Cocos Island,

Buceo Costa Rica - Pura Vida!!!

 

Yowzaa!!! What a trip --

Tuesday, May 1, 2001

Got up at 3:15 for a 3:45AM pickup to Logan. Arrived at the Continental terminal without incident at 4:45AM. Familiar faces started drifting in shortly after we arrived. The ticket agents showed up about 5:00AM, everyone was quickly checked-in, and we headed toward the departure gate for our 5:50 flight to Houston. From there on to San Jose, Costa Rica, arriving about 1:30PM local time (2 hours behind EDT). We were staying at the Cariari Resort in San Jose, a beautiful mid-sized hotel. We enjoyed cocktails at the bar, had a rather early dinner and hit the sack shortly after in anticipation of our departure to Cocos Island early the next morning.

Wednesday, May 2nd

After a buffet breakfast, we checked out of the Cariari around 8:30AM to make the drive to Puntarenas where the Sea Hunter is docked. It was about a 3+ hour ride to our destination. Saw lots of coffee bean plantations, fruit trees, and tremendous foliage - everywhere! The ride enabled us to see a good portion of the countryside. Costa Rica is a very clean country with a proud culture. Costa Ricans have a strong work ethic, and usually work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. Education is a top priority here and children leave for school around 6:30 or 7:00AM and don't finish each day until 5:00PM, it's also mandatory that all children continue with school until at least the 3rd year of high school. They don't have any illiteracy to speak of. We were told that there are computers in most schools, even though some remote schools are small and rather bleak looking outside, they are reportedly quite modern and sophisticated on the inside.

We stopped at a small restaurant about half way to grab a bite to eat, use the facilities, or just stretch your legs. I had a tamale, it was delicious.

We arrived at the dock around 11:30AM. We boarded the Sea Hunter, and met with Mario, one of our Divemasters and Hugo, the Captain. They explained how the week would go, and asked us to let them know if we wanted to make any changes. The schedule worked for us: (then we had lunch)

1. Breakfast at 7:00AM

2. Dive briefing for first dive at 8:00AM, then onto the panga (large skiff with canopy, powered by two 90 hp engines) to the dive site
   
3. Return for snacks, rest up for 2nd dive
   
4. Dive briefing for 2nd dive at 11:00, then out to the site
   
5. Return to Sea Hunter for a 12:30 lunch
   
6. Relax, snorkel, swim or sleep until 3rd dive
   
7. Dive briefing for last dive at 3:00pm, then out to the site in the panga
   
8. Optional night dive at 6:00~ for whoever was interested
   
9. Return from last dive; shower, relax, have cocktails and enjoy dinner at 7:00pm
   
10. Sleep
    
11. Return to step one, repeat 6 times

A little history on Cocos

Cocos Island is situated in the east Pacific Ocean, 300 miles off the southwest coast of Costa Rica, and is part of Costa Rica (5º 33' North latitude, 87º 03' West longitude). Access can only be made by boat, there are no runways on this National Park. There is no lodging on the island, nor may anyone stay overnight on the island. At first site Cocos is breathtaking, with lush, jungle-like foliage covering the mountains that are Cocos. Tremendous waterfalls can be seen around every cliff and corner, some nearly cascading into the sea. The rainy season was beginning and it made for fantastic views of the waterfalls that don't run as heavily, or at all, during the dry season. One day on a return from a dive we spied 2 small deer climbing along a cliff wall. They were about the size of a small goat. The island also has wild pigs and goats. They were brought over by Captain James Colnett who paused at Cocos Island on his ship Rattler in 1793. At the end of a brief and rainy visit, he wrote: "We were much wearied during the four days we passed off this island, and prepared to quit it. We therefore took on board two thousand coconuts; and, in return, left on shore . . . a boar and a sow, with a male and female goat." As this passage suggests, Colnett was a generous sort, and he did what he did -- which also included sowing garden vegetables -- "for the benefit and comfort of those who might come after us." He hadn't a clue that he was sowing ecological disaster on the island. The pigs and goats proliferated, as have feral cats, white-tailed deer, and that ever-present stowaway: the rat.

Cocos was born only two million years ago in a rush of steaming lava thrust above the waves. Compared to more aged rainforests, life on Cocos is species-impoverished. It has just over 200 kinds of plants and 74 kinds of birds -- slim pickings for a rainforest. It has no native mammals, no frogs or other amphibians, no snakes. Most rainforests also have a host of endemic species, those found only there. Cocos has but a few, including two lizards and just three species of birds - a flycatcher, a cuckoo, and a finch. The island simply has not had time to evolve more. Aside from the few mammals, Brown boobys and other sea birds call Cocos Island home. The waters surrounding Cocos are protected out to a 5 mile radius from all fishing, ensuring the natural balance of the food chain within it's marine life perimeter: and it abounds heartily. I've never experienced such a prolific mass of undersea life before. It was difficult to not be in the way of Marbled rays, Snappers, or Hogfish while diving! Some small fish school in the thousands! (During the helicopter scene at the beginning of Jurassic Park, Isla del Cocos with one of it's magnificent waterfalls, was the inspiration for Isla Nublar, the site that John Hammond had chosen for his tremendous new theme park.)

There are 2 ranger stations located on Cocos, and we met 4 of the rangers while anchored in Wafer bay aboard the Sea Hunter. We all had our passports stamped with the circular Isla del Cocos convervacion stamp which bears the likeness of a Hammerhead shark within its circle. They also had a book Peces de la Isla del Coco Fishes that we could buy. It's set up very much the same way that the Caribbean Fish books by Paul Humann are: it's a great reference guide. I had the park rangers stamp my book too! Browsing the pages, I was delighted to find that our very own divemaster MARIO has 10 pictures in this book! I had him autograph it for me on the page where his stunning picture of a stone scorpion fish is, as he was kind enough to point out one of these amazingly hard-to-find fish while we were diving during the week. He's a great divemaster and videographer (he's also very handsome and nice!). On that same dive, there was an octopus very close by, tucked into a crevice in the wall that he found for me and Melanie to photograph and marvel over.

Thursday, May 3rd

Cruising out to Cocos Island took only 30 hours. Sometimes it can take up to 36 hours, we made good time, but many of us felt rather nauseous the whole time. I didn't feel great, but it didn't keep me from eating (3 big meals a day - served buffet style), nor did I stay horizontal in my cabin (2 bunk beds, with ample storage space, and a private bath) for the whole journey out. The weather was great, sunny and hot (over 80º). We stayed outside on the sun deck for a while, but it got too hot after a short while, so we mostly lounged around in the air conditioned salon and socialized and/or read or watched videos. But if you were lucky enough to be up at the bow of the ship, you might have been treated to the spotted or bottlenose dolphins that came by to ride the bow waves. I caught the show twice, but there were at least 3 times we had dolphins with us for parts of the voyage out to our destination.

Friday, May 4th - Yahoo!

We started diving today. Our check-out dive was at the small Island of Manuelita, on the SE side, Mario Arroyo was our dive master. We had 10 divers on our boat, and we'd be diving together all week, José was our boat driver (he's also a divemaster, but not for the week we were aboard). We were the Blue Team: Ross, Deb, Dan, me, Bob, Mel, Tom, Karen, Maryann and Bruce. And, I just happened to have my lovely blue nail polish with me, so the whole blue team had coordinated toe nails! The other divers were the Gold team (Michael, Bob and Lisa, Kerry, Debi and Dennis, Pete and Liat, and Margie and Ken - they weren't as coordinated). (The divemasters: Mario and Hugo traded back and forth daily between the 2 pangas.) It was raining lightly and there was a slight surge. I was expecting the water to be rather cold, and was pleasantly surprised when my gauges read up to 82º. It was a very pleasant check-out dive, saw lots of Whitetip sharks, a Pacific Green Sea turtle, Peacock flounder, lots of various box fish; trunks (Pacific jewel boxfish - the males and females are colored very differently), & puffers (Pacific burrfish, Spotted porcupines, Spotted sharpnose, Guineafowl, and Indo-Pacific stripebellys) some in transition phases; some were bright yellow - most bizarre. There were also trumpet fish, Coronets, Scrawled filefish, surgeons and tangs, Black urchins, many pairs of Moorish idols and angels, Blue and gold striped snappers, Blue-spotted jacks (aka: Bluefin trevally) and 2 Crown-of-Thorns sea stars. Seemed to be an excellent start for the week.
Total Bottom Time: 53 minutes, Maximum Depth: 66', Visibility: 60', Weather: Rain, Sea: light surge

2nd Dive Site: Manuelita NW side -Turtle (Pacific Green), HAMMERHEADS - Gazillions of them! Everywhere! A Bluefin tuna zipped by! Whitetips, huge schools of Scad (Scad=food for dolphin, tuna & marlin), Bigeye trevally jacks. We heard dolphins but didn't see them. There were Mullet snappers everywhere, they were hunting for food. Saw a large Marbled ray, first one. I got a wicked reverse ear block near the end of the dive, thought I was going to go bonkers it was so painful: moving up or down wasn't working (probably because I was going to quickly in either direction). I finally got it under control before I totally panicked and lost control, man did that hurt!
TBT: 51 min. Max depth: 102', Water temp: 82º-84º, Vis: 50-60', Weather: rain, Sea: calm

3rd Dive Site: Manuelita NE side - Another turtle, more whitetips, Crown-of-Thorns sea star, marbled ray, blue and gold snappers, burrito grunts, goatfish, surgeon fish, butterflys, wrasse, gobys, Moorish idols, triggers, speckled moray, a snowflake moray. It was an excellent dive. Omigod what a week it was going to be!
TBT: 60 min., Max depth:73', Water temp: 82º, Vis: 60', Weather: overcast, Sea: slight surge.

Saturday, May 5th - DM: Hugo

Dive site: Punta Maria - Silvertips with Blue-spotted jacks, hammerheads, whitetips, Hugo, marbled rays, durgeons, leather bass, flag groupers, black urchins. We saw 2 small deer walking along the cliffs on Cocos on the way back to the sea hunter.
TBT: 43 min., Max depth: 91', Water temp: 84º, Vis: 50', Weather: sunny & hot, Sea: light current

2nd Dive site: Dirty Rock (Roca Sucia) - Lots of hammerheads, everywhere. A big Pacific green turtle, schools of Big-eyed jack, we actually swam through them, they even blocked out the light, it was beautiful! Schools of blue-spotted jacks.
TBT: 43 min., Max depth: 83', Water temp: 82º, Vis 40', Weather: partly cloudy & hot, Sea: mild current.

3rd Dive site: Viking Rock - Again, lots of hammerheads, whitetips, lots of bi-valve clams, trunk and Pacific jewel Box & puffer fish, groupers & bass.
TBT: 50 min., Max depth: 74', Water temp: 84º, Vis: 50', Weather: overcast, Sea: calm.

Sunday, May 6th - DM: Mario

Dive site: Dos Amigos pequeño - We had a dolphin escort on the way out to the site, which always bodes well. Sure enough it was an excellent dive, more hammerheads, blacktips, whitetips, octopus, a stone scorpion fish, tons of sea stars, in various shades and hues. Eels, Marbled rays and lots of jacks, snappers and the like. We heard dolphins, but never saw them during the dive. Another awesome dive.
TBT: 39 mins., Max depth: 95', Water temp: 82º, Vis:40-50', Weather: overcast, Sea: mid-heavy surge.

2nd dive site: Dos Amigos grandé - Silvertip sharks! Turtles, plural... blacktip and whitetip sharks, more marbled rays, there's a beautiful archway around 90' that blue and gold snappers hang out in that we passed through. There was a plethora of blue, black and red sea stars everywhere, we heard dolphins, and saw a silky shark!
TBT: 51 mins., Max depth: 107', Water temp: 84º, Vis: 40-50', Weather: Sunny/Overcast, Sea: light surge

3rd dive site: didn't do it. Decided to take it easy and rest for the remainder of the day. The blue team headed out to Turtle Lane for their last dive, but the Aggressor had already claimed the site, so they went somewhere else and Dan can't remember where it was.

Monday, May 7th - DM: Hugo

Dive site: Alcyone - Wow! What a dive site, this was my most favorite site yet. This rock is teeming with life: marbled rays, hammerheads, whitetips, octopus: one pair mating!, morays, red, black, and the most beautiful blue and white sea stars (haven't seen the blue & white at any other site yet this week), turtles, barberfish, lots of pufferfish, big and small, it's difficult to stay out of the way of everything here. We heard dolphins but didn't see any. A turtle crossed by right in front of me, less than 10 feet away, what a show! I was having so much fun, I forgot about watching my time at depth and my computer went into deco mode -- oops! But I was diving nitrox and my computer wasn't aware of that, so I didn't really go into a decompression dive. I was however the last one back on the boat. There was a large wahoo (3-4') hanging around the surface during the safety stop checking everyone out.
TBT: 42 mins. Max depth: 91', Water temp: 84º, Vis: 60'+, Weather: overcast, Sea: light-medium current.

2nd dive site: Shark Fin - Marbled rays everywhere! too many to count, it's mating season and they're everywhere. Lots of bugs, jacks, snappers, and hammerheads, another wahoo was at the surface at the end of the dive during our safety stop.
TBT: 39 mins., Max depth: 89', Water temp: 82º, Vis: 40-50', Weather: sunny/cldy, Sea: 1+ knot current.

3rd dive site: Silverado - We were treated to taking in the show of 3 very large, very pregnant Silvertip sharks, each of them around 6'-7' long. We watched from the sandy bottom as they circled the rock outcropping and allowed the barberfish to clean them. Saw some great mollusks sporting shells that people collect, cool stripes and patterns. A Pacific leopard flounder, sand tile fish, feather dusters, schooling whitecheek surgeonfish, and barber fish.
TBT: 61 mins. Max depth: 42', Water temp: 84º, Vis: 30-40', Weather: rain, Sea: slight surge.

Tuesday, May 8th - DM: Mario

Dive site: Manuelita West (deep) - Saw only 8-10 hammerheads, a couple of eels, 20 or so whitetips (seeing them is getting to be like seeing Nurse sharks in the Caribbean). There were at least 20 marbled rays here, and one eagle ray, 20+ triggers and 20+ scrawled filefish and a large Bluefin tuna sped by us.
TBT: 51 mins., Max depth: 89', Water temp: 82º, Vis: 50', Weather: sunny/cloudy, Sea: light surge.

2nd dive site: Alcyone - Schools and schools of hammerheads, most we've seen so far. Had fun finding octopus again, there are Cocos barnacle blennys everywhere in the barnacles (hence the name!), black urchins, eels, hogfish and barberfish. I love this dive site.
TBT: ?, Max depth: 102', Water temp: 82º, Vis: 60', Weather: partly sunny, Sea: calm, light current.

3rd dive site: El Arco - Saw my first Manta ray this week, the gold team had seen a few previously on their dives. The visibility wasn't that great, but we saw a fair amount of fish and some silvertips. Lots of bugs, sea stars and eels. Didn't use much air on this dive, started with 3000 psi, and returned with 1300 psi.
TBT: 57 min., Max depth: 59', Water temp: 84º, Vis: 50', Weather: rainy/cloudy, Sea: heavy surge.

Wednesday, May 9th - DM: Hugo

Dive site: Dos Amigos pequeño - I didn't dive this morning, but I did suit up and go along, thinking I might dive. We encountered a pod of bottlenose dolphins and some silky sharks on the way out to Dos Amigos Pequeño. The dolphins wanted to play so everyone except me and Deb jumped into the water and snorkeled with them. They stayed quite a while. Mel was having a ball swimming around with the dolphins, when she spotted a silky shark and started moving quickly away... this made the silky a bit more quick to pursue her, and thankfully a dolphin decided that this snorkler was her's and came between Mel and the silky, and the silky thankfully backed off. I'll bet Mel won't forget that close encounter for a while. Deb didn't do the dive either when we finally stopped playing with the dolphins and got to the dive site. The surge was so high and heavy that neither of us felt like dealing with it. The dolphins swam around the boat for 5+ minutes checking us out until they grew bored and left us. When everyone got back on board, they told us it was a good dive, but didn't miss anything new or exciting. whew. On the ride back we noticed another pod of dolphins and silky sharks -- the water was churning: it was a full-blown bait ball in ACTION! It was incredible: the sea birds were hitting the water like crazy getting the fish that were jumping out of the water trying to avoid the deadly jaws below the surface snapping at them. The sharks were in the middle of the bait ball, the dolphins were circling the perimeter and going in and out of the bait ball, there were Wahoo that were also participating in this food fest, it was simplying amazing to see! Howard Hall's team spent 6 months out here waiting for this to happen to film, and we were lucky enough to come upon it on the ride back from a dive. When things slowed down and the frenzy was over, Hugo jumped in the water, and he saw a immature sailfish go by! It left so quickly that none of us got to see it. (This was an amazing event to behold, I'm sure, I'd really, really wanted to see a Sailfish or Marlin au naturél, and not at the end of a line, struggling for its life.) Most everyone with a camera had stuck them below the surface during the bait ball feeding-frenzy, so we were able to see some of the action from the underside, one shark came a wee bit too close to Dan's camera from what came out on the video...! yikes! The gold team also shared this phenomenon, actually they were there before we got there and had been watching for a while. Everyone was pretty pumped up after this and we talked about it most of the day.

I decided I wasn't feeling all that great, kinda queasy, so I took the day off from diving. I lounged around the boat, read, made friends with a brown booby, took some pictures and just generally enjoyed the quiet time and the scenery. There was a gorgeous sunset tonight.

The crew had a dinner party planned for this evening, we dined on T-Bone steaks and freshly prepared fish and lots of vegetables and other good food up on the sun deck, where the crew had set up tables and chairs. Afterward there was dancing and drinking and joke telling into the wee hours of, oh, I'd guess about 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock. Hey, we started turning in every night at 8:30pm, so this was a big deal. We had a lot of fun. I danced with most of the crew and Pete, who was really the only fun guy that was into dancing with all the ladies. Dan danced with me for a short while, but then he pooped out and went to bed around 9:30 or so.

Karen dresses up for Pollywog's Graduation. It was a big night for Pollywog, um, I mean Guppy (and Hugo's lovely turquoise dress).

Thursday, May 10th The last day of diving. DM: Mario

Dive site: Alcyone - Another fabulous, stupendous dive! We had a dolphin escort this morning on the way out. Have I mentioned that I love this site: octopus, schooling hammerheads, eels, sea stars, marbled rays, whitetips, turtles.... There were 2 large manta rays here this morning, they did a couple of passes around the cleaning station, they were as beautiful and graceful as always. I'd like to be reincarnated as a mermaid and live here. Wonder if Shirley could give me a few tips for making that happen? There were jellyfish at the surface and another wahoo while we were doing our safety stop. Brilliant!
TBT: 35 mins., Max depth: 93', Water temp: 82º, Vis: 50+', Weather: sunny, Sea: heavy current.

2nd dive site: Dirty Rock - The thermoclines on this dive were unreal. For the first time this week, I was really glad I was in my 3-mil wetsuit. Most of the week it was so warm, the wet suit seemed superfluous. At one point the water registered 77º and it felt really cold. We saw a turtle, lots of marbled rays, skip jack tuna, silkys, blacktips, and a GALAPAGOS shark and while there was a school of fish surrounding us that were being somewhat hunted, a huge yellowfin tuna zoomed through! Mario figured it weighed over 100 pounds. I finally saw a MOBULA ray (member of the manta ray family, but smaller (but still pretty big)). I was so excited about seeing it, that I swam hard to watch it for a while, but it was moving so quickly the moment didn't last too long... Later Mario told me that I saved that ray's butt from a shark attack. Who knew I was so brave? Did I mention also that I healed a brown booby earlier in the week? I'm a healer. Ask Mel.
TBT: 35 min., Max depth: 93', Water temp: 80's, Vis: 60', Weather: sun & clouds, Sea: light current

3rd dive site: Lobster Rock - This was probably the least eventful dive of the week. I'd wanted to stick by Mario through the last dive, but that didn't happen. Once we all got in the water, we seemed to kinda just disappear into small groups, and then disappear altogether. I was pretty much following Mel and Bob (I figured wherever Mel was, there was Mario), but they weren't with Mario. Shortly after that, Dan and I lost Mel and Bob... geez, we were all alone. Every now and then Dan and I would look at one another and shrug, as in: "where is everybody?" A while later we ran across Ross and Deb, then lost 'em. But still no Mario, Bruce, Tom, Karen and Maryann...? Well we went at least half way around Lobster Rock and after an hour we surfaced and floated around a while. Didn't see the boat. José had his hands full, finally he came around the corner with Mel and Bob. We got into the boat and a ways off, we saw Ross and Deb, and we went and picked them up. José knew that the rest of the gang was on the other side of the rock, so we went and picked them up. We teased Mario about losing us and that we had dived our divemaster's plan, and that he hadn't. (He reminded us that it was only a 50' dive and to do whatever we wanted down there if the dive plan didn't sound good.) Then we morosely headed back to the Sea Hunter, our diving was over. Oh, we saw a couple turtles, some eels, lots of immature fish and some small sea stars... didn't go below 50'. We started cleaning our gear once we got back aboard the Sea Hunter.... I now have 135 lifetime dives.

We had an excellent dinner, I stayed up late gabbing with Karen and Liat, we had a whole day of travel ahead of us, no sense in going to bed early. We were underway within one hour after we returned from our last dive.

Friday, May 11th

We lounged, read, socialized and sun-bathed most of the day, we had beautiful sailing weather back to reality. Didn't see any dolphins or whales on the return trip.

Hugo said our ETA at Puntarenas would be a little after 10:00pm, but that it would be low tide and we'd sleep in the harbour and motor into the marina around 5:00AM when the tide was high.

Got a good night's sleep, and when the engines started up early in the morning, I knew our fun time aboard the Sea Hunter had come to the end.

Saturday, May 12th

We showered, had breakfast, finished packing up last minute items and started saying goodbye. We were sad to have to leave. We had such a wonderful time. We said farewell to our old chums, and new friends alike, promising that we'd all get together in a few months to look at each others pictures and reminisce about our excellent diving vacation in Costa Rica. The crew of the Sea Hunter are top notch professionals that know how to give a great trip. I can't say enough good things about them. They are an incredible information source with regards to the dive sites, reefs, the habits of the fish that frequent Cocos, and lots of other great things. All are kind, caring and courteous and friendly.

Eight of us went ashore (Ross, Deb, me, Dan, Kerry, Bruce, Bob & Lisa) at 8:00AM to take the bus out to the Tabacan Resort and Lodge in Arenal to see the active volcano, do some relaxing, hiking and white-water rafting over the next 3 days. Bob and Mel were heading into the interior to do some "tree-hugging" on an investment they made a while ago. The rest of the folks were heading back to reality...

We were all feeling pretty crisp after a full week of diving and were looking forward to having some downtime to relax. Unfortunately, our guide Rolando was thinking that we were probably psyched to get in some hiking and sight-seeing after having been aboard a boat all week, and not doing anything at all but dive, and how low key that must have all been. Ha! he apparently isn't a diver. Well, after spending about 3 hours in the bus, we stopped at the Arenal National Park to hike to the waterfall and go swimming. None of us were prepared for this, so we had to go digging through our bags to find bathing suits and water shoes and sunscreen. The park was nice, and the waterfall was beautiful, but I was tired and hungry. We saw some of the big beautiful blue butterflies that live in the Costa Rican forest, and saw lots and lots of leafcutter ants doing their thing. Finally got to the bottom of the hike where the falls was, it's probably an 80' fall and it was really lovely and cool. I didn't go swimming. Only Ross and Deb and Rolando went wafting. We hung around for a bit, then made the long trudge up the many steps back to the top where the bath house was. We piled back into the bus and Rolando and Flavio, the bus driver, took us to a nice outdoor little restaurant where we were all quite happy to be.

We finally arrived at the Tabacan Resort at 3:30PM. I noticed that check-in wasn't until 4:00PM and that's why Rolando was keeping us busy until late in the day. We all might have behaved a little bit nicer if we had been aware of this fact. Oh well, we were finally here and the resort was really nice. We all put on our bathing suits and met down at the pool. Bruce was the first one there, having a cocktail in the pool at the bar. I was second. Wow. The pool is filled with mineral springs HOT water. This is pura vida, indeed. I have never stayed in a pool so long as I did here. The water temp must have been about 90º, maybe a little more, and it felt really good. We stayed in the pool for a few hours then got ready for dinner, which Rolando had planned and made reservations for. It was a local restaurant (in Fortuna, I believe), and it was pretty good. I've enjoyed all the food that we've had thus far on the trip.

Sunday, May 13th

Today we relaxed in the morning after a leisurely buffet breakfast at the Tabacan resort. Around 10:00am we headed out with Rolando and Flavio, to the foot of the volcano to do some hiking around. It was hot, but it was a nice walk. In between the volcanic ash that has built up over the years, there are some small rainforests. The temperature was probably 10º cooler in there. It was a nice respite from the heat. That took a couple of hours, so afterward we went to lunch, where we'd had dinner the night before and then went back to the resort to hit that wonderfully, delectable and delightful pool!

We had dinner as a group at the Resort. From there we went our separate ways, I went back to my room, I was tired.

Monday, May 14th

We didn't stay up late watching the volcano. We got a good nights rest and were up, packed and at breakfast by 7:10am. We left the Tabacan on time and drove for over an hour to Miti's Kayak Center in Turrialba. We got our rafting lesson from Eric for our trip down the Sarapiqui River for some white-water rafting for the next 2+ hours.

After more hours on the road than I would have liked, we returned to the Cariari Resort around 5:00PM. We checked into our respective rooms, and then met at the bar. After a few martini's I was feeling much better. We had an enjoyable dinner, then turned in for a short stint at sleeping.

We checked out of the hotel at 5:30 and left San José for the airport at 6:00AM. Upon our return our limo driver filled us in on some local news and stopped at the convenience store so we could pick up some staples. Got home safe and mostly sound at 9:30PM. It was raining and cold. Already Isla del Coco seemed so far away...

This page is a 2001 © copyright by A.B. Mullen