September 01, 2005 - The Best & the Worst of Manuelita

The rains have been replaced by wind and huge swells that are worsening as the day progresses. Mike & I are feeling a little burnt out on the diving. Our plans to dive the Dos Amigos have been foiled due to the outrageous swells, & hence our hopes of encounter the large hammerhead schools.



Dive 20 : Manualita (out)



These crazy downward currents are exhausting. Galapagos sharks in close range. Isolated hammerheads in the distance. Turtle in distance. One spotted eagle ray.



Dive 21: Dirty Rock

The enormity of the school of big eye jack here still takes my breath away. It’s kind of cool to swim amongst them and pretend that you are one in the school! Spent the first half of dive with the school then followed the current which whipped us a high speeds around to the other side of dirty rock. My computer starts beeping like crazy on the drift. Not sure why. I think the drift was causing a simultaneous rapid ascent. The other side of dirty rock had some large rocks to explore in. White tips came swimming at me at very close range. Watched a parade of marble rays- one of which was very large. Pretty cool sight. Tuna in open water during ascent.



Dive 22: Manualita (out)

It takes 22 dives in Cocos to get what we came here for. This was and probably will be the best dive in Cocos. Even as I descended, there were scattered hammerheads roaming. The waters were current free when we came to the cleaning station at about 90-100 feet. As I hung hiding behind a rock at about 80 feet, hammerheads came and went, some in fairly close range ( closer than they have ever been thus far). We must have observed at least 40 pass us by during the 15minutes we hung there. Had to surface as I had 3 minutes of no deco time left and only 850 psi. The others went on to observe more hammerheads at a 2nd cleaning station at 60 feet. We had come to Cocos to observe the hammerheads. It took 6 days and 22 dives and it was worth it!



Dive 23: Manualita (out)

We tried to recreate the dive from earlier but failed miserably. If that was the best, this was probably the worst dive in Cocos. It is amazing how quickly conditions can change in just 2 hours. The currents were ripping and we were swept flying past Manuelita at high speeds. Hanging on to rocks for dear life in order to catch a breath before taking off again. Saw fish and rock surface fly past us. If there were sharks around we certainly didn’t have the opportunity to see them. Surfaced out at sea. Thank you, Manuel, our pangero, for always being there to fish us out!



Dive 24: Night dive Chatham Bay

I am getting better and searching for the small stuff. I have learned that in every crevice of a coral head there is a resident. You just have to train your eyes to find him. I found a baby moray- its diameter narrower than a pencil. About 6 shrimp ( gotta look out for those little red reflexes), another of those brilliantly red crab. Another larger crab ( about the size of a Maryland blue crab) that was very pretty- purple and red. And many tiny colorful fish.