Explore more
Sunday dawned, and after a dive in the morning we decided to head down to Golfito to check out some new diving spots. Golfito is a small town in the south of Costa Rica very close to the border. The area is far from any existing dive operation but there are many tales of big fish sightings, reefs and all so for this reason we decided to check it out.
After a tour of the town on Sunday evening we headed out for our first dive the following morning to an area called Punto Mantapalo. This is towards Drake Bay and the famous Isla Cano. The trip out there has some amazing scenery as we zoomed along the coast of the Corcovado park. The waters were almost caribbean with shades of blue and green. We entered by a pinnacle and immediately were surrounded by schools of grunts and pork fish. All kinds of reef fish on everyside and clearly calling out to us a large archway and swim through. we then headed down the reef encountering some incredible coral coverage and lots of life including some big sting rays. Unfortunately the camera decided to take this oportune moment to stop working. Yeah!!!!
Dive 2 in Golfito
Dive 2, we headed back toward puerto jimenez and dove a wreck that we had heard about. One of the nice things about diving unexplored places is knowing how untouched it is! The sailboat was sunk around 10 years deliberately by some disgruntled employees of the “once” owner…(in other words don’t upset the locals!!!) Resting in 90 ft of water it is a small but very interesting wreck, schools of fish, and home to a rather large grouper and his fat snapper companion. They didn’t look to bothered our approach! Dive 2 camera worked for about 5 minutes…half yeah!!
Last dive, more wrecks
Final dive we decided to explore a place known only as the “widow maker” due to the fact that many people have lost their boats there. Its a set of pinnacles close to the town of Golfito that depending on the tide can be partially or completely submerged. We met a thermocline to start which certainly woke us up but that soon cleared and we had a nice long dive checking out some of the canyons and reef, home to many different fish and MORE big stingrays!!!
The reefs are beautiful and untouched and with such a vast area still unexplored we will definitely be back.
Update as of April 2018
We will be back! Oceans Unlimited is currently in the process of opening up a second dive center located in the Golfito Marina Village. For those of you the want to come and explore some wrecks in Costa Rica. Contact us today for an exciting trip!