Captain's Blog

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

A great day diving… Went to some of the great spots in Secas, but found a new spot (exploration is definitely one of my favorite activities)… Never seen by another diver before, In about 200 feet of water, this pinnacle rises to within 40 feet of the surface. We first dropped down and I looked into a little valley and a small white tip reef shark was startled by me. During the dive, we stumbled upon at least 4 of the white tip reef sharks.

Okay… then I see all of these barberfish (NO they are not butterflys). These fish are cleaners for larger fish… With this many of them, I’m only thinking that we were in for a surprise. Unfortunately, we didn’t see alot of the really big fish that I was expecting, but I bet this site will always be full of surprises.

Is that a happy moray or what? wouldn’t move an inch during it’s cleaning. Those little juvenile rainbow wrasses were really busy, and he really seemed to enjoy it. He was at least 5 feet long. That’s a pretty moray…

And this would be the odd couple… A green moray with a fine spotted moray… I heard him saying something about “once you go speckled, you never go back?”

And, this one stumps me, Is he eating that umbrella tube worm or wearing it???

It was a great dive until the boat sucked in a bunch of water into the fuel tank. Hopefully the boat will be repaired Saturday…

Capn Scott

Was a good day for getting out into the ocean. A friend invited me along on his boat. We explored a new spot and visited some of our favorites. All in the Islotes Secas. This was one of those picture perfect days… Writing this while listening to some Jimmy Buffet…
The ride out was another picture postcard

This waterfall is over 200 feet tall… and is at a distance of over 10 miles… Oh, and that is an extinct volcano in the distance…

You can stay here for $100 per night, and the view is spectacular…

If someone has not named this, “hole in the wall”, something is wrong. I’m not sure why this rock so captivates me… Although, I love gadgets also…. hmmmm…. the black dot is a mistake in my handling of the graphics program…

So…. these dudes were hanging around… of course, so was I…

And then a school of these pacific spades surrounded us… Ever felt like a sardine???

Very colorful starfish…

Then, as I’m swimming around, this dudette looks up at me…

Then it’s time for her to take off… great stuff… had to be somewhere around 500 pounds…

And what dive would be complete without a visit from a great moray eel???

A great day out on the ocean… The new boat should be finished in a couple of weeks, then much more photos…. until the new video camera comes in… then more video…

Capn Scott