A week ago Georgia and I went up to Playa del Coco, a little town right in the north western part of Costa Rica. I had been there about 6 years ago and this time I had athe perfect excuse to return...a PADI member forum. We headed off in our rental car armed with plenty of driving tunes and diet coke (and of course our diving gear squeezed in the back...just in case!!).
Afer 4 hours we arrived in Coco and decided to stop and meet some of the dive centers in Playa del Coco. Our first stop was Rich Coast Diving, where we were welcomed by Martin and Brenda, they run a fab dive center and are really friendly and knowledgable too. We also visited Diving Safaris, run by Earl and Bobby Jo, who run a great dive school in Playa Hermosa, just a hope skip and a jump from Playa del Coco.
The day after the meeting (and a few post meeting rums and beers with our new firends!) Georgia and I headed over to Playa Panama to go diving. There were about 10 divers including us, and that was spilt up in to 2 groups. Tracey was our
Divemaster, though after explaining the site she let pretty much do our own thing. Our first site was Cabeza de Mono, or Monkey head...which is a rock that looks like King Kong. There was a ripping current so we headed down the line, What a great dive!! we first spotted a giant turtle and then eagle ray after eagle ray appeared. Schools of fish cirlced and we played witht he wide angle lense, loosing track of the other divers. We wqere nearing our 60 minute dive time limit and i spotted another little turtle. Georgia had the camera dn I signalled to her about the turtle. The turtle lifted up his head and looked at me, then he started to swim towards me. I tried to move out of the way, but he still came towards me. The next thing I know is that he is biting on my SPG (pressure gauge, mum!) I looked down at him and thought to myself "this is a moment" a bizarre moment, but a moment I will never forget. My liitle friend swam off to bite on a bit of algae, and them he came back looking to bit of my high pressure hose...i decided to swim abway...though guys have quite a beak on them. It was the most fun i´ve had diving in a long time. thank you too our new friends in Playa del Coco and to my new friend the turtle.
By Kath
www.oceansunlimitedcr.com
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