Dive Review of Nautilus Adventures in
Costa Rica/Cano Island

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Nautilus Adventures: "Ocean and Land", Aug, 2024, by Daniel Turgeon, QC, CA ( 1 report). Report 13186.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Land and Ocean My daughter Melanie, the aspiring wildlife photographer and documentarian, was returning to university in a few weeks. After a long summer of working, I decided that it was time for her to experience not just her first liveaboard trip, but also trekking into the rainforest of Costa Rica’s wild southern west coast. Doing some research, I discovered that Nautilus Adventures had an expedition that combined both diving and hiking. Our departure from Montreal was on a direct flight to Costa Rica, which, five and a half hours later, landed at San Jose’s Juan Santamaria airport. Everything went very well and after getting our gear and clearing customs we overnighted at the beautiful Marriott Hacienda Belen hotel where our shuttle was to pick us up the next day for the journey to Golfito where our ship the Nautilus Explorer was moored. We awoke to a glorious morning and after breakfast met with our Nautilus representative Anna who informed us that due to traffic conditions our shuttle would be delayed. The drive to Golfito is approximately five and a half hours. To fly takes only an hour, but since these are smaller planes there are luggage restrictions. With all our dive and personal gear, we didn’t fit the bill. So, we decided to bide our time to wander the hotel’s grounds which were spectacular. We got to witness a teaser of what awaited us on this trip. We observed and photographed crimson fronted parakeets, ruddy quail-doves, boat-billed flycatchers, white throated magpie jays, and great-tailed grackles. Between the foliage a large colourful orb-weaver spider also posed elegantly for us in the center of it’s web waiting patiently for its next meal. The shuttle took us along the western coast through all the many surfing destinations and plantations. We arrived where the Nautilus Explorer was docked to be greeted with welcoming smiles and glasses of champaign. Our luggage was brought to our assigned cabins and the dive gear was taken to our already waiting cylinders. I had been on this ship before on a trip to Socorro where I had the pleasure of being in a state room. This time we were below deck in our own cabin. The two beds we had were quite comfortable with a sink night table combo between them and below the porthole. The cabin had a separate shower and toilet set between the cabin door. There were outlet plugs for 110 uses and also USB charging outlets. However, for matters of safety we were told not to leave anything connected to these outlets if were not present in the cabin. The dive deck had a large camera table with multiple outlets for batteries, phones, etc. We settled down to a nice meal once sorted out and started to meet some of the other passengers. Our Captain Gerardo came to greet us onboard and introduced his crew. After his talk which got us pumped for what was to come everyone called it a night to get ready for this new adventure. Our itinerary for the week was to be split between diving and hiking. The diving portion was to happen around Isla de Cano and Drake Bay, while as the hiking was to be on Cano Island and Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula. It is known to be one of the most biodiverse places on the planet and is considered to be the last true remaining rainforest in Central America. For the time of year, we were there it truly lived up to its name. Between the heavy rain and a tropical depression further north of us the hiking trails were always wet and muddy and because of the coastal runoff the visibility for shallow diving was nearly wiped out until you got below forty feet. It then became very clear but gloomy due to the reduced sunlight getting through above us. We dove the El Baja del Diablo seamount site twice during our stay since it was the only one that offered decent visibility. This site was off shore from Cano Island out in open ocean. Our panga (skiff) driver put us right on top of the mount and then the hard part started since there were large swells and a strong surface current. We all rolled back into the water and we were lucky enough to stay together. It was a fast decent as we all tried to stay in visual contact with each other in spite of the pull of the current and the low visibility. As we descended thru the gloom we were rewarded with good visibility beyond forty feet. Here we entered a wonderland of reef fish, exotic starfish, anemones of all sorts, pufferfish, and large schools of horse-eyed Jacks. The occasional white-tip shark and green sea turtle would make an appearance. The seamount was mostly composed of large boulders which reminded me very much of diving in Socorro or Cocos Island. We were definitely in the central eastern pacific. Humpback whales also make an appearance at this time of year. Mothers with their calves and adult males looking for next years mate. We were treated to all three, but only with surface sightings. We tried to get in the water with them, however as stated before it was the rainy season so our visibility was reduced to near zero. You could raise your head out of the water and see giant pectoral fins slapping the water ahead of you but nothing once submerged. This was a little unnerving but exciting at the same time. A youngster was curious about our skiff and came relatively close to as mom kept a watchful eye. You could hear the explosive breaths as they surfaced near us with the calf enjoying itself with tail and fin slapping. As we were exclaiming our joy of witnessing this display of nature a bull humpback had swam under our skiff and surfaced right in front of us, its massive broad back breaking the surface and dwarfing our vessel. One explosive breath and down it went ahead of us, it vanished from the surface as if it had never been. The whales decided to part company with us and so we returned to our mothership each of us contemplating what we had just experienced both above and below the surface. The late afternoon sky was a surrealistic painting of a setting sun blending with storm clouds and a rolling grey sea. Our mornings were devoted to land excursions into the tropical rainforest. We would be left on the beach and we would be no more than ten feet into the forest on the trail and we were greeted by white-faced capuchin monkeys. This was quite thrilling since many moms had their babies in tow. I was amazed to see these smallish monkeys shredding through coconut husks with their bare teeth to get to the nut and onwards to get to the meat. That is a strong bite force. The rainforest trails at first were relatively easy to follow. The hard part was to watch your step for all the roots that crisscrossed the trails because most of the action happens in the tree canopy up above. Toucans, macaws, owls, king fishers, ibis, and songbirds of all types could be seen but not easily. Our onboard naturalist Gerson who accompanied us on these hikes came in very handily to point them out. One morning we arrived on the beach and Baird’s tapir tracks were everywhere. This is a strange animal that can weigh up to three hundred kilos and looks like a pig with a trunk, but it is more closely related to rhinos and horses. It is a living fossil dating back to the Eocene era and so in today’s world it is vulnerable in Costa Rica and endangered elsewhere. They are mostly active at night and so any that we did encounter were on a siesta. That afternoon we spent diving the Baja del Diablo site again since the conditions had not changed. This time the surface conditions had gotten more intense so it was decided that our dive guide Celina would go in first to anchor a dive line for us on the seamount. Once she had surfaced at the marker buoy our other dive guide Juan David timed our entries from the skiff. As we rolled in it became obvious that if you didn’t hit the downline immediately you were in for a good hard swim or you waited for the skiff to pick you up for another try. I swam to the buoy and then it became a hand over hand decent and you did not let go. As I got deeper the visibility cleared up and the current slackened but remained present. I felt something grab my leg and with some trepidation I turned and it was Melanie who had seen me appear through the cloud above us. We regrouped and took in our surroundings only to be enveloped in a Barracuda vortex. There had to be thousandsof two-to-three-foot Barracudas arriving from somewhere all in formation and surrounding us a Barracunado. It was one of those dives where you become part of that moment and time stands still. Nature in all it’s glory. This vortex cuda started where we were at eighty/seventy feet of depth and as you looked up it probably made it to the surface. We all wondered at this especially during our safety stop where we were still in the midst of this cuda vortex at fifteen feet. Diving in protected areas such as here, Cocos, or Socorro makes you realize what the ocean were like everywhere before commercialized fishing arrived on the scene. Our last day into the rainforest was a full day of trekking into Corcovado National Park. We were immersed in a live BBC nature documentary and you could imagine David Attenborough narrating it all. The whole day we were surrounded by scarlet macaws, yellow throated toucans, gartered trogons, great tailed grackles, magnificent frigate birds, crested owls, black vultures and hawks, grey hooded tanager, agoutis, coatis, squirrels of various species, bats, tapirs, saltwater crocs (very large), capuchin, spider, and howler monkeys, not to mention the insects predominately various orb weaver spiders and the ever-busy leaf cutter ants. Jaguars and pumas also call this area home but very well camouflaged so very hard to detect. Did I mention snakes? The forest cleared and we had arrived at the ranger station. The station included a small airstrip, a hostel for those doing overnight treks, a cafeteria style restaurant, a main office, gift shop, museum, and housing for the park rangers. Once fed and rested we headed back into the rainforest for more trekking till we arrived at the beach to be picked up by our waiting skiff that brought us back to our waiting Nautilus Explorer. As far as liveaboard trips are concerned this one in particular was relatively short with only five days on board. The trip for some continued on to Cocos, so that would have been a nice combination. However, the time we spent on board was a lot of fun and educational. The diving though limited due to the conditions was exceptional and the hiking portion was spectacular. This trip was a view into the possible future of liveaboard adventures where the combination of land and ocean adventures teach us how different environments are interconnected and necessary to each other. Ever since we landed at the airport everyone that we met or had an interaction with was genuinely helpful and friendly. Out of all the liveaboard experiences that I have had and that is not too many, the crew of the Nautilus Explorer was the best that I have ever had the pleasure to meet and share time with. During this trip there were glitches that happened that were beyond anyone’s control and this crew handled every issue with a professionalism that was inspiring to watch. A special shout out to Captain Gerardo who kept us all safe and comfortable, our dive guides Celina and Juan David who took the best care of us in the water and were fun to be around, chef Enriqué and host Osayuki whose smiles were eternal, and deck hand José for his attention to detail.
Websites	Nautilus Adventures
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Canada (Great Lakes and both coasts), Cayman isles, Bonaire, Florida, Cozumel, Socorro, Cocos, Hawaii, Roatan, Belize, Bahamas,
Closest Airport	Juan Santamaria / San José	Getting There	Direct, non/stop flights from Montreal
Dive Conditions
Weather	rainy, cloudy	Seas	choppy, currents
Water Temp	80-76°F / 27-24°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	0-60 Ft/ 0-18 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Nitrox profiles, computer diving only, do not go blue
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	> 2
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		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	Great setup table on the dive deck with plenty of charging ports. We also had our own videographer on board Alexandra who made a video of our trip that was greatly appreciated.

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Dive Review of Nautilus Adventures in Costa Rica/Cano Island

Nautilus Adventures: "Ocean and Land", Aug, 2024,

Photos Submitted with this Report

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):

Dive Review of Nautilus Adventures in
Costa Rica/Cano Island