My fifth day diving in Costa Rica sees us head out to one new and one familiar dive site: Palmares Island and Virador, just off the coast of Playa del Coco.
Unfortunately, the first dive to Palmares was cut short to around 27 minutes because my octopus was free flowing in its holder on descent and I didn't notice until I was down to 150 bar in five minutes. I had a new buddy, a Canadian diver - who was a very nice chap but who was so intent on taking photographs with his very expensive camera kit that he steadied himself on my regulator hose to take a photo (cheers), kicked me in the head with his fins (ouch), and generally caused my heart rate to speed up as he disappeared into the low vis gloom in a different direction to us once too often.... I felt some responsibility in sticking near him as his buddy, but the current was pretty strong in areas and at the point he drifted past me and shoved me out of the way to take a photo of some creature or other (yet again) I pretty much gave up and left his welfare to the DM.
I got back to the boat feeling pretty down - having discovered it's no fun diving with a total stranger who apparently cares only about their own dive experience - only to see the magic of a mother humpback whale and her baby from the boat, surfacing for air. We'd hoped we would see whales while we were there, but none of us could contain ourselves when we spotted the pair and we spent a happy half hour just taking in this amazing pair.
The second dive saw us back at Virador - and me diving with my SIL again, having handed the Canadian over to my brother under the guise of him helping with the camera - and the visibility dramitacally improved on the other side of the reef.We drifted out over a ledge onto a sandbank at one point and saw two sleeping stingrays, lazily dwelling on the bottom; one flicking a casual eye up at us as we hovered above him to take photographs.
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