buton
Contributor
This was quite an adventure going diving to coiba, overall the diving is really GOOD. On the accommodations side is quite challenging.
We went diving with Scuba Coiba, we were told to be there at 7 45 am. We were there at 7 30 am and we got out on the boat at 9 30 am, that was a long wait which I did not like it, there is an opportunity there to improve since I hate WAITING. It just took us 15 minutes to fill the forms, pay and show the C-Card(since we brought our own equipment). On the logistics side there is a chance to improve, on the morning the very first people to depart where the cooking crew for coiba, they departed on a boat with all the food and some tanks, I think they should have taken our luggage.
Why they should have taken our luggage ? well this is how it works on the first day. You depart santa catalina at they time they are ready. You do 2 dives on the way to coiba with a surface interval in a beautiful beach, then you get to the camp after the 2 dives, lunch is already serve, you eat and the boat departs at 4 pm for the third dive of the day. Well on the way to coiba on the boat we were 7 people with luggage and diving gear, the captain, divemaster and another guy who help so we had 10 people on a PANGA with luggage, diving gear, tanks and no WATER(hopefully I brought some). Another improving point will be to add a ladder to climb on that panga back from diving because it was pretty difficult specially for girls. And that was the first diving day. I was not that mad because the diving was really good, first dive we saw whaleshark, white tip shark, turtles, school of jacks and my camera gave me a MEMORY CARD ERROR xd. The DM chirstopher was really good on the briefings and navigating through the reef pointing out all the good stuff.
Food
Awesome food, this girls where top chefs Miriam will serve great food. There was even a group of vegetarians and they also cooked for them special menu. On the morning you will have eggs, sausage, coffee, water and juice. For lunch it was really good, we had sancocho, spaguetti, meat, salad, patacones, fish, pork. For the night wine, beer, fish, meat. THE FOOD WILL NOT BE A PROBLEM TRUST ME IT WAS TERRIFIC KUDOS TO THE CHEFS. Also you don't need to bring any food or water, they have a lot.
Accomodations at Coiba
Keep in mind that this is not in control of the Scuba Coiba since it is manage by the ambient authority of panama ANHAM. On the camp they are some cabanas divided in two, each side accommodates 6 beds with a full bathroom. Power is just available from 7 to around 11 pm and water is available all day. The caba;as and batrooms are pretty clean. Now the problem is what they call in panama CHITRAS aka sandflys(Sandfly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), which are small little mosquitos and believe me there is no repellent against them since traditional mosquito repel does not work we tried all brands from many people in there and none worked against those things which are really annoying. For Chitras it is suggested to bring long sleeve cloting to protect you against those. Sleeping was the worse part of the trip, although the bed was really comfortable power is just available until 11 pm so the electric fan no longer works so NO WIND = LOTS OF CHITRAS HUNGRY TO BYTE YOU, NO AIR it was really hot some times. So prepare for that, some people even brought some anti mosquito chitra nets like the ones used on AFRICA , if you have the opportunity to bring a battery operated small fan that will work also. I guess if there is some wind blowing at night it would have helped because the cabanas have a lot of windows.
The Boat
Like a lot of destinations the dives are done from a Panga Style Boat, the crew has a radio and the oxygen kit. DM and Orlando get your dive gear ready if you want to back roll or they will hang it to you if you want to put it on the water, there will be an order on doing that since the panga store the tanks on the back, you go the the back gear up and back roll, two divers at a time.
The diving
The first day we where 4 divers and 3 snorkelers. Second day we were 4 divers on the first two dives and 5 on the third dive. Third day was hard because we were 8 divers and 1 guide in a panga full of people with 18 tanks and dive gear it was quite challenging to get in the water it took a long time to do it, I will suggest to herbie to avoid that and just keep 6 people, 8 people was a lot on the small boat, I don't mind having 8 people on the water if the boat was bigger. The first and second day was awesome with just 4 and 5 divers.
Some diving sites are challenging with currents, we just had one dive which was really hard to swim against it, other than that it was really easy to get along with the current and surge, just keeping an eye to the soft coral. The depth of the dive sites where around 90 to 40 feet ranging from green and blue water, temperature above the 80's F. I was comfortable on a 3 mm wetsuit, my wife was comfortable on a 3mm wetsuit and a hoddie. Another advice is to Wear Gloves since the mooring lines to get down to the reef are full of sharping edges because of growing coral, and you will need to hold on them because of the current.
The diving is so different from the Caribbean most of the dive sites are around rocks where sealife grows, the underwater formations are incredible you will look up and see a giant wall/rock growing to the surface. Fish seems happy on the reef with a lot of schools of jacks being curious and coming around you to inspect you it is just hilarious. Yes Cozumel has a beautiful pristine water, colorful reefs illuminated by the sun but this green and sometimes blue water dives at coiba with tons of fish around you behind big rocks and underwater mountains makes you feel special.
The highlights of this trip for my wife and I was to see our first black tip shark which is hard to take a picture I tried to get close to them very calm but whenever I was close to them they just swam away from me, there was this occasion where the shark was letting me getting closer than usual, adrenaline was running through my body finally I decided this is enough I want to come back alive
. I saw my first frog fish we saw 3 of them, also my first yellow edged moray, jewel moray, Moorish idol, whale shark and blue jack, so far those are the ones I remember. This trip was great because we saw some other fish that may not be easy to find on the Caribbean also we experimented other type of diving conditions where we learn a lot and the DM Chistopher was great giving advice on how to kick against current.
The crew of scuba coiba was great I have not complaint at all, I know they can work and improve their logistics and solve some of the problems stated above but we must understand that coiba is like an hour and a half from santa catalina on boat, is a big virgin island, you will see the paradise this place is while going to the dive site. We might never see a power plant on the camp but whenever they put that power generator and the AC gets back working, it will be a top notch diving destination.
Yes I would like to come back again, but my wife says that will be until there is AC lol..
Kudos to the crew because they worked hard in having everything ready, hauling gear and changing tanks.
The pictures are on flickr and in google on the links, i will upload a video tomorrow.
Diving Pictures link
Coiba ANAM Camp picuture link
We went diving with Scuba Coiba, we were told to be there at 7 45 am. We were there at 7 30 am and we got out on the boat at 9 30 am, that was a long wait which I did not like it, there is an opportunity there to improve since I hate WAITING. It just took us 15 minutes to fill the forms, pay and show the C-Card(since we brought our own equipment). On the logistics side there is a chance to improve, on the morning the very first people to depart where the cooking crew for coiba, they departed on a boat with all the food and some tanks, I think they should have taken our luggage.
Why they should have taken our luggage ? well this is how it works on the first day. You depart santa catalina at they time they are ready. You do 2 dives on the way to coiba with a surface interval in a beautiful beach, then you get to the camp after the 2 dives, lunch is already serve, you eat and the boat departs at 4 pm for the third dive of the day. Well on the way to coiba on the boat we were 7 people with luggage and diving gear, the captain, divemaster and another guy who help so we had 10 people on a PANGA with luggage, diving gear, tanks and no WATER(hopefully I brought some). Another improving point will be to add a ladder to climb on that panga back from diving because it was pretty difficult specially for girls. And that was the first diving day. I was not that mad because the diving was really good, first dive we saw whaleshark, white tip shark, turtles, school of jacks and my camera gave me a MEMORY CARD ERROR xd. The DM chirstopher was really good on the briefings and navigating through the reef pointing out all the good stuff.
Food
Awesome food, this girls where top chefs Miriam will serve great food. There was even a group of vegetarians and they also cooked for them special menu. On the morning you will have eggs, sausage, coffee, water and juice. For lunch it was really good, we had sancocho, spaguetti, meat, salad, patacones, fish, pork. For the night wine, beer, fish, meat. THE FOOD WILL NOT BE A PROBLEM TRUST ME IT WAS TERRIFIC KUDOS TO THE CHEFS. Also you don't need to bring any food or water, they have a lot.
Accomodations at Coiba
Keep in mind that this is not in control of the Scuba Coiba since it is manage by the ambient authority of panama ANHAM. On the camp they are some cabanas divided in two, each side accommodates 6 beds with a full bathroom. Power is just available from 7 to around 11 pm and water is available all day. The caba;as and batrooms are pretty clean. Now the problem is what they call in panama CHITRAS aka sandflys(Sandfly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), which are small little mosquitos and believe me there is no repellent against them since traditional mosquito repel does not work we tried all brands from many people in there and none worked against those things which are really annoying. For Chitras it is suggested to bring long sleeve cloting to protect you against those. Sleeping was the worse part of the trip, although the bed was really comfortable power is just available until 11 pm so the electric fan no longer works so NO WIND = LOTS OF CHITRAS HUNGRY TO BYTE YOU, NO AIR it was really hot some times. So prepare for that, some people even brought some anti mosquito chitra nets like the ones used on AFRICA , if you have the opportunity to bring a battery operated small fan that will work also. I guess if there is some wind blowing at night it would have helped because the cabanas have a lot of windows.
The Boat
Like a lot of destinations the dives are done from a Panga Style Boat, the crew has a radio and the oxygen kit. DM and Orlando get your dive gear ready if you want to back roll or they will hang it to you if you want to put it on the water, there will be an order on doing that since the panga store the tanks on the back, you go the the back gear up and back roll, two divers at a time.
The diving
The first day we where 4 divers and 3 snorkelers. Second day we were 4 divers on the first two dives and 5 on the third dive. Third day was hard because we were 8 divers and 1 guide in a panga full of people with 18 tanks and dive gear it was quite challenging to get in the water it took a long time to do it, I will suggest to herbie to avoid that and just keep 6 people, 8 people was a lot on the small boat, I don't mind having 8 people on the water if the boat was bigger. The first and second day was awesome with just 4 and 5 divers.
Some diving sites are challenging with currents, we just had one dive which was really hard to swim against it, other than that it was really easy to get along with the current and surge, just keeping an eye to the soft coral. The depth of the dive sites where around 90 to 40 feet ranging from green and blue water, temperature above the 80's F. I was comfortable on a 3 mm wetsuit, my wife was comfortable on a 3mm wetsuit and a hoddie. Another advice is to Wear Gloves since the mooring lines to get down to the reef are full of sharping edges because of growing coral, and you will need to hold on them because of the current.
The diving is so different from the Caribbean most of the dive sites are around rocks where sealife grows, the underwater formations are incredible you will look up and see a giant wall/rock growing to the surface. Fish seems happy on the reef with a lot of schools of jacks being curious and coming around you to inspect you it is just hilarious. Yes Cozumel has a beautiful pristine water, colorful reefs illuminated by the sun but this green and sometimes blue water dives at coiba with tons of fish around you behind big rocks and underwater mountains makes you feel special.
The highlights of this trip for my wife and I was to see our first black tip shark which is hard to take a picture I tried to get close to them very calm but whenever I was close to them they just swam away from me, there was this occasion where the shark was letting me getting closer than usual, adrenaline was running through my body finally I decided this is enough I want to come back alive
. I saw my first frog fish we saw 3 of them, also my first yellow edged moray, jewel moray, Moorish idol, whale shark and blue jack, so far those are the ones I remember. This trip was great because we saw some other fish that may not be easy to find on the Caribbean also we experimented other type of diving conditions where we learn a lot and the DM Chistopher was great giving advice on how to kick against current. The crew of scuba coiba was great I have not complaint at all, I know they can work and improve their logistics and solve some of the problems stated above but we must understand that coiba is like an hour and a half from santa catalina on boat, is a big virgin island, you will see the paradise this place is while going to the dive site. We might never see a power plant on the camp but whenever they put that power generator and the AC gets back working, it will be a top notch diving destination.
Yes I would like to come back again, but my wife says that will be until there is AC lol..
Kudos to the crew because they worked hard in having everything ready, hauling gear and changing tanks.
The pictures are on flickr and in google on the links, i will upload a video tomorrow.
Diving Pictures link
Coiba ANAM Camp picuture link
