All ecoadventures above have been picked by Chief Guide Shawn Larkin as able to deliver world class quality. Shawn hand picks all crew for all Costa Cetacea Costa Rica Osa expeditions to make sure they are up to the task of excellence.
Costa Cetacea Chief Guide Shawn Larkin Bio
Costa Cetacea's 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, Costa Cetacea Administrator 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. He was a semi finalist in the 1995 World Surf Kayak Championships in Costa Rica, and has pioneered countless sea kayak routes in Costa Rica. He lives with his family in the rainforest.
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.
|
