Travel Tips

Cocos Island is a national park of Costa Rica nearly halfway to the Galapagos Islands from Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. It is one of the world’s natural gems though most people who take Costa Rica vacations have never heard of it and will never get to see it.  

Indeed, though Costa Rica ecotourism is world famous and tens of thousands of travelers come, in part, expressly for that experience, remote, wild Cocos Island remains largely unknown. 

The famous adventurer Jacque Yves Cousteau described it as the most beautiful island in the world, Costa Ricans voted it one of their country’s Seven Wonders, and it is being considered for one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The island is some 340 miles off the Pacific shore of Costa Rica. Though it is a very small island, only about nine square miles, its fame today comes from its underwater treasure—and a fellow named Michael Crichton.

Even if  the name of this island is unfamiliar you’ve visited it in your imagination.

Unquestionably it is one of the truly great places for scuba diving, considered by many authorities to be the best place on earth for large marine animal viewing. The island sometimes has so many sharks around it that it has also been called Shark Island.

There are an incredible variety of kinds of tuna, rays, sharks and other fish, as well as sea turtles, porpoises, and whales in the waters surrounding Cocos.  Hammerhead sharks are common and some of the largest Hammerheads ever encountered have been seen off this island.

The Island has long been famous for pirates, real and imagined. It is believed by some that Cocos served as inspiration for Robert Lewis Stevenson’s famous adventure Treasure Island but real pirates often  sailed to  it to get away from the English fleet,  to bury treasure, and to rest up for their next adventure.

Indeed,  to this day two great treasures, known as the Lima Treasure and Devonshire Treasure, may still be buried there.  How much plunder may still be buried on the island?  Think hundreds of millions of dollars. Intrigued?  We found a real treasure map of the fabulous Cocos Island Lima Treasure.  Imagine great Costa Rica ecotourism AND fabulous pirate booty!

This remote, shrouded in mystery island also fired the imagination of author Michael Crichton whose world famous  Jurassic Park is set off the coast of Costa Rica.

With the exception of a few Costa Rica park rangers whose job it is to protect its waters from poaching, the island is uninhabited. Its isolation has protected its rain forest from depredation and until recently its magnificent underwater splendor was safe from destruction.

Because of its remote location and complete lack of tourist facilities, Cocos Island is not a heavily visited Costa Rica vacation spot.  The only way of getting to it is by boat.  Several operators offer Costa Rica scuba diving tours to Cocos Island but plan for at least 30 hours on open water.  And be sure to bring Dramamine!

If you are fortunate enough to visit Cocos, you can only go onshore with previous permission of the rangers and no one is allowed to stay overnight except on their boats.

But, if you can go ashore be sure to walk its coast because there are rocks and boulders bearing inscriptions from sailors over the centuries.  Long before “ Kilroy was here”, seafarers inscribed their names and dates of visits on Cocos Island rocks.  You may even find a sea boulder bearing the name of Jacque Cousteau’s son, who signed it a couple of decades ago.

And, should you have the good fortune to sail to incomparable Cocos Island, remember what Captain Cousteau said: “A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it.“  

If you’re an adventurous scuba diver who wants to experience big marine animal diving at its finest, Cocos Island is for you.  Make it part of your wonderful Costa Rica ecotourism experience.

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