Dive into the natural magic of Osa Blue Water Pelagic, one of the best big animal dive sites in the world. The biggest, bluest and most bioproductive ecosytem in Costa Rica. Some of the biggest animals on the planet to some of the most beautiful, all in the clearest waters in Costa Rica. Its time to get the blues. Scroll down to dive in deeper with images on location by your guides on this snorkel freedive. No Scuba was used for any images below.
Osa Blue Water Pelagic Dive Snorkel Sea Safari. This Is The Best Dolphins, Whales, Turtles, Tuna, Billfish Tour And So Much More. THE CLEAREST WATERS IN COSTA RICA EVERYDAY Among The Best Snorkeling and Diving in Costa Rica.
Only expert guides. Full Day or Half Day is Offshore or Nearshore. Big Boat or Small. Snorkel and Freedive Instruction by Dive Masters and PADI Instructors Included. NO SCUBA NEEDED! ALL AGES.
Contact costacetacea@gmail.com to go to sea
"I have been diving since 1988 and have been lucky enough to dive some of the worlds best sites, but never have I had quite the thrill I experienced while snorkeling in the open ocean off Osa. For anyone heading to Drake Bay or the Osa Peninsula I highly recommend hooking up with Shawn for a truly incredible experience in the deep blue pelagic. We dived Cano Island the day before but hands down snorkeling in the open ocean with Shawn was what I will always remember about our trip to Costa Rica." Divo on ScubaBoard.com
Aerial photograph of a superpod of spinner dolphins in the dive area known as Pelagic Park. This photo is the largest number of dolphins in one image known. They are netted most days and often some don't make it. Is Costa Rica the killer of the largest number of dolphins in the world? Seems that Costa Rica kills way more dolphins than Japan. More dead dolphins in Osa than the Cove.
This map is the Tribal congregation waters of Costa Rican Spinner Dolphins of the Osa peninsula. This may be the most crucial cetacean use area of the eastern tropical pacific. If anywhere in Costa Rican waters needs to be made a park it is here.
THE PELAGIC SNORKEL AND FREEDIVE
"Most important is that I´d like to thank you for giving me a new feeling about the sea."
Stephanie Bartoui
Calling it a dolphin and whale tour could be like calling a rainforest hike a monkey tour. This is the best dolphin and whale tour and so much more.
Check out the Costa Rica´s Osa Blue Water Pelagic Dive Video Guide above and lots of photos below. All photos and video on this page shot on Costa Cetacea guided trips in Osa´s Blue Water Pelagic. For real.
Experience the natural magic of pelagic with Shawn Larkin, the tour and guide Lonely Planet´s Central America on a Shoestring says is “The one to splurge on.”
"I highly recommend Shawn Larkin´s guiding services and Osa blue water pelagic and spinner dolphin superpods."-Didier Noirot- Emmy award winning top BBC Blue Planet Underwater Cameraman, former chief of cinematography for Jacques Cousteau and underwater cameraman for the Disneynature and Galatee Films movie Oceans.
"I highly recommend Shawn Larkin´s guiding services with dolphin superpods in Osa blue water pelagic"-David Reichert-BBC Blue Planet and Disneynature and Galatee Fims Oceans underwater cameraman, baitball and dolphin and whale expert.
"I highly recommend Shawn Larkin´s guiding services for Costa Rica´s spinner dolphins and Osa blue water pelagic,"-Bernard DeGuy-Captian of Jacques Cousteau´s legendary marine conservation ship Calypso and the incredible giant steady camera boat Thetis for the Disneynature and Galatee Films movie Oceans.
Do you want to snorkel and free dive with big pelagics while staying in Drake Bay, Caletas, Marenco, San Josecito, Sierpe, the Osa or are you headed out from the new marina Pez Vela in Quepos, Manuel Antonio, Los Suenos Marina at Herradura, Papagayo Marina in Guanacaste, or Golfito?
Have you ever dreamed of gliding over or swimming through the unfathomable open ocean? Of knowing the deep blue sea? Of taking a trip through the big blue.
Take a trip through perhaps the most bioproductive tropical marine ecosystem on earth, the pelagic open ocean ecosystem offshore of the Osa peninsula, in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Learn about the big animals and small creatures of the blue world. Grasp to comprehend the largest biosphere on the planet.
This safari is great weather you want to stay on the boat, snorkel right next to it, dive below, or just check it out through our photos and words on this web site. All photos on this site were taken on our guided trips here in Costa Rica, off the Osa peninsula. The Osa pelagic shines everyday with the clearest waters in Costa Rica and the best big pelagics diving.
The blue water pelagic starts around 18 nautical miles south west offshore of the Osa, around an hours boat ride from the fantastic anchorage of Drake Bay. You won't see the bottom on this trip. We´ll be diving in water around three to seven thousand feet deep. Yes. The Big Blue. The real thing.
This tour is your best chance from Osa to see or swim with turtles, schools of enormous mantas, huge schools of tuna and dorado, sea snakes, dozens of species of incredible marine birds like boobies, shearwaters, jaegers, storm petrels, terns, frigates, and gulls; big dusky sharks, silky sharks, oceanic white tip sharks, tiger sharks, mako sharks, thresher sharks and great hammerhead sharks, marlin, sailfish, baitballs, whale sharks, fin whales, humpback whales, Sei whales, beaked whales, big dolphins like orcas, pilot whales, and pseudorcas also know as false killer whales. Bottlenose dolphins, pan tropical spotted dolphins, common dolphins, risso´s dolphins, rough tooth dolphins and spinner dolphins, frequently congregating by the thousand in superpods, are seen weekly, plus flying fish, sardine schools and many kinds of amazing plankton like siphonophores and ctenophores and salps. All in the clear blue waters of far offshore Osa.
Most big animals of the pelagic flee at the bubbles of SCUBA. So we do not recommend SCUBA unless you have to push around a large camera. Big pelagics do commonly grow curious and approach snorkelers and free divers. Snorkeling and freediving are the best way to see and spend time with all of the above mentioned beasts and critters. Our Diving Instructors and Divemasters can teach you the basics or give you some blue water tips if you think you are already part dolphin.
We do not get in the water within 100 meters of whales or dolphins although frequently they appear out of the blue to investigate or play with us. We do get in close to big sharks, when we find them, but you don´t have to, unless you want to. Floating objects like logs or tires are usually surrounded by concentrated clouds of fish, like dorado and trigger fish right at the surface. Floating debris often contains strange little creatures like pelagic crabs and blennies, baby flying fish, tiny sailfish, sea snakes and much more. Much of the time you do not even need to freedive down. Everything floats and swirls and swims all around you.
Like all real wildlife tours there are no specific animal guarantees and the trip is dependent on conditions. We do guarantee that you will learn about the pelagic ecosystem, dolphin and whale behaviors and much more from our unique multilingual naturalist guides. Excellent pelagic encounters often take some searching and time for multiple dives in the big blue, so we spend no time at the coral, beach or rocky ecosystems of Caño Island. We spent the entire time on a blue water pelagic safari.
Let us know and we will custom design a pelagic tour for you or your group. We work with a wide variety of local owned boats, yachts and captains to remain flexible to your needs, while contributing directly to our local economy and neighbors. We have converted many a fisherman to taking out tourists. All tours include expert guide and educational lecture. You will help researchers collect important conservation and scientific data every trip.
Welcome to the House of Spin, Costa Rica, Osa, Blue Water Pelagic
Pelagic Bottlenose Dolphin swims over for a close up. Costa Rica´s bottlenose dolphin need you help. Click the dolphin to find out why.
Olive Riddly sea turtle with pilot fish and Snorkelers. Osa blue water pelagic is a turtle mating area where sometimes hundreds are seen a day in this incredible area.
Mucho mahi mahi also known as dorado or dolphin fish. They congregate under floating objects or drift lines caused by wind and currents. We don´t fish for them we swim them. Blue water pelagic dive. Only Osa.
Giant tuna rocketing through a baitball of little lantern fish in Osa's blue water pelagic. Click on a tuna to learn more about what they need to survive.
A rainforest giant brings life to the deep blue sea. Osa blue water pelagic dive. Click on the tree to kayak and snorkel through a rainforest river in Costa Rica.
Whale sharks in Osa's blue water pelagic offshore of Drake Bay, Corcovado National Park and Cano Island Biological Reserve
what will you see? whats watching you? blue water pelagic
Mating Turtles in Osa's blue water pelagic. Click the pair to find out how to keep them making baby turtles.
Come to spinner dolphin world. Talking with bubbles. Click a dolphin to find out about Costa Rica´s spinner dolphins.
Chief Guide Shawn Larkin Bio
Chief Guide Shawn Larkin´s skill has been highly recommended for more than a decade by Lonely Planet Guides, one author saying he is one of the “top people to meet in Costa Rica.” He has lead thousands of ocean expeditions on both coasts. Together with his wife, Blue Water Pelagic guide Vanessa Larkin, he has pioneered responsible Cetacean tourism and investigation for the country, added new dolphin species to Costa Rica´s list, as well as discovered new whale and dolphin feeding and social behaviors such bubble mist netting and commonplace interspecies sex. He has also worked on research projects involving many other kinds of marine life, from lobster to coral reefs to fish to alga, with organizations such as the National University of Costa Rica, The University of Costa Rica, and the Institute for Biodiversity, The National Learning Institute, Mar Viva, Keto Foundation and many others. He has featured on The Discovery Channel´s Animal Planet and many other channels and has published hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, photos and video clips featuring Costa Rica´s oceans, as well as the classic book True Costa Rica Wild Animal Stories. Shawn has also worked in the oceans of multiple other countries, including stints on the largest sailboat in the world and tourist submarines in the Caribbean.
Shawn helped lead the activism and awareness that lead to captive dolphins being made illegal in Costa Rica in the 1990s, and the entire country being declared a Cetacean sanctuary in 2008. He has also championed movements to expand marine and aquatic protected areas for nearly two decades. He has written for The Tico Times, Central America´s largest English language newspaper since 1998. You can check out his column, The Big Blue, at www.ticotimes.net.
The top BBC Blue Planet and Earth underwater cameramen, as well as several of legendary marine conservationist and SCUBA inventor Jacques Cousteau´s former Calypso team, including the captain, an underwater cameraman, and the biologist, also highly recommend Shawn´s guiding services. He was chief spinner dolphin and Osa pelagic guide for the new Disneynature and Galatee Films movie Oceans The Movie out Earth Day 2010. During the making of the movie he was promoted to Production Manager Costa Rica Unit.
Shawn was not only able to consistently find spinner dolphins far offshore for the movie and prove they were resident to a certain area. When after weeks of filming, the dolphins would not approach a diver who had to use the animal scaring bubbles of SCUBA gear to push a giant special camera, Shawn was able to invent a game with the dolphins while freediving that brought them right to the camera for the money shots, day after day. By the end of the shoot the crew and some of Shawn´s own personal ocean heros were calling him the “dolphin whisperer,” a high point in his career.
You can read some of the story about Shawn and the search for the spinners in The National Geographic Official Companion Book to the Disneynature motion picture Oceans by the legendary naturalist Francois Serano and Stephane Duran.
Shawn has been a PADI Diving Instructor since 1991, and a Divemaster since 1990. He has been diving in Costa Rica since 1984, a certified scuba diver since 1981 and first splashed in Costa Rica´s oceans in 1972. He is half Costa Rican and half North American.
Quote from Shawn Larkin
"The best way to save the pelagic ecosystem and its inhabitants from unsustainable commercial fishing is to help people know about it, fall in love with it, and pay to see it and protect it. That is our mission with blue water pelagic dive"
Don´t you wish you could? This photo was taken by Shawn Larkin while working as chief guide on location for Costa Rica´s spinner dolphins and Osa's blue water pelagic life during the making of the upcoming Disneynature and Galatee Films movie Oceans. Click the dolphin to find out more about the movie.
Bird watching anyone? This many birds above mean a lot pelagic life below. Click on a bird to find out why they need parks. blue water pelagic dive
This is the same dolphin tribe in the Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas Make a Wave Video, in action in Oceans of Costa Rica. See more of the same dolphin who spins, whose name is Sharkbite. Sharkbite and the spinner dolphin tribe have no protected waters in Costa Rica. Even the new plan to make marine protected areas called Forever Costa Rica does not protect these spinner dolphins. They are being killed everyday and desperately need a park, can you help? Maybe Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas could help the dolphins in their video get a park to swim free of nets and tuna dozers with a little publicity to the issue. Pelagic Parks Please for the Osa Spinner Dolphins.
spinner dolphin close up i to i blue water pelagic of Costa Rica. Click on the eye to learn more about spinners.
This is the official site to reserve a tour with Shawn Larkin while staying in Drake Bay, Sierpe, Caletas, Rincon, San Josecito Beach, Marenco, or Corcovado area hotel, lodge or cabinas including pick up and drop off.
YOU CAN NO LONGER RESERVE TRIPS WITH SHAWN LARKIN THROUGH COSTA RICA ADVENTURE DIVERS JINETES DE OSA. Don´t forget to ask your hotels about their wastewater treatment, please. We denizens of the deep need your help. Please do not give polluters your hard earned money.
Become a Blue Water Pelagic Diver with Costa Cetacea. Take a Blue Water Pelagic Dive or Boat Ride far offshore of Drake Bay, Caño Island, Corcovado and the Osa, Costa Rica in the same area seen in Ocean's The Movie. The most bioproductive adventure in Costa Rica and the perhaps the tropical marine world. This trip is your best chance to see Costa Rica´s spinner dolphins. Costa Cetacea guide Shawn Larkin found the spinner dolphins day after day, year after year, for the Oceans The Movie Crew when no other guide could do it. He also helped them find all kinds of other marine life because the pelagic is a astounding ecosystem full of things to see.
All this and more from Osa´s blue water pelagic. All photos from offshore pelagic Osa. Click on an animal and find out how to protect it in Costa Rica. Shawn Larkin Copyright 2011.
