frogs

More pics after the continuation

Next Trip is........Cozumel

Given the amount of grief that Katrina has caused me, I thought I would go full circle and visit the other area devastated by the bitch....Cozumel.

I've seen and heard mixed reports about Cozumel and look forward to providing first-hand reports and photos of the damage and recovery (both underwater and topside).

More to come later.

Wave Dancer Revisited

I was at the dive shop last weekend (due to my unfortunate golf accident, I'm reduced to being a dive shop groupie for now) and picked up a copy of Joe Burnworth's No Safe Harbor.  Its an account of the Wave Dancer tragedy that occurred in Belize during Hurricane Iris.  I posted on it in March when IMMARBE (the International Merchant Marine Registry of Belize) released its official report and conclusions on the accident.

It seems that the official report hasn't given the friends and family of the victims the answers they were seeking.  I can't say I blame them, given the lack of scrutiny the scuba press has given Peter Hughes Diving regarding the incident.  And now (to them) it seems like the official report glossed over the accident, as well.   The fact that Peter Hughes was allowed by the Belize authorities to resume diving operations with the Sun Dancer II within 3 months of the accident probably didn't sit well either.  Milly Armao has put together a website on the tragedy.  Check it out.  It poses some troubling questions.

I personally have no opinion regarding the Peter Hughes operation....I've never been on one of his boats.  I love liveaboard diving and will likely wind up on a Peter Hughes charter eventually.

As to why the scuba press and industry (except for Undercurrent) has ignored the incident?  That's an easy one folks....the dive industry is in deep financial trouble...dive shops are closing all over...manufacturers are losing wads of cash...and many resorts are often half full.  Beyond the obvious conflict of interest that has always existed between the dive mags and advertisers (when was the last time you read an honest resort review in a dive magazine?), the LAST thing the industry wants to call attention to are possible safety issues at one of its most visible operators.  They're desperately trying to get people INTO diving, not scare them away.

I'll post a review of the book when I'm done.

Belize Advisory

For those of you travelling to Belize soon, you should be keeping an eye of the following situation (link):

The tiny Central American nation of Belize, rich in jungle and coral reefs, is in its worst crisis since independence from Britain in 1981 with riots, looting and strikes testing the government.

Best known for its world-class scuba diving and Mayan ruins in dense jungle, Belize has been thrown into turmoil by a telephone workers' strike, power outages and opposition calls for the government to step down.

Army troops and police are patrolling the streets after youths rioted and looted businesses late last week in Belize City, the largest town in this country of 270,000 people.

Maldives Reef Report

Reuters reports that Australian scientists, in coordination with the government of the Maldives have completed an assessment of the tsunami damage to the coral reefs of the Maldives.  In summary:

The coral reefs of the Maldives, backbone of the island nation's tourism-dependent economy, survived the Dec. 26 tsunami virtually unscathed...

The scientists also inspected 19 inhabited and uninhabited islands and found that, despite significant damage to buildings, the tsunami had had little impact on reef flats, islands and beaches.

All good news, especially since the Maldives are on the "must dive before I die" list.  I can't find the actual report online yet.

Reefbase seems to also be accumulating tsunami reef impact field reports here.