Sharks in Peril / Project A.W.A.R.E

As many divers know, our oceans and their inhabitants are in danger. One fish that is in significant trouble is the shark. Why you ask? Because everyday thousands are pulled from our oceans everyday and killed. And with a reproduction rate of some species being a pup or two every other year, it is hard to replace those numbers. Sharks are the rulers of the reef, they have been around for millions of year,and with good reason. Their main diet is dying, sick or distressed and weak fish. By picking the weak off, they play a huge part in ensuring that our oceans stay healthy and not over populated. They deserve our protection!

Project A.W.A.R.E has started a campaign to help educated and make people aware of the dangers our sharks and in the end, our oceans face if things continue to go the way they are. Help us by signing a petition to not only help save sharks, but to also help save our ocean for future generations! For more information about Project A.W.A.R.E and it’s mission, please visit www.projectaware.org

View the video below to learn more about PADI and Project A.W.A.R.E’s mission and plan to help protect sharks:

We are divers! Rain or shine, WE DIVE!

Working and diving in Costa Rica is always exciting and constantly changing, which is one of the reasons I LOVE working here! So needless to say when two of our divers asked if we could schedule a dive trip out to the Bat islands to leave at 10:30 AM, I did not hesitate to say yes! As most diver who have been out to these islands know, the usual departure time is 7:30AM! But the weather (which is why we generally leave early) looked good for the day, albeit there was a fair amount of rain, so to Bats at 10:30 we went!

As the boat left the Snake Bay area, my customers and myself gazed out at a huge dark storm that covered most of our journey ahead. But being the adventure divers we are, we all hooped and hollered and said bring it on! After all, we were going to be getting wet anyways, and the rain does more good than harm to our diving conditions:  since we don’t have any mayor rivers running off nearby, the rain actually makes the visibility better by forcing the plankton to settle down.

I have never dove Bats Islands this late in the day, so I was eager to see what the diving conditions were like, and of course to see what was out there. We arrive at the Big Scare at 12:30, and during our 35 minutes of bottom time, we had stunning blue, clear, WARM water, filled with many octopi, eels, nudibranches,  schooling jacks, rainbow runners, pompanos and more! Sadly, we saw no bull sharks, but we did find several teeth, so they were most definitely nearby! And you know what they say, just because we did not see them, does not mean they did not see us!

As we surfaced we were quite surprised to find that the rain storm that had darkened out the sunlight when we started our dive, had cleared out, leaving behind a beautiful blue sky. As we all remarked about this, a huge sailfish or perhaps even marlin, jumped out of the water. What a sight!

For our surface interval, we dined on fresh pineapple, yummy ham & cheese sandwiches with veggies and  yuca chips, meanwhile our wonderful captain, Jorge, drove the boat around all the islands near the Bat island refuge. On our way to the park’s ranger station we saw a huge pod of hunting  dolphins. They played at the bow of our boat and and jumped and frolicked nearby. We were all thrilled!

As we approached the refuge, our captain told us that just ahead of us, at a point by the mainland, there was a spot where just perhaps we might see some sharks. We all gladly entered the water, and spent the rest of our surface interval snorkeling. We saw a little hawks-bill sea turtle munching on some rocks and also a good size nurse sharks snoozing in the warm(er) shallows. This area is not normally visited, so the reef was in good condition and I saw several large snappers swimming about, as well.

Our second dive of the day was at Black Rock, where the conditions were even calmer than the last time I was there! so the water was near still and the visibility quite clear.  And of course, the sight that Black Rock is well known for, was there as well. As we rounded the halfway point of the pinnacle, we were engulfed by schooling grunts, horse eyed jacks, amber jacks, juvenile amber jacks, Sargent majors, bonitos, and more! And of course swimming around peacefully with them was an eagle ray. We were even greeted by another large nurse shark.

On the way back to Hermosa, we all chatted happily about the diving and just how beautiful the day had turned out to be! And as we relaxed and watched the sun getting lower and lower in the sky, we spotted a pod of pilot whales at the front of the boat. What a way to end the day! BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL!

I’M BAAAACK!

Hello fellow divers. After about two years of being away from my beautiful home of Costa Rica, I am finally back and I am here to work! And I am so excited to write and share my experiences with you all again, via this blog, of course. First I would like to talk a bit about what I have been up to these past two years, and then I will fill you all in on the amazing diving that all of us here at Diving Safaris have been experiencing this past month!

So when I left home in Sept 2010, I sailed off to sunny St. Maarten, a half French and half Dutch island located in the Caribbean. I spent about eight months working at a dive shop there, where I not only improved my teaching abilities, but I also learned heaps about shark awareness and safe shark diving. Something which I plan to bring with me to my work here at Diving Safaris.

During my time there, I also enrolled in and completed my STCW ’95, which is the basic license you need to work in the yachting industry. Shortly after completing my course, I was offered a job as a stewardess/dive master on board a 90ft motor yacht with a itinerary that not only included Bora Bora and Tahiti but the Tuamotu Archipelago as well! For anyone not familiar with these islands, they are located south of Hawaii in an area called the South Pacific. The islands I named are a few of the many that are part of French Polynesia. These islands are very remote (took us a month to get there HA!) and many are not inhabited, so the diving was PHENOMENAL!  to say the least…

I was in French Polynesia for four months and during that time not only did I see some amazing islands, but i saw sharks, rays, manta rays, turtles, fish, coral, whales, dolphins, marlin and the list just goes on and on and on! I highly recommend going to these destinations for diving, especially the atoll of Fakarava, located in the Tuamotus. It might be difficult and expensive to get there, but the diving there will knock your socks off and more!

I got back to St. Maarten last November, which is where I have been for the last six months. I had already done the diving thing there, so I mainly focused on working in and around yachts. I got several jobs on some very nice yachts, not only as a stewardess and a chef, but also as a dive instructor! I spent one week on a absolutely beautiful sailing yacht teaching two 11 year old girls how to dive. Our location you ask? None other than the largest French island in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe! Whose shore offers a variety of diving opportunities, including reef, wrecks, caves and shore diving. There were spots just right for teaching my new divers and also some very nice advanced sites, too. If you are ever on this island, be sure and go diving at Pigeon island, a Jacques Cousteau marine reserve! The reef conditions were VERY similar to those I saw out in the south pacific. Absolutely beautiful!

So those have been my adventures here these past two years, and now lets get to how AMAZING the diving has been here in Costa Rica lately!

We made a trip out to the Bat Islands last Wednesday, May 16th, and wow! The weather conditions are perfect for this area right now. The water was the calmest I have yet to see, with current being little to nothing. Big Scare lived up to its name and gave us all a big “fright” when three huge bull sharks swam around us. One VERY large female even appeared to be pregnant. We can only hope! This world needs every shark it can get. Black Rock was how it always is, AMAZING. Walls of fish that blocked out the light, eagle rays, eels, octopi, and much more. It was more busy than an aquarium!

The local diving has been quite good, as well. It is not only the perfect time of year to see octopi (mating season is just around the corner) but also a good time of year to get a look at some of the giant green morays Costa Rica is known for. They are everywhere right now! As well as jeweled, tiger, zebra and spotted morays, as well.

Well, that is it for this weeks update! Stay tuned for more next week as the Diving Safaris team continues to dive, explore and love the diving here on the North-Pacific coast of Costa Rica

Lending a helping hand on behalf of Project AWARE

This past Saturday, October 2nd, 2010, the entire Diving Safaris team

The Diving Safaris Cleanup Team

headed down to Playa Hermosa to unite with 50 or so other volunteers from businesses such as Terra Nostra, Playa Hermosa Association, Villas Sol, Swiss Travel and Condovac.  The goal of the day?  To try to undo some of the human damage to beaches and surrounding areas by picking up all the trash we could find.  On a yearly basis, Project AWARE and Ocean Conservancy encourage groups from all over the world to participate in an International Cleanup of beaches and water ways.  Here in our little spot of the world in Costa Rica, we divided up into 10 teams to cover 10 different zones within the Playa Hermosa area.  In the past, cleanups in the area have focused mostly on the beach itself neglecting the inland areas just behind the beach.  While garbage found on the beach can wash up from the ocean itself, much of the garbage gets washed down from the hills that surround Playa Hermosa and into the creeks and rivers, ultimately washing out onto the beach, during periods of heavy rain.  This is the rainy season.  Water is constantly flowing this time of year – September and October in particular – out of the sky, down the hills creating waterfalls, into the rivers making them fuller and faster…where does it all go?  Most of it back into our glorious oceans.  Unfortunately now, due to human development on these lands, these fast flowing waters come with an unpleasant additive – trash.  Why?  Where you find humans, you will find trash.  It´s almost unavoidable.  Since man is the only one that uses man-made products and man-made products are what create trash – it makes sense, right?  Animals and fish don´t create trash.  Any ¨trash¨that they might make is absolutely bio-degradable and returns to the natural cycle of life.  Humans should take a lesson from this…and we´re trying, as more and more products are made to be bio-degradable and world-wide recycling efforts are increasing…but is it too late??  Not necessarily, if more people throughout the world band together like we did, we can reverse the damaging effects humans are having on the Earth.  This is the mental attitude all of us had as ten groups set out to find their designated cleanup zone.  Diving Safaris was joined by some of the local residents in the area who even brought the dogs to join in on the clean up.  Our zone appeared to be a harmless little street behind Villas del Sueno.  At first glance, the street looked relatively clean, and as I distributed the various LARGE plastic bags, I thought to myself ¨This is going to be quick and our bags are probably going to be relatively empty¨.  As my team raced off down the street to start the cleanup, I watched them pick up item after item, ranging from empty beer bottles, cans, plastic bottles, plastic bags, pieces of a broken plastic chair, diapers (gross!), metal poles, a car antenna, lighters, cigarette butts and packaging, food wrappers and containers, a fan blade, rugs, shorts, an unused condom still in it´s package (better than a used one I guess!), electrical cable several meters long, PVC pipe, a broken energy-saving light bulb…..and the wierdest thing of all: a sad-looking dented birdcage that was found in a little river that crossed under our street.  A significant amount of the larger items found came out of the small section river that we could access in our zone.  Case in point.  We saved that birdcage from ending up in the ocean where it could have ultimately trapped and killed a living creature.  As the second hour of the cleanup began, the bags became too heavy to carry so we made use of our two vehicles equipped with pickup/trailer beds and had them ride along-side us as we finished the last section of the street.  At the end we turned around and headed back along the street, scanning for any missed pieces of garbage, before we headed back to our central meeting point to begin the garbage count.  Team Diving Safaris picked up the following:

• 1/4 bag plastic drinking bottles
• 1 bag heavy plastics (PVC pipe, plastic chair, etc)
• 1/2 bag mixed plastics (cutlery, dishes, food wrappers, bags, etc)
• 1/4 aluminum cans
• 1/4 glass bottles and other broken glass
• 4 bags of non-recyclable garbage

=> Total estimated weight = 58.75 kgs !! And that was just us!  Imagine that times 10!  That´s a lot of garbage…

Stuff found that can by recycled

Non-recyclable garbage

After all the groups brought their garbage together and it was sent off with the appropriate truck – garbage, glass recycling, plastic recycling, etc. – Gina, the main organizer of the day, closed off the morning with a thank you to everyone who participated and reminder to everyone that we CAN make a difference when we come together and join forces like this.  We were then all invited by Condovac, a resort at the end of the beach, to enjoy a hot lunch prepared by their chefs that included a mixed pallela-style shrimp rice, french fries, salads and fruit juice.  Very delicious! Our entertainment during lunch was watching 100 or so swimmers getting

Enjoying our yummy reward for a job well done!

ready in their bathing gear (including many Speedos!!) and swim caps for a 1500 meter swim competition that was about to take place.  We wrapped up our lunch just as swimmers of all shapes and sizes raced off down the beach, practically running each other over as they got into the water.  What a site!

Overall, it was a successful day and even the weather held out for us!  A big thanks to all who participated.  I hope we can all do it again next year…or maybe even sooner than that.   Stay tuned for an upcoming underwater cleanup!

Tracy

The Diving Safaris Cleanup Team

The whole Playa Hermosa Cleanup Team

Local residents – human and canine – come out and support

Getting organized before the start of the cleanup

Stuff found that can by recycled

Non-recyclable garbage

An example of the kinds of things that were being found. These things fal linto the “construction materials” category.

Some of the smaller trash items collected

Logging all the data

Reporting our data to the head organizer

Close up of DS from the group shot

Enjoying our yummy reward for a job well done!

Still enjoying lunch

A clean beautiful Playa Hermosa

Playa Hermosa

Mystical Diving

Diving in red tide can be very interesting…When heading out to the dive sites this morning the ocean smelled quite fishy and as soon as we were about 10 minutes out the water turned milk chocolate brown, like the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory river.  In places it was separating and was a pretty blue with streams of brown.  At Tortuga, our first pick for the day the water was a rich chocolate color at the surface but as soon as we dropped down about five feet the water was clear and a pretty blue color, but dark.  Right away we saw a white-tip reef shark swim by,  the eels and an octopus were out hunting.  In the places where the red tide was separating the sun light could shine through and it was very mystical.  At Punta Argentina, our second dive site, conditions were the same but the cleaning stations were quite occupied as a school of spade fish and ten huge milk fish were busy being cleaned by the butterfly barber fish.  We saw several southern sting rays racing by and many schools of grunts.  We were in a clear spot and then it got dark and when I looked up a huge cloud of red tide was above us, it looked totally cool.  One of our instructors said she decided to go through the wall of red stuff and found a clear patch with a sand bed that had at least six white-tip reef sharks swimming around.  So they sat there in thirty feet of water  for like ten minutes watching as the sharks circled them.  So, like I said diving in red tide is very mystical.

Bobbie Jo

A Whale of a Day

In my almost 10 years of diving, I have never had quite as many amazing, breath taking dives in one year as I have had this past year. 2010 has been a year of adventure, discovery and learning. I have never achieved so many things in so little time… I have seen things I had only dreamed about before. I love my life, I love my job and most of all, I love my office because it just so happens to be one of the coolest, most interactive, non-stressful work places in the world. My office is the ocean. Today my colleagues included four huge, powerful bull sharks, torpedo fast rooster fish and best of all, four humpback whales. But I am not here to simply tell you about a surface sighting, for I did not just see whales, I looked into their eyes.

It all started as a funtastic outing out to the Bat islands. A place well known to divers for its diverse marine life, which sometimes includes bull sharks and mantas. It was a calm day and the boat was full of divers with high hopes. It was a very fun boat, for it was also full of long time divers, six of which were diving professionals. We had a lot to talk about. But of course being divers, we mostly talked about 1, diving, 2, eating/food and 3, traveling. We were stoked for what lay ahead.

At our first dive site, Big Scare, we were a bit sad that after 25 minutes into the dive, and closely reaching our max bottom time, we had yet to see any sharks. But at last minute, the ocean decided to reveal some of its inhabitants as a small, but very sleek, bull shark glided by us. It was just a glimpse, but it was close enough that i was able to see its pupils. As I tried to get everyone’s attention, it faded into the murky water.

Once back on the boat, the other guide and I talked about perhaps doing our second dive at Big Scare, in hopes of seeing some more sharks. When asked for their opinion, all the divers said they came to see sharks.  So it was decided, we were were doing our second dive at Big Scare.

As we put on our gear after our surface interval, I glanced up just in time to see a dorsal fin pop up and fall below the surface of the water. At first, I was a bit skeptic and thought for sure it was not a dolphin. My mind had me convinced it was a shark. As I told all the other divers, and repeated to say “no, it was not a dolphin”, lo and behold, a dolphin jumped out of the water.  It did this several times. I must say, I am glad I was wrong. Shark fins at the surface are not a good sign. But dolphins are, at least in my opinion. I believe they are a sign of good luck for all divers, for every time I have had an out of this world diving experience, I have always seen dolphins on the surface, first.

The swell was high as we entered the water. It was like a bubble bath, for the foam on the surface was a good half a foot thick in some places. As we descended, we were covered in darkness as the waves and foam covered the surface, blotching out the sun. About five minutes into the dive, the first shark was sighted as it swam over our heads. Not too long after, we sighted another and yet another. As we swam along, a school of jacks and various other fish raced by, swimming for their lives as three huge rooster fished swooped down on them, hungry for some sushi. My heart was racing because close behind them was another bull shark.

Back on the surface, we rushed to get back on the boat for just minutes before we surfaced, the captain and another guide had seen three humpback whales breach just meters away from the boat. We eagerly searched the ocean for any sign of whale footprints in the water. But whales being whales, they can travel very fast.

And as we headed back home, we heard a familiar and very exciting noise -a whale had just spouted. Most of the time, whales breach far away from the boats, so seeing them underwater is rare. However in this case, three adult humpback whales breached a couple of meters off the side of our boat. We were ecstatic as we put on our masks  and jumped in the water to see if we could just get a glimpse of these giants passing by. I got more than just a glimpse, for swimming underneath me was not just one, but three whales. Two of which were a mother and calf. As they happily swam by, I momentary got a glimpse of their eyes. Some people say that as you look into the eyes of a whale, you will feel them looking back, deep into your soul. I was too excited and I must say a bit spooked to have felt this, but when I looked into their eyes, it was so surreal that even while I was there, I could not believe what I was seeing. I have lived in Costa Rica for 13 years and I have never seen one of these magnificent whales underwater, before. It was like a dream come true, and even though I still have so many things I want to see, I feel like I just accomplished one of my biggest “to dos” on my list.

So be it schools of fish, crystal clear water, mantas, sharks or whales, or even something as small as a nudibranch, every day in the water, no matter what I see, is an amazing day. I love my job because it allows me to observe these amazing ocean dwellers.  When I jump into the water and fly away… well it is a feeling that I can’t really even describe. Diving is my happy place.

Happy diving, divers,

Karie J Gibbs

Casper, the Friendly Manta Ray

Today was an exciting day at the Catalina Islands. With tales of bull sharks, black tips, mantas and more, todays group of divers were excited to jump in the water. Alas, no bull sharks no black tip sharks were seen, but no one left disappointed, for Casper the friendly manta stopped by for a visit, entertaining everyone as he circled the divers while swooping tiny plankton in to his giant mouth.

This is a manta that is well known by dive shop owner, Bobbie Jo, who says she has encountered this playful giant many times before in the past. He or she, we don’t know, but this manta is huge, with ramoras almost a meter long. Its back is solid black and on its belly it has a ghost like spot -hence the name.

While Casper swooped, dipped and circled the group, down below, you could see six pregnant white tip reef sharks snoozing in the sand. And off to the side, almost crying to get attention, were three eagle rays, darting in and around everywhere. If eagle rays had voices, Bobbie Jo is pretty certain they would have been screaming “Look at me, look at me”.

Karie J Gibbs

Bull Sharks, Bull Sharks and Bull Sharks

Just got the report back from our staff who went out to the Bat islands this morning. And this was their exact words “Holly Bull Sharks”. It was like everyone was doing underwater disco as they tried to point out every one of the many sharks that swam around them.

Everyone had a blast.

NIIIIIICE

Karie Jo Gibbs

At the Drop of a Hat

Like I was saying in my last blog post, conditions here change dive site to dive site, day to day, hour to hour. Sometimes they change so fast that your mind is left spinning, trying to comprehend how they can change so fast. So true to my prediction, the water on Sunday was crystal clear and warm with tons of sharks,  spotted eagle rays and more. Apparently the changes were so abrupt that even the southern sting rays were left a bit confused, because we found one sleeping in the sand in 82 degree water.

Until next time,

Karie J Gibbs

Sting Ray Highway

One of my favorite things about diving in the Pacific has to be the fact that every day is full of surprises and change. It is never boring here. Conditions change dive site to dive site, depth to depth, day to day. One day it will be cold and murky and the next warm with 100+ foot visibility.

Over the last three days, we have been diving quite frequently at two of our local dive sites, Tortuga and Argentina, and the conditions have changes drastically every day.  On Thursday, the water was murky but not that cold. We saw dozens of eagle rays, sharks, octopi and huge schools of fish. On Friday, the water was warm and clear. We saw sharks, rays and of course, many fish. Then today rolled around. The water was murky on the surface, yet surprisingly clear down below. But the water was freezing, with a 10 degree difference between thermoclynes. But for us who have been diving here for years, we know that cold water is not always bad. Sure, we wont see any sharks cause, lets face it, white tip reef sharks are wusses as far as cold water is concerned. Our snorkelers saw them today in 10 foot water, basking in the warmth of shallow waters. Today Argentine was full of large southern sting rays and they were moving, fast. It was like a highway down there, but instead of cars, this road, or should i say sand channel, was full of rays. There was quite a bit of current, so we just let our selves drift with the rays, and laughed as they dashed all over the place, and then stared in awe as these huge creatures gracefully glided inches above the sea floor.

Who knows what these sites will be like tomorrow. Maybe it will be crystal clear again? Maybe we will see a whaleshark. You never know. I wake up everyday wondering what I will see next. What the ocean will show me today. Everyday is a new day, with new adventures.

Until next day, happy bubbles,

Karie J Gibbs