SCUBA Diving with Big Animals in Playa Ocotal, Costa Rica

Updated: June 25, 2009
Original Post: April 6, 2009

Ocotal is one of my all time favorite places to dive. I say this because of the variety of sea life, the service at Ocotal Beach Resort, and the overall ease of the vacation. There are plenty of dive sites locally that offer everything from morays, spotted eagle rays, cow nose rays, to clown shrimp, grouper, whitetips and the occasional manta.

While out of the water, the beach is great, Playa de Coco is close for night life, but don’t miss dinner at Ocotal up on the hill. Fantastic and romantic.

The diving is a bit more advanced – you should be prepared for currents and surge, some thermoclines and varying visibility.  Getting to the sites couldn’t be easier at Ocotal – simply check in at the shop, walk down to the beach, jump on the panga and in 30 seconds you are on one of their BIG dive boats heading towards your first location.  Guides at Ocotal are also very knowledgable.  When one of them saw me with my camera in tow, he (Flaco) proceeded to guide me to an area that had a few clown shrimp so I could grab some unique photos.  Expect dives between 35 and 85 ft with plenty of surge and current.

Every now and then, you get to see some big animals at Ocotal.  During my last trip, during our surface interval, a HUGE manta swamp up to and then dove beneath the boat.  I have only seen shadows underwater until then; I was breathless.

The resort itself is quite nice.  Rooms were comfortable and clean.  I think I actually preferred the rooms closer to the beach – much easier in the AM for diving and beach/pool time.  The only downer is that for dinner or lunch you need to hike or drive up the hill for the larger restaurant, but it is worth it.  There are bungalows that are available on the hill side with a killer view and shared mini pool and hot tub.  This may be a consideration next time we go, which we will.

What to bring:

• Mask / Fins / Snorkel are a must, but I also like to bring my personal dive gear sans wetsuit.  I like to dive with either a 3 or 5mm full suit when diving, but I have seen others just go with a shorty.
• Camera and underwater housing.  I picked up a 6MP Olympus a while ago and it works great!  I may not get as vivid of photos as I do topside with my Nikon D200, but it does the job.
• Sunscreen.  SPF 50 is my personal friend.

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Tags: Costa Rica, Deep Sea Fishing, Diving, Dolphin, Eel, Frog Fish, Manta Ray, Ocotal, Photography, SCUBA, Shark

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 8:00 AM and is filed under Costa Rica, Fishing, Photography, SCUBA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.