Anyone dove Coiba National Park in Panama?

Hi guys

Wanting to know if any of you have been there underwater and what you think of Panama's Coiba NP.

Cheers!

Adam

Hi guys

Wanting to know if any of you have been there underwater and what you think of Panama's Coiba NP.

Cheers!

Adam

Hi,

I did 2 days of Coiba on the way to Malpelo last year. Coiba can be good and it can be bad.

The Viz was not great when I was there.

I was February 18 till 21 my third time in Santa Catalina, the main gateway to Isla Coiba.

While the last 2 times always in march/April period where great, but viz was between 20 and 40 ft,

this time we got viz of approx. 40-60ft and nice blue waters what is not always like that (as almost

elsewhere on the pacific coast of the (south) american continent.

But what you will see is absolute top class, white tip sharks and turtles swimming below you when you enter the water, a giant

manta, mobula or eagle rays and huge swarms of big eye jacks and several other carangidae may circle around you while

and on the bottom you will encounter frog fishes, several soft and hard corals, sponges and very photogenic ambients when the viz is good.

I went there to photograph whale sharks and for my pleasure i had 2 encounters with this spectacular giants,

the second one started to swallow krill just a 10 feet from me.

Viz s still good there and when you hurry up you should encounter perfect conditions but the whale sharks and manta rays may have been gone,

but you will still have ways too less bottom (and air) time to take all the pix you would like to take.

let me know if you would like to go now, i may come also...

Chris

I only managed one day in the marine park.

It was very busy. VERY busy. So that's part of the reason for only one day and then given our budgets are $35 a day while backpacking and the dives including the marine park entrance are $145...

Anyway, the diving was great. Three tanks - huge school of mobula rays, giant manta breaching, massive school of jacks twice and I got the first huge swim through of my life. White-tips everywhere. Large school of barracuda.

Dove Wahoo, Iglesia and Frijoles.

Great divemaster called Luca from Italy and we went with Scuba Coiba.

Unfortunately my darling girlfriend lost a pair of my AA strobe batteries and I'm not going to put those shitty batteries in there so no pictures.

Yes, visibility was ass but hey, that's the nutrients in the water. Well, the vis ABOVE the thermocline was bad haha Just put up with 18 degrees in a 3 mm and you'll be fine

NOT NOT NOT impressed with the shark finning evidence I saw so what can I do about that? Anyone want to help?

I made a short video from my recent trip to Coiba experimenting with the video function of my D7000.

Not a great piece of art but it should give you a idea about Diving Coiba.

http://youtu.be/LLe7U2zCheI

Chris