Pura Vida Dive in Samara

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Woody14

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My wife and I are going to to Samara in May for snorkeling and sightseeing and decided to try scuba diving, maybe even get certified. Neither of us has scuba dived before but have always wanted to and thought this would be a good time. I know Samara isn't the greatest diving place in the world but we are going to be there so what the heck.

Anyway, I have been trying to contact Pura Vida Dive in Samara for a couple of weeks by both calling and emails and have not received a response from them yet. It's getting a bit frustrating.

I guess I have a couple of questions. First, does anyone know if Pura Vida Dive is still operating and if so, is there is a way to contact them.

Secondly, is there a place close enough to Samara to easily drive to and scuba dive? From what I've read, the roads in Costa Rica aren't exactly stellar. The distances to the northern part of the peninsula don't look to be that far but I don't know how good the roads are.

Thanks in advance for your advice!
 
I don't recognize the name Pura Vida, but we tried to dive in Samara several years ago and kept being put off. We finally drove the two hours to Ocotal and dove with El Ocotal Resort. As far as I know the operator we tried to use in Samara was the only one in the area at that time. A closer option would be in Flamingo where there are a couple of dive operations, we have used Costa Rica Diving and been very happy.
 
Hi Woody, I live in Costa Rica and I do not think there is any dive center Samara. You may 2 or 3 at the pure south of the Nicoya Penicula close to Santa Teresa and Montezuma. But t oget certified I would really recommend you to spend some days in Flamingo or Playa del Coco. There are a cople of good and serious dive centers like Summer & Salt or Ocotal in Playa del Coco.
 
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Thanks a lot for the info, guys. Here is a link to Pura Vida's website: Pura Vida Dive Maybe they have closed. They don't answer the phone or emails.

I just signed up for the scuba classes here in Denver and we can do the first two open water dives at the Denver Aquarium. Will do the last two openwater dives somewhere in Costa Rica and, hopefull do a couple more dives there. I'm psyched. We've wanted to dive for years.

Thanks again!
Jerry
 
Have fun, we can give El Ocotal a thumbs up, my wife got certified there. She was very happy with her instructor. Someone just recently gave them a poor report here, maybe things have changed since we were there in 2005. We met one of the ex-divemasters from there a couple of years before she got certified and he said if we were going to do it in Costa Rica, to do it there as they pay better and get and keep the better people. When we have been diving with them everything was top notch.
 
Just an update. We got home from Costa Rica a couple days ago. We did our last two open water dives with Harald at Costa Rica diving in Playa Flamingo. The vis was bad, maybe 15 feet but it was interesting.

We did look up Pura Vida Dive in Samara and talked to Oscar there. He seemed real nice and I wish we could dived with him but we just ran out of time. We could have walked to his boat from our resort instead of driving two hours to Flamingo. I asked Oscar why he didn't answer his phone or reply to emails and he said he had a person hired to do that but wasn't very responsible. Hmmmm.

Anyway we had a great time in Costa Rica and would highly recomend it to anyone looking thinking about a place off the beaten path. We stayed at Hotel Villas Playa Samara and it was fabulous.
 

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