Last dive day

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Yes, I know I am writing this on July 19--40 days later. But I am still on the Pacific coast, just a little further up the coast. At 45oN, to be precise (in Oregon). But I need to finish the travelogue before I forget the last trip in the excitement of the current.
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I wake up and make coffee in my room. Eat a little something in my room and check email and Facebook. Gather my mask, but leave my camera behind. I figure I've taken the photos I can from the deck of the boat on previous dive days. Walk down to the beach.

The familiar boat meets me but with a new divemaster. Also, a new diver. He is French and new to diving. We head north a bit to a new dive site, for me. It is in a cove half-way to Monkey Head. I am comfortable and gear up and go in while the divemaster helps the new diver. This dive site has terrible visibility--maybe 5 meters. Maybe less. Still, any dive is good and we see a few fish.

For the second dive, we go back to the Tortugas dive site right out front of Coco. Better visibility, by far. Nice dive. Highlight was a sea turtle that let us watch him for several minutes, and a pair of white-tipped reef sharks that also tolerated our watching them for many minutes. I really wanted my underwater camera! I could have taken some good shots of each. Visibility was good, and they were shallow enough for natural light.

We went back to the beach. I walked back up the block and a half to the hotel and showered. I checked email and Facebook, then walked to the dive shop in town to pay my dive bill with a credit card. I walked about town a little, then took a nap back at the hotel.

I walk down to the beach to take photos of the sunset and to eat dinner. I find I am craving company and so go wherever there are people. Especially female people.



I chat with retired men from the U.S. who live in Coco. They like it, and find it affordable. One man, from Colorado, says he lives on US$1800/month. He paid cash for a condo he bought after selling his home in Denver (pre-real estate crash). No car. Rarely travels back to the U.S. Basically happy, and has made friends in Coco. He budgets for three visits with a prostitute per week.

About 10 pm, I went out on the town. Saturday night is the big party night in Coco. The previous Saturday, I had just arrived after a long day of travel and so turned in early. This was my last Saturday night and I wanted to see and experience it all.

I went to one packed night club and met a very, very friendly lady. She made me an offer to do amazing things for just US$100. Mind you, the world's oldest profession is legal and regulated in Costa Rica. Arguably, I should have taken her up on the proposition and chalked it up to "research" on an economically important part of the tourism industry.

Instead I fled in terror to the nightclub across the street. Where I promptly ran into a pair (two!) ladies offering a package deal. Wow! I said, uh, lets just dance. So, I danced with the ladies. Then the lady from the nightclub across the street saw me (remember, I am very tall and so literally stand, or rather dance, a head above everybody else on the floor) and joined our threesome. So now I'm dancing with three well-dressed ladies. There is a pole in the center of the dance floor and soon I have dance partners above me, next to me, and below me. I am not much of a dancer but am having a rather jolly time.

So, do I continue the research? No! I run fleeing into the night. I'm sure the long-suffering wife back home is relieved that I sleep alone, yet again.

Monkey Head

Thursday, June 7



Great diving day. I woke up having slept well, presumably after the hard workout on the bicycle the previous day pedalling down the coast line to Playa Ocotal and Bahia Pez Vella. I wanted to see the beautiful coast from the shore which I had seen from the dive boat on Tuesday. Those hills were killer. I walked the bike up most hills and coasted down, my foot on the brake all the way. Hard work.

After breakfast at the hotel (scrambled eggs and fresh fruit was now my staple), I gathered my gear and walked down the block and a half to the beach. The Deep Blue dive boat, Marisol, was there with the same crew as the previous day: Antonio the captain and Owen the divemaster. We waited for another couple. Owen called, using his cell phone, the dive shop and they tried the couple's hotel. No luck. At 8:30 am we left without them.

Our destination: Monkey Head, one of the more famous dive sites in this area. The source of the name is obvious from my photo, above. From the east (shore-side), it looks like a colossal gorilla head rising from the sea. The cacti give it a spike hair style. It is located right off the Papagoya Peninsula where the Four Seasons resort is located. This was significant to me as we learned about tourism development on the Papagoya Peninsula on the first day of our Sustainability seminar in Monteverde. Now I got to see it from sea level.

First dive site was (I think) Viadora, a low island between Monkey Head and the Papagoya tip:


Basically we descended ~10 meters on the east (shore, shallow) side and circled around counter-clockwise. Dive boat met us where we ascended ~20 meters on the outside. Decent visibility (10-12 m?). Fish, moray eels, rays. Mostly fish.

Surface interval was devoted to--fishing. I also enjoyed the views and took pity (really) on how the 1% live:


I knew I was having more fun!

Second dive was Monkey Head itself. We descended on the east (shallow) side again, and again made out way counter-clockwise. Same good visibility and fish life. Highlight was a couple of sea turtles. First was a large green resting on the bottom in about 20 meters of water. Let us get fairly close to watch. Minutes later we came upon a Hawksbill turtle and watched as he slowly ascended to take a breathe at the surface. Fun to see them from below, backlit by the sunny surface above.

More fishing on the second surface interval, starting off Papagoya:

I kept my eyes out for bird action from the bow:

Notice how flat the sea surface was. I grew up fishing the Pacific Ocean, in the 1970s off the coast of Oregon. I don't remember ever seeing the sea up there this flat. Owen agreed that this was unusually calm. Surfers, take note: Costa Rica does not always have great surf.

Eventually we saw some good bird action and headed the boat right through it on several passes. Not one strike! Owen said it was good he was a diver as he'd starve as a fisherman.

Third and final dive site of the day was Tortuga:

as these islands are right off the shore in front of Playas del Coco. Did not see sea turtles here, but did see some nice white-tipped sharks. An over-all great dive, and great day of diving. I loved having the boat to myself! At the last dive site there were two other dive boats from Coco but underwater it still felt like we were alone.

We then headed back to El Coco:

Headed back up the road to the hotel. Arranged for horse riding for Friday. Showered and worked. Walked back to the beach for dinner. Was too tired from diving to join in the volleyball game but was tempted:

Watched another sunset at what is becoming my favourite beach anywhere:

Pacific

Tuesday, June 5

I am still nervous from the first day of classes and so don't sleep well. Wake up repeatedly trying to remember what errors I made. Can't think of any.

Get up with the sun, make coffee and log in to see what happened in my online classes while I was sleeping. Not much, but not nothing. Some students have crazy schedules and so make time for class at the oddest hours. Doesn't matter to me--I'm happy for all of them.

Breakfast of scrambled eggs and fruit, to order. I seem to be the only guest so the breakfast buffet has turned into breakfast to order. Fine by me. After eating, I grab my mask. I bought my dive mask in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize 11 years ago after mine was stolen. It was the only one that fit. Upon use, I loved it. Absolute best mask I have ever tried on. Super low profile makes clearing trivial, and wide range of view. Simple. Cheap. Cannot understand why all dive masks are not built like this one, but I have not found another like it and so carry it with me whenever I might dive.

Walk down the road two blocks to the beach, where Deep Blue has a boat waiting for me in the surf. Wade out into the gentle waves and hop on board from the stern, by the outboard motor. Nice boat, with a center console and a sun shade. Tanks down the middle between benches. Basic and functional. We set out across the water. I look back to see the cove out from Playas del Coco:

We head out to sea, then south down the coast to another cove, near Playas Ocotal where there is a colossal resort. We pick up a cute young couple who signed up for their introductory open-water SCUBA lesson.

They did the classroom and swimming-pool portion of their training at home in Buffalo, New York. They do more on board as we head out and then further south:

Our first dive site was around this low island:

The dive instructor has his students to care for so my divemaster and I back-roll off and descend. This is my first-ever dive in the Pacific so I am a little nervous. Water is a little colder than the Caribbean off Belize where I dove two weeks earlier (and for a dozen years prior). but not enough to be a nuisance. Visibility is much lower. About 10 meters or so. not bad, but I am used to 3x that in Belize. Also, the landscape is dominated by the volcanic rocks, not the reef-forming hard corals of the Belize barrier reef, which is justly famous world-wide. and finally, the fish! All are kind of familiar, but not quite. The Panama isthmus formed about 3 million years, which has been enough time for speciation by vicariance. As in, same genus, different species. Repeat over and over. As a zoologist, I loved it!

On the surface interval, the instructor continues his lesson while my divemaster goes fishing:

By dive skills, I'm happy to report, were fine. Good buoyancy, low air useage, stayed calm. We say some sharks (white-tipped; one group of three small ones and another of two medium-sized). Divemaster asked by hand signals if I was OK. Yes, of course--I love sharks! They are cool. I'm not afraid of sharks. I appreciate and respect them.

I took some snapshots of the young couple on their camera and they returned the favour with mine:
if you call that a "favour." Pretty bad case of mask face.

Our second dive site was here:

just explored around the base of these rocks, down to 75 feet or so. There is a bit of a thermocline around 65 feet or so.

After that, we returned the couple to their resort, and then headed back up the coast to Coco. Some some isolated beaches I wanted to see from the land, and would the next day by bicycle. This is one:

Took a few more photographs of the boats in the cove as we approached. This one includes a faux pirate ship for tourist cruises:

As we got closer, I took some snapshots of the brown pelicans:

All too son, they dropped me off on the beach where they had picked me up in the surf at 8 am. I walked back up the road to my hotel:

I took a shower to get the salt off and then logged in to my online classes and worked until sunset. Actually, missed the sunset.