Diving with sharks

After a long, sleepless flight (which included a stopover and 2-hour passport control queue in Mexico) we finally landed in San Jose – exhausted and desperate for a shower and bed. But this was not going to be so straightforward. Our hotel experienced a few plumbing issues while renovating the previous weekend and dozens of rooms were affected, so we had to be moved to another hotel. We were dying on our feet by the time we got to our room, but had one of the best afternoon naps on our trip. 

After breakfast the next morning we were shuttled back to our “pick-up” hotel a kilometer away and met the rest of our dive group. There were 21 of us in total (from all over the world) and this was a much younger crowd than on some of our other trips. We all got into the bus and headed towards the coastal town of Punta Arenas where we would board our boat – Okeanos Aggressor I.

The boat was very basic with small rooms and tiny showers but luckily we have both been on a liveaboard before so expected nothing more. We set sail almost immediately and already I was not feeling great. What follows below is my meager recollection of a very dark, torrid and soul-wrenching 38-hour crossing – or rather passage of time – that sapped the very will to live.  

As I write this I am not even sure those days existed. We both had dinner the first evening and, while we didn’t feel fabulous, things were going okay at this stage. That’s pretty much the last time in two days that I felt okay. Dinner came back out very quickly and I soon lost count of the amount of times I got sick. It was so bad (and regular in fact) that after about two hours I had perfected the art of standing up while the boat is wildly rocking from side to side, while gripping the basin at the correct angle to ensure a smooth and spillage-free act. For the next 24 hours I spent lying in the bed wallowing in pity while the boat rocked in the crazy seas. We dubbed our cabin “Room” after the movie where a kidnapped mother and child are held hostage in a small room, which they hated as they could not escape. I felt the same – there was no way out of this nightmare!! I could not get up (apart from when I needed to be sick), eat, shower, brush my teeth or even think. All I could do was count down the minutes to salvation – which was scheduled for 6am the following morning when we would (hopefully) arrive in Cocos. This sole fact kept me alive. Adrie said at some point during the day the boat rocked so bad that she thought we were going to capsize and she actually felt that would be better than slowly dying in this dark room.   

We finally docked the boat after 38 hours of HELL. In fact, it was worse than hell. Forget waterboarding; the CIA needs to interrogate suspects after they have endured this trip and they will tell you anything as long as you don’t ever repeat the journey. 

It was only after I regained consciousness, or so it felt, that Adrie told me she was just as sick. I have to admit, I did not notice. Or perhaps there was one occasion where I do remember her hogging the basin which meant I had to quickly rethink my (by now) habit and aim for the toilet. She can be grateful she didn’t get a coating on the back of her head.

While we were anchored in a calm bay and life slowly returned to our bodies, I did not feel up for today’s first dive at 8am so sat this one out. Adrie decided to go ahead with it, especially because it was supposed to be an easy, shallow dive in Chatham Bay. 

Our mid-morning dive was at Manualita Deep. This was a much more spectacular dive and the strong currents meant there was much to see. The highlight was seeing a 3m Tiger Shark! Known as the “Sea Tiger” because of the black stripes on juveniles’ bodies, these sharks are the second only to great whites in attacking people, so I wasn’t too pleased about seeing this one swim by!

There were loads of white-tip reef sharks laying about and thousands of colourful fish. But my favourite part was seeing hammerheads. I have always wanted to swim with hammerheads, but they are normally quite skittish and shy so this was a treat.

Annoyingly, when we got back to the boat, the other group didn’t see the Tiger but got a good close-up of a large whale shark. We were gutted! But apparently this is the rule of while sharks – the other group will always see it. Unfortunately we never got to see the elusive whale shark during our trip, but it was still so incredible swimming with hammerheads, tiger sharks, Galapagos sharks and thousands and thousands of fish. 

On the third dive of our first day we saw a massive Galapagos shark thrashing in the surf above us. As on every other dive, there were loads of white-tips and many different types of rays. You are never short of marine life in Cocos.

We were both pleased about being in calmer waters and had the first full night’s sleep since we got onto the boat. However, neither of us were feeling 100% yet and only started feeling like ourselves after lunch on the second day. Over the next few days we dived in about eight locations around Cocos island, including Puntamaria, Dirty Rock, Wafer Bay and Manualita. We had three or four dives a day, meaning it was literally a case of eat, dive, dive, eat, dive, dive, sleep. 

In some places the current was so strong you could only descend holding a line, or run the risk of drifting away in the current. But every dive was as stunning and exciting as the previous one, with so many sharks, fish and beautiful corral. 

During our second day we had a huge treat – dry land! We took a brief, but very satisfying stop on Cocos Island itself. Strangely there are wild pigs and deer roaming about – an overhang from the pirate days where sailors needed fresh meat so they “stored” pigs for the return trip. The ranger station was quite cool – I can only imagine what it is like to live there with extremely limited facilities and human contact.

We got back to the boat and immediately got ready for our next dive. Diving on the liveaboard was non-stop (that’s what we came for, right?!) and we were always only a minute away from becoming a raisin again as your body never really got a chance to fully dry out. At the end of the week our knuckles were raw from pulling our wetsuits on four times a day, but we were not complaining.

Normally divers get to do two night dives during a week to protect the animals and avoid them getting used to divers “helping” them feed with flashlights. We were lucky to get a third night dive because we were missing out on one during our last dives. Night dives are normally great fun, as all the white tips come out to hunt for fish. And there were hundreds!!  few times I lay on the sandy bottom only to have sharks swimming so close that they bump into you. 

On our last night dive only five of us were diving (by this point everyone was knackered!) and so the divemaster also decided he was perhaps not needed. This meant we would have to rely on five flashlights only to create enough light for the sharks. Although initially disappointed, this ended up being one of our favourite dives! Apart from just enjoying the spectacular sight of hundreds of sharks swimming past you in the dark, we were lucky enough to see a shark gobble down a poor parrotfish. I love parrotfish and felt really sad afterwards, but he really didn’t stand a chance against the predators once he swam into our lights. 

Because we could only arrive during high tide in Punta Arenas we had to plan our journey carefully, which meant leaving Cocos at noon on our last day. This meant we could squeeze two final dives in, starting at 6.30am with the first one. We were diving two of our favourite spots and were not disappointed. Hammerheads, eagle rays, marbled rays and tons of fish came to greet us. The highlight of the dive was a huge ball with thousands of horse-eyed jacks. It was incredible to watch as Adrie floated inside the ball and disappeared without much effort.

During our last dive everyone stretched their normal 3-5 minute safety stop to about 10 minutes. No-one wanted to leave the waters of Cocos and head home. But in truth, I have had my fill of diving this week. Adrie did every dive and I have done 15 of the 17 – and we have the battle scars to prove it. Our knuckles are raw, our nails are sore, our feet are blistered from the booties and fins, our ears hurt, we are tired. But we had the most incredible week on board the boat. Luckily the crossing back to Punta Arenas was smooth and not nearly as bad as the way in. Will we do it again? Yes absolutely, although not anytime soon. Despite us not seeing a whale shark, which is often as elusive as the leopard in the wild, this was one of the most spectacular and fascinating trips we have ever done. Cocos truly is a pinnacle experience for the adventurous diver, but it certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. 

I would like to think we will be back and next time we’ll see that whale shark.