Costa Cetacea

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 productive 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 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, 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 safari in the blue water pelagic.

Call us up 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.
 

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 other 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 due out in Earth Day 2010.

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.

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"

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.  Call 506 8886 9431 or email shawndive@yahoo.com, may take up to three days.  No deposit needed.  YOU CAN NO LONGER RESERVE TRIPS WITH SHAWN LARKIN THROUGH DRAKE BAY WILDERNESS RESORT OR COSTA RICA ADVENTURE DIVERS JINETES DE OSA.  We will pick you up at these hotels for your tour no problem.  Book here to get the best prices.  Don´t forget to ask your hotels about their wastewater treatment, please.  There is a lot of contamination happing at some busy hotels in Drake Bay and if you ask they will maybe stop destroying the waters.  Watch out for the hotel bars that have toliets a few meters away from the ocean or a river,  this is illegal but no one stops these same busy dive hotels.  We need your help.  Please do not give your hard earned money to them. 

Copyright 2010 Costa Cetacea  All rights reserved.

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