Extreme Sports
Beginner adventure

Many people consider Florida a divers dream come true. This is because Florida is composed of over 1,700 islands and the Keys that stretch over 150 miles there are many different places to go diving. The waters are calm, clear, and full with beautiful and unique sea life and colorful coral. You can visit some of the over 5,000 ship wrecks in these waters, or the only barrier reef in the continent. In addition to sea diving, Florida also offers some of the finest spring diving sites you will encounter.

One of the places that should be on the top of your list to dive is John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is the nation’s first underwater preserve. Located near Key Largo, the visibility here is almost perfect, making it a favorite dive destination for beginner and advanced divers alike. Another place that comes highly recommended is Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. This sanctuary starts in Key Largo and then stretches the entire length of the islands, offering some of the most sought after diving in the world.

Statue of Christ of the Abyss is an eerily magnificent site to dive. Located 25 feet beneath the surface, the statue is prominent and distinct. Divers also love this site because it features canyons and trenches to be explored, and a large variety of eagle rays and sea turtles.

Then there is the Pillar Patch, an enchanted place where you will find beautifully colored coral rising up from the floor, almost like cactus on the desert floor. For shipwrecks, we suggest you make time to visit the Elbow, also in the Upper Keys area. The penetration is outstanding and the overall experience unbelievable. All of these areas offer wonderful visibility, which makes the diving experience unrivaled.

Located in the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary is 5.3 nautical miles of sculpted reef, the Stargazer. Just five miles off Key West, this reef includes a series of replicated star constellations once used for sea navigation. If it is diving in waters with colorful marine life and coral, then this is the place to be.

Last, in the central region of the Pan Handle you can find over 1,000 diving springs. Some are located on private land, while others are located in National or State parks and reserves. Many divers visit Blue Springs because of an incredible once in a life time experience: the migration of the manatees. Other favorite diving sites in Florida include Turtle Reef with a depth of 25 feet, Carysfort Reef that has a diving range up to 70 feet, Carysfort South with a diving depth of 20 feet, the Elbow, as mentioned, which is up to 35 feet deep, and the Dry Rocks in Key Largo, with a depth of 25 feet. For more advanced divers who like to dive in deeper waters, you should visit Adolphus Busch, which has water depths up to 110ft, or Outside Reefs and Western Dry Rocks up to 210 feet depths.

Costa Rica is an eco-tourism paradise with rain forests, exotic wildlife, volcanoes and much more. This little Central American country is also an interesting place to scuba dive. Most of the diving in Costa Rica is done on the west coast Pacific Ocean side with an area up in the Guanacaste region located in the northwestern part of the country and another south of the capital city of San Jose near the middle of its west coast. If flying into San Jose, one would have to do some internal traveling to get to either of these two locations.

The Guanacaste area is a bit easier to get to especially if one could arrange a flight right to the town of Liberia in northern Costa Rica. There are some seasonal charter flights from North America directly to Liberia. The town of Playas del Coco which is used as the main base for divers is a short cab ride from the Liberia airport. There are restaurants and small hotels in Playa del Coco including a few American owned scuba dive operators. These dive operators usually have special package deals available which include both diving and accommodations with one of the local hotels. Everything in town is within easy walking distance.

I made a trip for scuba diving here during the late fall season. The operator I used was Rich Coast Diving. The local Costa Rican divemasters from Rich Coast they took all of the scuba equipment including tanks down to the beach every morning by pickup truck.

The dives ranged from about 60 feet to 85 feet with mild to moderate currents. One thing that all divers will notice here is that the diving in Costa Rica is very different from the usual Caribbean reef diving. The visibility is a lot poorer and there are some noticeably colder thermoclines. The poor visibility is due to higher amounts of plankton in the local waters compared to the Caribbean Sea. In some dive sites, we had to swim through sections of water which turned into an almost brown color soup. This cut the sunlight from the top drastically. However, there is a huge plus side to this poorer visibility. The plankton attracts larger marine animals and if divers came here to see the big ones, they will not be disappointed.

Even some of the reef fish here are larger. For example, the trumpet fish we saw down here are significantly larger than the ones found in Caribbean waters. Also, there are much more porcupine puffer fish here. Previously in Caribbean waters, I’ve seen only a few porcupine fish and they are usually alone. Here in Costa Rica, I saw large schools of them. We encountered large schools of other fish types on a regular basis as well.

The local divemasters here definitely work in a different way compared to their counterparts elsewhere. In many Caribbean locations, the divemasters would promote a ‘look only, no touch’ rule. Here, the divemasters actively turned over every rock to find interesting creatures for us. They would catch them in their hands and pass them over to the other divers. Over three days of diving, I held a seahorse, an octopus, a spotted eel, an orange color frogfish and a puffed up porcupine fish. Of course this practice of handling marine wildlife is debatable in terms of ethics but it was certainly an interesting experience holding these creatures in my hands. The divemasters were certainly hard working for sure though as they were eager to make sure that the guests had good dive trips.

Large animals such as giant sea turtles, stingrays and white tip sharks were also spotted. On one occasion which I will never forget for the rest of my life is when a very large school of cow-nose rays headed straight for our group of divers. They looked like a huge squadron of alien spaceships. They went right through and past us while we watched in wonder. Then they disappeared. This memorable experience was much too short lived.

So for a very different type of scuba diving compared to the Caribbean without traveling too much further, Costa Rica is an interesting destination for divers to consider. There won’t be crystal clear visibility but the marine life will be different with more large animals to see. The diving itself is also very reasonable in cost being significantly lower than in premium priced locations such as the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas. In addition, there are many other things to see and activities to do on land besides the scuba diving which makes Costa Rica a very full vacation.