Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Costa Rica

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Aggressor Fleet: "Cocos Island - Great Trip", Aug, 2023, by Lisa Vitale, TX, US ( Contributor 16 reports with 11 Helpful votes). Report 12527 has 2 Helpful votes.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
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Comments	Went to Cocos Island for the first time on the Cocos Island Aggressor, actually it is being called the Okeanos III per the boat although not on the Aggressor website. While this liveaboard has been marketed as a new boat (new build from the ground up) it is not. It was a boat that had been in the Red Sea, that they refurbished. My group was picked up from the Park Inn Radisson at 8AM for our 1.5 hour drive to Puntarenas. Driver gave us some good information about Costa Rica on our drive, that included a bathroom stop at a local market where you could pick up souvenirs, fruit, alcohol, etc. The trip was uneventful. The boat was at the dock when we arrived. We were greeted with a sparkling wine! Nice touch! Rooms: Good sized rooms, and had been redone with lots of storage space, new mattresses, new AC (that worked great). I was a little perplexed that the sheets on the twin bed were queen sheets so they did not fit the be correctly and way too much sheet. A sink separated the shower and toilet in an open space in the middle. Shower and toilet room were roomy. This is one of the locations where you could tell they did not redo. The shower head was all rusted and we had issues with water drainage, the sink fixtures were rusty, and the floor of the toilet room always had water sloshing around in it. And they did not keep this area very clean during the duration of our stay. The bathroom was a bit of a logistical issue, if sharing a room as you had to exit the shower to get dressed, then you were in the room. I figured out the easiest way was to use the toilet room for drying and dressing. If you want your towels changed out all you had to do was leave them on the floor and they would change them out. Plugs in the room were odd. They are US, but very hard to plug anything in to it. They looked fairly old, definitely had not been replaced. No hair dryer in the room, so bring your own if you need one. They did have hand soap, shower gel, and shampoo/conditioner for use. One of the rooms flooded several times. It was actually the room we were supposed to be in, but they moved us to another because of the issue. But then ended up putting 1 person in that room who subsequently got a bunch of their belonging/cloths wet when the room flooded. As is typical on liveaboard there is no place to hang things outside of the small closet. With all the wall space there should be several towel racks and hooks. In fact, this room had no towel rack at all, just 2 hooks, one for each person. Main Salon: The eating area was huge, there were two small lounge areas, 2 TVs. I was surprised that they did not have a movie library. Most boats do. Especially with the long crossings. So if you want to watch something bring it on your own device. They did show episodes of Blue Planet, but that seemed to be all they had. Top Deck: This boat has a nice large top deck with a hot tub. Half of it is covered. They have lounge chairs but nothing else, and some of those were broken. Needed some more lounge chairs and perhaps some tables/chairs, enough so everyone could be up there at once. The deck below did have a large couch area with a couple of tables. The hot tub was small, 4 person... and that was very tight. With all the room they have on the top deck it should have had at minimum a 6 person. The crew did not keep the hot tub running. We would tell them before a dive to make sure it was in working order, then find out they did nothing. They did not even put any water in it until our 2nd day of diving after we all complained about it. This was frustrating. Food: The food was great! Eggs to order every morning along with many other items. Lunch was buffet style and dinner sit down, except on transit days when it was all buffet. They did a Sushi night which everyone said was great! I don't eat sushi, but the presentation was amazing. The chef (and kitchen staff) did a great job! We even had a birthday while on board and he made a special cake. Breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 12:30, dinner at 6:30. Crew: The crew was good, there were definitely things that could improve, but overall they did a good job. Panga drivers were amazing! Two dive guides, the captain being one of them. The captain went on every dive and was the better of the two guides. We switched daily. The other guide at times had an attitude issue that we did not like. He kept us at depth a bit too long with many of our computers almost into deco as a result. One dive we did he decided it would be a marathon then laughed about it after the dive, he did not follow the dive plan at all that dive. Overall they did a good job. Dive Deck: This area was quite small. There really was not enough room for all of us getting ready at the same time. We were lucky that we were only a group of 18. There was a large "boat" deck beyond the dive deck where 2 camera rinses, wetsuit rinse, and 4 showers to wash off after a dive. This is where both pangas were loaded during transit. Each person had a small cubby. We had fresh towels assigned to you individually, they would dry them between dives. Pangas: They were a nice size but felt small when you got on. Your gear lived on the panga the entire trip, all the gear was placed in the center of the Panga. Could be a bit tricky getting your gear on. The ladder was the best one I've ever had on a panga. So easy to use, with a small platform, good steps, and handles. When everyone was ready to dive, they would send each person in individually, instead of all together. The panga driver would make sure all was clean then let you go. Diving: Unfortunately due to El Nino and the warm water temperatures we did not experience the action that we had hoped for. Most of the time the temperature was around 84°, we did hit some thermoclines that got us to 79° and 75°. We did see sharks on every dive, hammerheads, Galapagos, Blacktip, Whitetip, Silky, but we did not get the large schools of hammers that we hoped for, as they were too deep. At most we had 15-20 at a time. Had 1 or 2 mantas, no whale sharks, a couple dolphins, the other panga saw a Tiger Shark. Lots of schools of fish, huge schools of jacks, some tuna, sailfish. Visibility was probably 60-100 feet at most. We did have current and surge of varying degrees on most dives. We did a few shore excursions, where were great, and a sunset ride in the pangas around the island one evening. Every diver was given a GPS beacon in case something happened. Only 3 dives daily (this is stipulated by the park rangers), we were allowed 4 dives on day. No night diving is allowed. Dives typically occurred at 8AM, 10:30AM, and 3PM with some exceptions. I get cold while diving and always wear a 5 mil full suit. If the temps had been in the 70's I'd have added my Lavacore liner. Other folks were fine in 3 mil suits. It is a 36 hour crossing there and back. We were lucky going and had mainly 3 foot seas but returning there was a storm and it got to rocking and rolling! I do not get sea sick, but most folks did and either took Dramamine or used a scopolamine patch. I had higher hopes with the boat since it was touted a "new". They could have done better when they refurbed this boat with larger dive deck and camera areas. But overall was nice and a great trip! I highly recommend.
Websites	Aggressor Fleet
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Mexico, Belize, Cayman, Roatan, Turks and Caicos, Sea of Cortez, Galapagos, Hawaii, Flower Gardens, Maldives, Palau, Fiji, Philippines, Lembeh Strait, Raja Ampat, Papau New Guinea, Australia, Socorro, Komodo, Solomon Islands, St. Lucia
Closest Airport	SJO	Getting There	United AUS>IAH>SJO
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy, surge, currents, no currents
Water Temp	75-84°F / 24-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	50-100 Ft/ 15-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	If you wanted to break away from the group you were allowed if you were with your buddy. Most chose to stay as a group.
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters	N/A	Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Cameras: The camera table was on the dive deck, it was small. Fortunately our group only had 3 large cameras, the rest were smaller. But once everyone's camera was on the table there was no room for changing batteries, memory cards, etc. You had to be very careful. If you had an entire group with large cameras it would be tricky. There were no camera towels like most other liveaboards have. Battery Charging Station: In the main salon, there was one area to charge batteries. There were also cubbies so you place small items there. There were some US plugs, but not all were working. There were no US power strips, this was surprising as every liveaboard I've been on has several. The did have several European power strips, but that did not help us at all. Bring your own! It could be tricky getting a plug to charge your batteries. Overall, I did not think there was much room for the cameras. Since they redid this boat you would have thought this would have been given more thought.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

Subscriber's Comments

By Craig A Wood in PA, US at Sep 09, 2023 16:19 EST

Hi Lisa, I would have been disappointed in the boat also. It is advertised as a "new" 124 foot yacht. Obviously, this is not actually the case. I took the Okeanos II in 2017, it was an aging, but well taken care of boat, even then. The Cocos Island Aggressor (Okeanos III) runs a premium over the Okeansos II, one would expect something for that. I just got back from Malpelo, the water temp was about 4 degrees F higher than the same time of year, 2 years earlier. The water temp likely affected the sea life we endcountered. Perhaps this is El Nino? Thanks for your report, I'm thinking of this boat differently than I was earlier. Very best, Craig

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Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in Costa Rica

Aggressor Fleet: "Cocos Island - Great Trip", Aug, 2023,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Costa Rica