We got on the local bus to Liberia at 9am which meanders in and out of each town on the way to it’s destination; picking up and dropping off school children, workers, and food and drink vendors as it goes. Liberia is approximately an hour away from Tamarindo by car, but the local bus takes anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours to get there. We got off the bus before Liberia at the turn off to Playas del Coco (shortly after Filadelfia) and switched buses. Our next bus came along within 45 minutes and we continued on through Sardinal. Within a half hour, we had completed our 3.5 hour journey arriving at Coco.

First off, we stopped in at Deep Blue Diving and arranged for 2 local dives the next morning to check out the area. They quickly took care of the paperwork and fitted us with gear. At $100 USD per person for two local dives and gear rental, it’s more expensive than most of the Asia dive rates we’re familiar with, but seems to be the norm in Costa Rica. Though they did arrange a discount rate for us with the hotel where they do their pool training (La Puerta del Sol) and were kind enough to drive us and our bags there in the shop truck.

After a brain wracking check-in; due to us forgetting our passports at the house in Tamarindo, we wandered into town searching for lunch. Kelly and I have pretty much figured out our go-to dishes for a typical local menu. Kelly will opt for a chicken burrito, while I lean towards a casado con pollo (A typical Costa Rican meal with rice, black or red beans, salad, a chicken fillet, and a fried plantain or banana). Accompanied with a couple Pilsen beers, we quickly recovered from the earlier trek, but headed back to the hotel to beat the 36°C midday heat.

La Puerta del Sol has a large salt water pool where we worked on our sunburns for a while, after which we scoped out the sports bar for the upcoming Super Bowl game. Chatting with a few expats and tourists, we found the scene was quite different from Tamarindo. While Tamarindo is a laid back little surf town and most of the people there are backpackers and surfers traveling on the cheap, Playas del Coco has an older expat and family vacation feel with larger resorts, souvenir tables and shops leading to the beach, and golf carts roaming the streets. Kelly and I stuck around for another round, then sat down at a local pizzeria for dinner before an early turn in to prepare for out set of dives the next day.

Waking up the next morning, we prepped, had a bite to eat, and headed to the beach for our 8AM departure. Upon arrival, we found that we were the only divers going out that day which is a bit of a blessing and a curse. We hate diving in large groups because of the underwater traffic. All those fins can kick up a lot of sand into Kelly’s photos, but at the same time we view diving as one of the few social activities that gets us out of the house and we’ve been home bound a lot with work lately. Deep Blue ferried us out to the dive boat, which had a great dive setup with lots of room and a rear jump deck. Our gear was already assembled and waiting; another thing I’m slightly torn about. I like the service, but I prefer to set up my own gear just to give it a once over and make sure everything is working and done right.

Fifteen minutes later we were at our first site called ‘Punta Argentina’. We geared up, did a safety check and jumped in, where I found that my regulator had a slow leak. I’ve found it’s a pretty common occurrence with rental gear and not a big deal, but as we descended I found it kept a steady stream of bubbles in-front of my mask. I fiddled with it for five minutes or so before switching to my secondary regulator. Bubbles gone, I could finally take advantage of the 20m visibility.

The dive sites we’ve visited in Costa Rica’s north Pacific region are volcanic and lacking in any real reef structure from what I’ve seen. Our DM pointed out 2 clown shrimp, but that was pretty much the only macro life we saw on any of our 4 Playas del Coco dives. What was in abundance was porcupine fish and rays. I’ve never seen so many porcupine fish crawling the rocks and every few minutes you’d see spotted eagle rays and stingrays approaching from the blue. Sitting atop the sand, there was plenty of skate and we sniffed out a couple of moray eels among the rocks.

About 30 minutes into the dive, we came across a large stingray with 2 spears protruding straight up from it’s back. Kelly didn’t want to take a picture of a dead stingray and we were going to move on before realizing it was still alive! The spears were two different types so my thinking is that someone shot it, failed to kill it and at a later date someone else attempted to put it out of its misery after seeing the first spear, but also failed. The resilient ray swam off, leaving us saddened about the whole situation.

One additional perk to diving with Deep Blue: They don’t have a dive time limit. Too often, we’ve been restricted to 45 minutes and have still had another 15-20 minutes or more of air remaining. If I’ve paid for the whole tank, I’d like to use it! All within safety limits of course, but I find the 45 minute rule ridiculous. At around 1000 PSI, we did our safety stop and came up after 57 minutes below. We swapped my leaky regulator with a spare, had some water, pineapple, a couple cookies, and lounged in the sun, chatting with our DM about Cocos Island where he’s had the opportunity to lead dives with the hammerheads. Unfortunately the price point is keeping us away. At $4000 per person for a week of liveaboard diving, we’ll have to pass it by this trip.

The second dive of the day was at a site called “Tortuga” (Turtle). We descended to 20m, circling a pinnacle of volcanic rock. More eagle rays and stingrays floated around us and as we came over a crest of rocks we found four 1.5m white tipped reef sharks resting on the sand below us. Circling around them, we lay on the bottom briefly then moved in for some pictures. Swimming away from the pinnacle, our DM lead us to a fairly large wreck which I poked my head into. Yup, full of puffers. Drifting the length of the ship and peering over the bow, we found ten white tip reef sharks resting in the sand below. We returned to the shallows of the pinnacle and spent the rest of the dive peering in holes for golden moray eels.

After the two great dives, we signed up for another two the following day and returned to town to get dried out and have a deco beer. That night, we went to the Papagayo steakhouse where Kelly and I both ordered the surf and turf. When our plates arrive, we each had two 6 ounce steak fillets and 4 good sized shrimp, plus sides. Kelly couldn’t even start her second steak. An impressive plate for $20 each, but perhaps a little overkill. If you’re coming to Costa Rica, be prepared for some huge portion sizes. It’s rare that we finish a meal here.

The following day, we arrived at the beach to find a group of 10 people waiting for the dive boat. Thankfully, three of them were headed to the Catalina Islands on the alternate boat and two of the others were doing courses so it was just five of us fun diving together, perfect. We drove a little farther out to sea than the previous day to a site called ‘Virador’. Jumping in, we found that the visibility had worsened considerably since the previous day to 10m at the most. Much the same as the day before, puffers, rays, moray eels, and skate. Just much harder to photograph and find.

Our final dive was at Punta Argentina again, but began a little further east at ‘La Cruz’. Again, with the limited visibility we saw much the same as the day before, just less of it. Kelly did come across an octopus wedged deep in-between two boulders, but he wasn’t interested in posing for us.

That evening, we went to La Dolce Vita for another pizza and watched the Super Bowl (and a Canadian expat at the next table losing $500). Go Saints!

The following day we checked out and walked to the bus stop for the 3 hour trip home. On our way there, we saw a sign at a tourist info center that would arrange $20 shuttle transfers to Tamarindo every hour. What sounded like a great deal and would have saved us 2 hours was too good to be true. After waiting for the owner to show up for an hour (Ah, tico time… Pura vida!) and missing the 9AM bus, we left to catch the 10AM bus back to Tamarindo via Liberia.

All in all, we had 4 very nice dives with some larger ocean life at Playas del Coco. The lack of macro life is unfortunate and with the widely varying visibility and higher costs, the diving in Costa Rica has been a little hit and miss. But I’m glad we had the opportunity to get back in the water and it’s added to my anticipation for diving in Roatan, Honduras on the Caribbean side of Central America where we’ll be moving in a few short weeks.

Read the original article here: Scuba Diving at Playas del Coco

Related posts:

1. Scuba Diving in Roatan, Honduras
2. Week 47: Diving Sipadan and Mabul
3. Week 14: Diving, diving, and more diving

I’ve finally gotten around to putting all of my underwater photography from our year in Southeast Asia into a book. Just in time for Blurb’s “Best Books Contest”. Finalists are based on the number of votes so this is where you come in. Please go here and vote for my book! You’ll need to register (so they can make sure people only vote once) but it’s quick and it would mean a lot to me.

- Vote for my book here! (Click the blue ‘Vote’ button on the top left of the page)

You can even purchase it, if you want your very own copy (but don’t worry, it’s not required to vote).

About the book:

Bottom Time
Southeast Asia from below
“After 10 years in the Internet industry, web designer Kelly Hale and developer Mike Schimanowsky sold all their worldly belongings, bid farewell to friends and family, packed a laptop and traded in the daily 9-5 for a life of nomadic freelancing and travel.

365 days, and 90 dives later, these are some of their favorite photos from our year in Southeast Asia.”

About Blurb

For those of you not familiar with Blurb, it’s a great resource for creating your very own book. For Christmas last year, I made a book, for both Mike’s and my families. It was a great gift, since we weren’t gonna be home for the holidays and not only did our parents love it cause it was full of pictures of us, but the quality was really great, and it was easy to create.

All you need to do is download the BookSmart® software (or InDesign® templates if you’re an experienced designer) for either Mac or PC, and start creating. The software lets you import photos from your computer or from photo-sharing sites like Flickr, and Picasa, and it will even slurp your blog for you. It comes with a bunch of templates for layout, as well as backgrounds, borders and themes. Once you’ve created your book you upload it to Blurb, and order away. You have the option of hard cover or soft cover, and can choose premium paper for that extra professional look.

Most people use Blurb to document their vacations, or their wedding, and especially their children and pets. But there are also lots of people out there using Blurb to self publish their photos, stories, or illustrations. Ever wanted to write a children’s book, or publish your photography. Blurb allows you to do this, and gives you a place to sell your book. You set the price (above the production cost) and keep the profits.

The first time around my book was purely for family, but this time I wanted something less personal in hopes of selling a few copies. I chose only my best shots and concentrated on subjects that might appeal to a broader audience. I’ll let you know how things go and if I manage to sell any, but for now, please vote for me!

- Vote for my book here!

Read the original article here: Vote for my Underwater Photography Book!

Related posts:

1. Learning to shoot underwater
2. Sipadan & Mabul Pictures Uploaded

View on YouTube

Read the original article here: Sipadan Dive Video

Related posts:

1. Week 47: Diving Sipadan and Mabul
2. Sipadan & Mabul Pictures Uploaded
3. Learning to Dive in the Philippines

Just wanted to let everyone know that the rest of the Sipadan & Mabul pictures have been uploaded! You can check them all out here.

Read the original article here: Sipadan & Mabul Pictures Uploaded

Related posts:

1. Week 47: Diving Sipadan and Mabul
2. Sipadan Dive Video
3. Week 24: Another broken strobe light

The Philippines pretty much had it all as far as I was concerned. Great macro and muck diving in the Dauin area. Fantastic wall dives at Siquijor. Beautiful soft corals and schools of fish at Apo Island. Turtles at Moalboal and sharks at Malapascua. It’s a package that was hard to beat. Traveling through Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, I never came across a place with the diversity that the Visayas offered. Sure, there were some amazing hi-lights along the way like the whale shark in Thailand and manta rays in Indonesia, but never matching the sheer range of corals, creatures, and dive opportunities. Until Sipadan…

Early Tuesday morning we left the Perhentians, taking a spine crushing speed boat ride to the mainland while we hugged our laptop bags away from the spray and rain. 10 hours of taxi rides and planes later we arrived in Tawau, Borneo. Another hour later, we were in Semporna hunting for a late dinner.

The next day we woke at 7am to catch the boat to the island of Mabul. Upon arriving at the Billabong Scuba homestay, we found out they had overbooked and moved us to the longhouse next door. We soon found ourselves in a rundown 2m x 3m room with only a couple grungy single beds in it, shared bathrooms, and set meals. The thing is, there’s no middle tier options on Mabul. It’s either $30/night per person at a homestay/longhouse, or $3-400/night at one of the few resorts. So we were expecting things to be a little rustic and rundown, but even then it was a bit of a shock. We don’t do a lot of budget hosteling.

Billabong was the only place that had been able to guarantee us 2 full days at Sipadan, and we booked a month and a half before we arrived. Most places had no availability at all, and many people we met said they had booked their 2 and 3 day Sipadan trips 4-6 months in advance! Sipadan has a very strict permit system allowing only 120 divers a day on the site.

We did a number of dives at Mabul over the next 5 days. Initially, we weren’t overly impressed with the south side of the island. It’s touted as a macro paradise, but we saw surprisingly little and the visibility was quite poor. We did eventually end up seeing a ghost pipefish, some interesting nudibranch, crocodile fish, and quite a few crinoid shrimp and anenome shrimp at a site called Coral Garden.

There’s also a very large man made reef on the south side with large schools of fish. On the north side of the island, there’s a 25m wall with a few great sites on it. Lobster wall (alas, no lobsters were found) and Ross reef, as well as Eel Garden were great dives. We saw a number of turtles and stingrays, some shrimp, moray eels, plus 20 or 30 nudibranch. I also found 2 huge cuttlefish at Eel Garden, and a big Flying Gurnard which was a first for me.

There’s also a site called Seaventures. It’s an old oil rig that was gutted and ended up being turned into a dive resort. While interesting and there’s lots of sea life under it, it’s also a bit depressing. The site is basically a big pile of trash dumped off the rig. From toilets and iron bars to filing cabinets, they just threw everything overboard and 10 years later it’s now a faux reef. While it’s full of life now, I can’t imagine what else was originally swept away into the ocean and I don’t want to promote dumping trash into the ocean because 10 years later fish can hide in it… but we did see a frog fish.

Our first day at Sipadan, we took a speedboat to the island around 9am. Signing in with the permit people, they gave us a flag to identify our boat. We geared up and headed off to South Point, which is known for shark sightings. :) Jumping in, we first noticed the amazing reef. Beautiful hard corals as far as you can see, huge fans, and thousands of tiny fish everywhere. Dropping over the edge of the wall, we saw our first shark within a minute. A meter long white tip reef shark, cruising around 12m.

We dropped down to about 25m. With visibility stretching out to 50+ meters, we quickly saw small groups of white tip and black tip reef sharks patrolling. Then, looking down below to 40 or 50m, we found big grey reef sharks around 3-4m long. Spinning in circles trying to see all the sharks passing within meters of us, interspersed between them were turtles headed to the surface for air, or camped out on the rock shelves. For 50 minutes we just drifted along in the current, flabbergasted at the sheer number of sharks and turtles. Coming back above the wall, we were again in a vast field of coral full of every kind of fish imaginable. Easily the best dive I’ve ever done.

The following 5 dives at Sipadan followed a similar script. Beautiful coral entries, deep walls, surrounded by sharks and turtles, only to return to the huge coral beds for our safety stop. Easily, we saw 75 sharks and 100 turtles over those 6 dives. Plus, it’s trigger fish nesting season. At Hanging Gardens we came across hundreds of trigger fish ascending the wall and when we came up for our safety stop, we found them nesting in pockets of coral as far as you could see. Unbelievable. Even better, almost every creature we came across is so unaccustomed to human contact that they hadn’t developed fear or aggression towards us, so Kelly got some fantastic pictures.

The 5 sites we dove were:

• South Point - Shark Central. Black tips, white tips, grey reef sharks. Lots of turtles. Trigger fish everywhere. Slow drift.
• Barracuda Point (twice) - We saw a barracuda tornado, big trevallies and schools of jackfish. Lots of turtles. Fast drift.
• Hanging Gardens - More white tip sharks, turtles, and nesting trigger fish.
• Mid Reef - White tip/black tip sharks and turtles.
• The Drop Off (Turtle Tomb) - Too many turtles to count. A school of bump head parrotfish at 8m, schools of batfish, white tip sharks. Briefly explored the turtle tomb where many turtles (and some divers) get lost and have perished in the twisty caves and tunnels.

All in all it was an amazing experience. Easily the best 6 dives I’ve ever done and more than making up for the cramped quarters, food, and long travels. Plus the other travelers we met were so genuinely excited to be diving one of the worlds premier sites it was impossible to be put off. We’ll be retelling and reliving tales of the shark that passed within inches of my face or the turtle that chased us into the tomb for what I hope will be a long time.

(More pictures to come, Kelly just hasn’t gotten around to editing them all!)

Read the original article here: Week 47: Diving Sipadan and Mabul

Related posts:

1. Sipadan & Mabul Pictures Uploaded
2. Week 14: Diving, diving, and more diving
3. Learning to Dive in the Philippines

Manta Point, Nusa Penida, Bali

Read the original article here: Foto Friday: Manta Ray

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3. Foto Friday: Whale Shark at Sail Rock, Koh Tao, Thailand

The highlight for this week was undoubtedly the Whale Shark. We had heard one had been spotted a couple of times over the last few weeks, and we’d been trying to arrange a trip to Sail Rock, almost since we arrived, but for some reason none of the dive shops could make it happen. Until last Friday…

We set out with Golden Divers, bright and early Friday morning for the 2 hour ride to Sail Rock. We were a little disappointed when we arrived to find that there were already 6 other dive boats there, but, that disappointment quickly faded on hearing the news that there was a whale shark.

We geared up, jumped in and made our way around Sail Rock (which even without the whale shark is a good dive). After swimming most of the way around the rock we headed out into the blue in the direction we were told the whale shark had been seen. Patrick was the first one to see it as it came swimming towards us out of the blue. Over the next 10 minutes it swam around us, getting closer and then swimming away, getting closer and then swimming away again. Just as we started to head up for our safety stop it made on last pass and then swam off into the blue again.

The boat was buzzing with excitement when we climbed back on board and I could have gone home right then and been a happy camper! But, the second dive was even better. We went down through the chimney this time and once again swam around the rock before heading out into the blue. We’d been sitting at about 13 meters for almost 5 minutes with still no sign of the whale shark. We were just about to give up when we saw it.

Again it came swimming towards us, but this time got much closer. Mike, Patrick and I were the only ones there, and for a good 15-20 minutes we just hung out while the whale shark swam around. It was truly amazing. I must have taken about 60 pictures in that time, most of which aren’t so great (whale sharks are really big!) but managed to get a few keepers.

All in all it was an amazing day, and we were all smiles when we arrived back at the pier in Koh Tao. This definitely ranks as one of my best dives ever.

Read the original article here: Week 33: Last week on Koh Tao

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1. Foto Friday: Whale Shark at Sail Rock, Koh Tao, Thailand
2. Week 30: Settling in on Koh Tao
3. Week 32: A week in point form…

See more whale shark pictures and other underwater shots here.

Read the original article here: Foto Friday: Whale Shark at Sail Rock, Koh Tao, Thailand

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1. Week 33: Last week on Koh Tao
2. Foto Friday: Shark Island, Koh Tao
3. Foto Friday: Diving Koh Tao, Thailand

Once again we’ve settled into a bit of a routine here, and while it’s nice for us to chillout and not be constantly on the go, it does make for some pretty boring posts. So in an effort to keep things interesting, and because I missed “Foto Friday“, I’ve decided to turn this into a picture post.

We’ve been diving quite a bit, and although it’s not as good as the Philippines, it’s been nice to check out some new spots.

The sunsets here on Koh Tao are beautiful and our rooftop patio is the perfect place to watch the weather roll through.

On friday, Becca & Jacob, the couple we met a few months ago in Moalboal, arrived. So we’ve been having a few boozy nights and some hungover days. It’s been great to catch up and see some familiar faces.

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the view!

Read the original article here: Week 31: Life without internet

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1. Week 30: Settling in on Koh Tao
2. Week 33: Last week on Koh Tao
3. Week 32: A week in point form…

It’s a one bedroom apartment, a couple blocks off the main strip of town, on Koh Tao. It’s right on the beach and we have a little balcony overlooking the water as well as a great rooftop patio, both of which make up for the fact that our kitchen only has a microwave. Luckily the food in Thailand is great, and most of it is quite cheap, so while we love to cook, we probably wont be doing much of it over the next month or so. Unless anyone’s got some great microwave recipes.

Since we don’t have a kitchen we’ve been eating out a lot, and have had a few really great meals. Although we’re situated in town, rather than on Sairee Beach (the main beach full of bars, resorts, & restaurants) there are still quite a few good places to eat, and the walk to Sairee actually isn’t too far. The other night we wandered down that way and found a great till beach bar to have a few sundowners at.

We were hoping to get in a dive trip out to Sail Rock this week, but unfortunately it got canceled due to not enough people, so instead we made do with a couple of local dives. They were both much better than the two we did last week, but we’re still kinda shopping around for a company that fits us a little better.

The problem with Koh Tao is that it’s one of the cheapest places in the world to learn to dive, therefore, it’s overrun with newbies. Most of the companies here are focused on courses and get very few fun divers, especially experienced ones, so we usually get stuck with inexperienced divers, which can often make for a frustrating dive. We were hoping to find a smaller shop, one that was less focused on courses and more on fun divers, but they seem to be very few and far between, not to mention the fact that the smaller shops don’t have enough divers to warrant trips out to some of the further/better dive sites. It’s kind of a catch-22, big schools have too many people for our liking, but go to the good dive sites, and the small shops have less people, but don’t go to the good dive sites. For now we’ll just have to continue diving and hopefully we’ll eventually find something that works for us.

Read the original article here: Week 30: Settling in on Koh Tao

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1. Week 29: Koh Tao – Back again!
2. Week 3 & 4: Settling In
3. Week 33: Last week on Koh Tao