Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Costa Rica/Cocos Island

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Aggressor Fleet: "Long Trip; OK Diving", Oct, 2014, by Michael J. Millet, CA, US ( Top Contributor 96 reports with 61 Helpful votes). Report 7877 has 1 Helpful vote.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	After spending a night at the Holiday Inn, Escazu, myself and the other 20 divers were transported by bus to Puntarenas to board the Wind Dancer. It was about a 2 hour ride. We then set out for the 30+ hour crossing to Cocos Island. The Wind Dancer is a bit of a clunky boat with small double occupancy cabins below deck. I was fortunate to be assigned the "owner's cabin" that had a small queen bed but not a lot of floor space and oddly no window or port hole. It got a bit claustrophobic. The dining area was could get a bit squeezed at meal time especially when the meal was buffet--breakfast and lunch. Most dinners were served. There was a good variety of food and plenty of it. The kitchen crew did a good job of not over-cooking the food. Even the beef was served medium rare. On the dive deck, we had our lockers that were plenty large to hold fins and other stuff. There are 3 fresh water showers on the rear dive platform. The boat provides a decent camera table that got a bit crowded due to all the large wide-angle camera rigs. There is an outside battery charging station that tended to get either wet from the rain or cluttered with divers' miscellaneous stuff. There is also a battery charging station by the dining are that worked OK but at times was a place of congestion and tangled cables. The divers were assigned to 2 dive groups and each group assigned to a panga. Dive gear was left on the panga where tank fills occurred.The dive sites and dive schedule was dictated by the Cocos Island park rangers. As a result, there was not the flexibilty to dive the better sites plus we were limited to just 2 night dives. The boat did a good job of scheduling the 2 pangas for either dive times or different dive sites to avoid congestion underwater. with a back-roll, the water entries were usually negative due to the surface conditions and proximity to the rockiness of the dive site. The water temperatures were a bit elevated (77-80 F), and as result, the shark action was not as good as hoped. We did encounter hammerheads on most dives and some Galapagos sharks but not in large numbers. The trip highlight was an encounter with a very large tiger shark at Dirty Rock dive site. It was a monster. Also, the night dive with the frenzy of hunting white-tip sharks was a trip. We had several encounters with large schools of jacks. Disappointedly, no encounters with manta rays or whale sharks. After a brief hike on the island in Chatham Bay, we headed back to port. The trip back to Puntarenas was about 36 hours with decent sea conditions. In summary, the Wind Dancer is an adequate boat with a very friendly and competent crew. On this trip, the dive conditions were not ideal resulting in marine life encounters that were a bit less than expected or hoped for.
Websites	Aggressor Fleet
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	All over the Caribbean; Galapagos, Socorro, Fiji, Solomons, GBR, Vanuatu, PNG, Philippines, Indonesia, Palau, Yap, Kosrae
Closest Airport	San Jose	Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	choppy, surge, currents
Water Temp	77-80°F / 25-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	35-75 Ft/ 11-23 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	No Deco and don't go "blue"
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	1 or 2
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	With several large camera rigs set up for wide angle, the camera table could get quite congested. Rearranging gear to find space was a fairly common exercise. The crew did a good job of handling camera gear on/off the dive pangas.

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in Costa Rica/Cocos Island

Aggressor Fleet: "Long Trip; OK Diving", Oct, 2014,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Costa Rica/Cocos Island