What is diving like in Costa Rica?

[DougK]

Our travel agent gave us a good price on trip to Costa Rica in early May. The hotel is on the Pacific side.

What is diving like there? Which coast is best, Pacific or Atlantic?

Since I find the pacific in the US on the cold side what are water temps like on the Pacific side?

Any other help is appreciated. Any web site to check?

 

[Scuba65]

DougK...i've dove in CR many times and love it....some people here have gone and like it..but, complain about the viz. I've always have had good viz there ...not great but 80-90 ft. viz. Catalina Island and Bat Island is really good. Pretty much all the diving is done in the Pacific side of CR...Guanacaste since the ocean is more calmer than the caribbean side....I"m heading to Cocos Island next yr. if you have any other question let me know and i can help you as much as i can.

 

[Jim Baldwin]

Doug,

Spent a week last June diving and siteseeing in Costa Rica. The jungle canopy tours were fantasic. We stayed at Ocatoal Resort on the Pacific side. We dove Catalina Island along with several other places.

Lots and lots of volvanic rock. A tiny bit of soft coral. Vis was 10 to 25 feet. A Red Tide was just clearing so that may have been part of the problem. This must be Puffer Fish capitol of the world. We saw hundreds of them over five days of diving. Lots of eels and about two dozen white tip sharks.

Besides the low visibility we had surge and current. Be prepared to be pushed around a little underwater. I would definitenly consider this advanced diving. You need to understand that this in no way will look like Cozumel with lots of soft and hard coral.
It's just a different type of environment.

We were anticipating see a lot more big animals. I think that the Red Tide was the main problem for the lack of animals. I wore a full 3mm and a hood and my wife wore a skin with a 3 mm shorty.

The resort was good and the people were very friendly.

 

[DCBnG]

Dove in CR in Feb. It was ok.... Viz was about 15 feet...and the water was pretty chilly. Decent animal life underwater, (a group that went out on a different boat actually saw a pod of whales) and everyone was very friendly. The country is way over "touristized", but it is extremely clean, and the food was great.

Plan on spending quite a few $$$ once you're there if you are used to the more tropical and cheap kinda places such as Asia.

 

[Divesherpa]

Make sure to try longboarding while you are there. The Pacific coast is littered with some of the best breaks in the world. Excellent breaks to try a longboard for the first time.

 

[tracydr]

I'm going May 11. When are you going to be there? We're also going to Nicaragua and thinking we might spend our diving time/dollars at San Juan del Sur instead of in Costa Rica. Wondering if anybody else has dived there?
If you're there the same time as us we should meet up!

 

[diversteve]

Any other help is appreciated. Any web site to check?

I found this one useful:

http://www.1costaricalink.com/eng/web/diving/scuba.htm