A few years ago I was able to save up enough to take a dream dive trip to Cocos island which is about 300 gut renching miles off the coast of Costa Rica. The seas were quite rough during August and stormy. We had quite a few waves wash the decks during the crossing that takes about 30 hours on the 120' Okeanos Aggessor. Cocos had everything they had promised you would see. 50+ sharks on every dive, schooling hammer heads, schools of hundreds of horse eyed jacks, turtles, eels, and more. We had a pretty interesting group on board, including a photograher from S. Africa who was there to get some photos for a magazine he was working for. He really took some amazing photos of sharks, but really wanted to get some of the yellow fin tuna. I was hanging out at 70' and and S.A. was about 30' feet below me when about 20 monster tuna blew by him. They actually had to part their group to swim around him. When we surface, I asked if he got some good photos of the tuna, all he said was what tuna? He never even saw them in the 100' plus vis.
The next day my wife and I were finishing a deep dive and were off gasing in about 50' foot of water along a underwater wall and looking at the fish life we were scaring out of the cracks. Just then we see the four vwbug size tuna with their mouths wide open in perfect diamond formation streaking staight at us. My wife clutched my arm(with nails embedded) and I grabbed a rocky ledge and pulled us both tight against the wall. The tuna's veered at the last second and passed us not six feet away. I nearly crapped myself!!! After they passed we were a little spooked but continued our dive along the wall. Not one minute later, HERE THEY COME AGAIN!!!! Then I realized that all the small fish that we were scaring out of the cracks and away from the protection of the wall were darting between my arms and legs to get between us and the wall and away from the tuna. Again they passed six feet away. You would think something that large passing by you so close at 30 knots would send you flying backwards with their jet wash, but they are so perfectly streamlined that we felt nothing. We got away from the wall immediately and ended our safty stop a few minutes early.
Cocos is a great place for freediving and is a protected national park. Plenty of shallower places to dive and deep walls for the experts. Not much coral though, mostly rocky bottom and underwater pinacles. DIVE ON! Ken
The next day my wife and I were finishing a deep dive and were off gasing in about 50' foot of water along a underwater wall and looking at the fish life we were scaring out of the cracks. Just then we see the four vwbug size tuna with their mouths wide open in perfect diamond formation streaking staight at us. My wife clutched my arm(with nails embedded) and I grabbed a rocky ledge and pulled us both tight against the wall. The tuna's veered at the last second and passed us not six feet away. I nearly crapped myself!!! After they passed we were a little spooked but continued our dive along the wall. Not one minute later, HERE THEY COME AGAIN!!!! Then I realized that all the small fish that we were scaring out of the cracks and away from the protection of the wall were darting between my arms and legs to get between us and the wall and away from the tuna. Again they passed six feet away. You would think something that large passing by you so close at 30 knots would send you flying backwards with their jet wash, but they are so perfectly streamlined that we felt nothing. We got away from the wall immediately and ended our safty stop a few minutes early.
Cocos is a great place for freediving and is a protected national park. Plenty of shallower places to dive and deep walls for the experts. Not much coral though, mostly rocky bottom and underwater pinacles. DIVE ON! Ken