Your Guide to Diving Costa Rica
Including the Cocos Islands

Diving Costa Rica Overview

Costa Rica is famous among experienced divers for the big animal action off uninhabited Cocos Island, 340 miles offshore from Punta Arenas. Here are challenging, high-tension dives among hammerheads, mantas, occasional whale sharks, and other awe-inspiring creatures. There is now a fleet of liveaboard vessels that visit. Land-based dive operations find a few big animals. However, they're unpredictable, and the visibility is often so low you'll miss them, yet many divers like the diving. Costa Rica has great tourist destinations, is exceptionally safe.

Costa Rica Seasonal Dive Planner

Our suggestions for the dive season on the Pacific coast (the only decent diving in Costa Rica) may seem odd. The best time to go is the rainy season (May through November), even though runoff can affect the water visibility. The water clarity may be better during the dry season, but the wind blows up enough to make it almost impossible to get out to the best dive sites, which are small islands or rock outcroppings an hour's boat ride from the mainland. Visibility is a crapshoot any time of the year, but even more so during the rainy season. However, even during the wet months, there is a slight chance that offshore site visibility can reach almost 100ft (29m), although less than 40ft (12m) is more common. The best scheduling would probably be May when the wind has died down, and the rain hasn't started yet. Water temperatures run 75- 85°F (24-29°C) year-round.

Featured Links from Our Sponsors Interested in becoming a sponsor?

Reef & Rainforest is an agency for travelers that like to scuba dive. Let us plan your trip to mingle with hundreds of swirling hammerheads, sharks, & rays of Cocos in Costa Rica.

Diving Costa Rica Reader Reports and Feature Articles

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Latest Reader Reports from Costa Rica from the serious divers who read Undercurrent All Reader Reports from Costa Rica	All 10,000+ Reports
Sea Hunter Report in Costa Rica/Cocos Island "Hammerheads, Reef , Tiger , and more sharks plus whales and mantas." filed Nov 29, 2024 by Matt Radtke (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 9 reports, Sr. Reviewer )
The diving at Cocos Island was probably some of the very best in 20 plus years of diving. Large schools of hammerheads with multiple h... ... Read more
Nautilus Adventures Report in Costa Rica/Cano Island "Ocean and Land" filed Oct 29, 2024 by Daniel Turgeon (Experience: Over 1000 dives)
Land and Ocean ... ... Read more
ROCKET FROG DIVERS Report in Costa Rica/Guanacaste/Tamarindo "Outstanding dive operator!" filed Jun 23, 2024 by William Hubbarth (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 10 reports, Sr. Reviewer )
Shark dive for the Bat Islands. Great facility north of Tamarindo. Very well set up shop, fleet of fast boats, Incredible dive master,... ... Read more
Undersea Hunter Report in Costa Rica/Cocos Island "Cocos Island hammerheads." filed Oct 30, 2023 by Mary Adams (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 27 reports, Sr. Contributor )
Cocos Island was my consolation prize for not being able to dive Galapagos (yet). I received an a mail that said, “one space available... ... Read more
Nautilus Explorer/none Report in Costa Rica/Cocos Island "A New Destination for Nautilus Explorer" filed Sep 25, 2023 by Jeanne Downey (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 54 reports, Top Contributor )
Now that Guadalupe is at least temporarily shut down, Nautilus Explorer needed to find another dive location, so we were on their first... ... Read more

Editor's Book Picks for Scuba Diving Costa Rica
Including the Cocos Islands

The books below are my favorites about diving in this part of the world All books are available at a significant discount from Amazon.com; just follow the links. -- BD

Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of the Pacific Northwest
by David Hall

It's hard enough to take a first-rate photo of reef life in the best of conditions. Try doing it in murky, bone-numbingly cold water while wearing a dry suit with 40-plus pounds of weights around your waist, and thick, insulating gloves that make it hard to use the camera controls. That's what David Hall had to endure while photographing in Canadian waters, but those physical disadvantages make Beneath Cold Seas all the more amazing.

Hall's book successfully disputes the belief that cold-water reefs are drab and dismal. He has regularly photographed the world's most beautiful dive spots for major magazines from National Geographic to Time. While Hall's shots are taken entirely at Browning Passage in British Columbia, the reef life he shoots resides along the Pacific Coast, from Northern California up to Alaska, and they are as diverse and spectacular as any creature in Raja Ampat or Fiji.

Click here to buy it at Amazon via our website -- our profits go to save the reefs.

Reef Fish Identification: Baja to Panama
by Paul Humann and Ned Deloach

The latest edition in the popular Paul Humann series of marine life books. The most comprehensive field guide ever compiled for identifying reef fishes from the Gulf of California to the Pacific coast of Panama, including offshore islands. More than 500 photographs of 400 species taken in their natural habitat. The book is dedicated to Baja Legend Alex Kerstitch and includes several of his drawings and photographs. The concise text accompanying each species portrait includes the fish’s common, scientific and family names, size range, description, visually distinctive features, preferred habitat, typical behavior, depth range, and geographical distribution.

Click here to buy it at Amazon.

The Devil's Teeth: a true story of Obsession and Survival among America's Great White Sharks:
by Susan Casey

Perhaps the greatest gathering of great white sharks in the world is at the Farallon islands, 26 miles from San Francisco. Researchers have tracked and studied them for years and at least one diver still collects sea urchins in the midst of their gatherings. Journalist Susan Casey lived on these barren islands to write a fascinating, awe-struck account of the sharks, their amazing behavior, their killing strategies, their long distance travels, and life with the researchers. Click on this Undercurrent link to purchase the 304-page, hardbound, The Devil's Teeth at Amazon.com's best price, and all our proceeds will go to coral reef conservation.

An American Underwater Odyssey: 50 Dives in 50 States
: by Charles Ballinger.

Underwater Odyssey is the story of a scuba diving safari to every state in America. Tired of touring coral reefs, the author embarks on a year-long quest to discover the incredible assortment of adventure diving found in our nation's backyard. His dogged determination to follow his dreams and explore everything from flooded missile sites to abandoned mines should be an inspiration for any diver. Underwater Odyssey transcends the limits of a dive guide to reveal the broader adventure that diving provides.

Click here to buy it at Amazon.

There's a Cockroach in My Regulator
by Undercurrent

The Best of Undercurrent: Bizarre and Brilliant True Diving Tales from Thirty Years of Undercurrent.

Shipping now is our brand new, 240-page book filled with the best of the unusual, the entertaining, and the jaw dropping stories Undercurrent has published. They’re true, often unbelievable, and always fascinating. We’re offering it to you now for the special price of just $14.95.

Click here to order.

You might find some other books of interest in our Editor's Book Picks section.