Some of the locals have been telling me about a small group of islands called Los Ladrones. It’s not in any guide books and I’ve never heard about the diving near there. So, I decided to check it out for myself.
First dive is on a pinnacle that rises from 180′ to 29′. Difficult to find, but I have enough electronic exploration equipment on the boat to find anything, probably the only boat in this country with this much underwater exploration gear. We drop down and instantly we’re in a swarm of everything. Normally you get large schools of the same fish. This was a large swarm of everything from sharks to grunts. Really strange, but at the same time, all you can say is WOW! There are so many fish swarming that they are actually bumping into each other on the turns and such. You could easily, just sit in one place and watch the parade… like these guys…
Just a couple of lobster hangin out, watching the parade…
and this guy… a reef ray…
Okay… now that’s a big honkin diamond ray…
He’s so big that the divers don’t spook him easily.
Yep… gotta get the close up…
Houston, we have liftoff…
Next stop, a very nice dive. It starts off around 40′ and ends around 15′ (no need for a safety stop now). Loaded with coral, everything you could imagine. And, of course oodles of the ornamental reef fish. My camera got one shot before it said, “change the batteries” Darn, didn’t bring a spare set with me underwater… Named, because it looks like ancient ruins.
Cool stuff… Everyone absolutely enjoyed the dives… I’m ready to go back.. How bout you???
Capn Scott
It’s a long boat ride to Isla Coiba, somewhere around 3.5 hours. But, always worth the drive. We checked in at the Ranger Station.
And went to Manta Channel. As always, it delivers. We only saw one manta, and it seemed very young. It crossed under us and before I could power up the camera, it was gone. Darn! Really would have been a great shot.
Next stop was Rocas Prosper. This is a Pinnacle that rises from 200′ to above the water. Great underwater life here.
Nice white tip reef shark…
Guineafowl puffer in it’s yellow mating colors.
Lots and lots of fish
Constantly being buzzed by the Spades…
Whatâ’s that in the spades??? Bluefin Tuna??? And Purple Surgeons???
Yep, definitely blue Trevallies…
Another great day of diving…
Capn Scott
Small group of divers. On the first day we go to 3 Marias in the Islas Secas group of 16 islands. We dove 3 Marias, and it was spectacular as always. I didn’t bring my camera on this first dive, because I wanted to make sure that everyone was competent. Turns out, that the only one to have a problem on this dive was me. My computer went nuts. I looked down at it and it was telling me that I was in 55′ of water and that I had been down for 999 minutes and that 20′ was my ceiling and I needed a very long decompression stop. I’ve been diving long enough, that I looked up and figured it was 20′ of water and that the computer was cookoo. Gauged my time and depth from experience because I broke the band on my backup computer that morning and didn’t wear it (where’s murphy?). No problems. The dive went well and all 3 divers seemed competent.
Next stop Contreras. This is a group of islands in the corner of Coiba National Park.
lots of fish… pretty much a constant cloud. vis was good when you could see through the fish…
Near the end of the dive, we were buzzed by a couple of really large Almaco Jacks… easily 5 feet…
All in all a good day of diving…
Capn Scott
