They say the ideal holiday length is 10 days. You need 4 days to decompress from the real world, a few days to deep dive into the present, and a day or so to get ready to go back to reality. By dia cuatro, I felt a shift, whether it was the whales, a surrender to the humidity, or the fauna, I felt like I was on a proper escape from the real world.
My last day of diving was a Friday. The currents were shifting with the moon, bringing higher tides and more surge, which could mean lower visibility. But as we were getting ready for our first dive, a manta ray swam directly under the boat, chasing plankton on top of the reef at the el Diablo dive site.
I’ve dived in Thailand, Burma, Zanzibar…but I’ve never seen a manta underwater. These creatures are as graceful as they are massive (giant manta ray wingspans can be nearly 9 metres or almost 30ft!), yet they eat the tiny stuff: krill and plankton. This was going to be an interesting dive!
The ocean did not disappoint: we were graced by 3 giant mantas in total, an aloof pair travelling together and a solo one who seemed to really enjoy swimming over our bubbles. The sheer size of these animals is breathtaking; absolutely enormous, yet they fly overhead like chubby kites.
1 / 6
This day made up for every other thus far!
And I had 2 days left for wandering, birdwatching, critter-finding, and hammock lolling before needing to wrap up and get back to reality.
The Bahìa Drake trail is a path that follows the line where the sea meets the jungle, and runs many kilometres from Drake Bay down the coast towards Corcovado National Park. It was brutally hot out, so I walked about 30 minutes, landing on a beach inhabited by a fleet of college spring breakers. I quickly retreated to another little beach, completely quiet save a few thousand hermit crabs skittering around the sand.
I spent my remaining time in Drake Bay trying to slow down time. I knew that when I got back, the pressures of an impending product launch would be all-consuming. So I sat and watched while a small company of scarlet macaws amassed in a mango tree to gorge on the unripe fruit. I watched as giant iguanas appeared out of nowhere to slowly yet lithely scamper up trees. I stalked hummingbirds and a handful of different kinds of tanagers.
2 / 11
And like that, the week was up. The trip back was without issue, though I felt more nervous travelling back into the US than I did leaving it. My passport has a somewhat chequered history, and the current news cycle didn’t make me feel any more comfortable. This too shall pass.
Awesome souvenirs.
I got a text message from one of the French guys on the dive boat a couple of days after I got home. “Awesome souvenirs,” he texted. I had sent some of the manta photos and videos to the group. And it made me smile. I think we have it all wrong here…the word souvenirs in French means memories.
Drake Bay, Osa Peninsula: land of scarlet macaws, Central American jungle critters like monkeys, tapirs, sloths, and more; this part of Costa Rica was rumored to be less touristy, less resort-y, a little wilder, a little quieter.
It started sort of precariously, if I’m honest. With a sideways state of affairs and sense of foreboding back home, a pent-up excess of fernweh in my bones, and a dashed-together escape plan to see a part of Central America I’d not been to before… add to that a fairly ominous start to la aventura.
Friday: a 3:00 alarm to make a 6am flight in order to connect in Miami in time to catch the last local flight from San José down to the Osa Peninsula… and even the best-laid plans sometimes have other things in store than what’s expected. So 40 minutes out from San José, the flight had to do a 180 and head back to Miami. Apparently, air traffic control was down across Central America, flights couldn’t land, and we didn’t have enough fuel to wait it out in the sky.
7 or so hours later, we’re on the ground, but of course too late to catch the little planes that spiderweb visitors to various points across the country. I heard buzzing amongst the passengers about hiring helicopters or cars or boats to get them to their end points sooner. Having neither means nor energy for that kind of rejiggering, I booked a new flight to Drake Bay for the following morning and a night in a simple hotel in San José. A clean bed and hot shower were all I really needed, but I had forgotten that here, “shower” does not necessarily imply “hot”.
I woke up the next morning clean but groggy, willing the massive headache to stay at bay until I got to my little hotel that would be my base for the next week. While the final leg to the simple but nice Corcovado and Drake Inn was painless, the migraine was not. I spent much of Day 1 sleeping off the entry.
Mermaid returns home but finds things amiss.
I looked for a PADI 5-star shop to dive with (you can’t be too careful), so the boxes checked with Costa Rica Adventure Divers. And Caño Island sounded like a nice spot to dive, boasting reefs, schooling fish, pinnacles, sharks and more… My mermaid tendencies needed attention and I signed up to dive for 5 days. 🐟🧜♀️
I’ve been diving for close to 30 years, and my heart aches every time I get in the water of late. While I was hoping for vibrant reefs teeming with schools of fish, I knew that the reality would be something different. That said, I wasn’t wholly prepared for the conditions.
These reefs were thriving a mere 5 or 6 years ago. But climate change, pineapple farms and other industries leaching chemicals into the rivers (which flow into the ocean), storms and mudslides, construction, and development (despite Costa Rica’s largely pro-environment stance), have cumulatively caused the corals to bleach and mostly die off here. And while there are some soft corals surviving and thriving, most seemed sad. The schools of fish were there, but from what I was told by the divemaster, it is a very small fraction of what it had been. We were 25km from the mainland, so the reefs closer to shore must be even worse.
I love being underwater, so I tried to keep myself thinking positive: “all dives are good dives” and the like. There were lots of little white tip reef sharks, some amazing and massive green sea turtles, big schools of barracuda and jacks and snappers. But after 2 days of diving, it seemed like they were swimming on a gray canvas, and I felt sad for the sea.
A normal 2-tank dive consists of a first dive (“tank”), followed by a surface interval where you rest before the next dive, followed by the 2nd tank. On the 1st tank on this 3rd day of diving, we descended to about 20 metres in a grayish “garden”. After 10 minutes or so of fish-finding, an eerie, milky sediment cloud appeared out of nowhere. This decreased the visibility to about 1 metre, meaning you couldn’t see your buddy, the reef, or the divemaster. It was relatively shallow water, and we were in a fairly open area, so the dangers were limited, but it was stressful enough to find my buddy, stay with the group, and proceed to a level where the vis was better. Several minutes later, looking down from 5 or so metres was like observing a layer cake of blue and milky gray.
I spent that surface interval dodging a stress headache and questioning my vacation choices, then opted out of the 2nd dive. I chose to spend the time swimming in the big blue sea and contemplating my insignificance.
As I bobbed on the surface, looking out towards the horizon, I could see only shades of blue. If there is one thing diving has taught me is that we humans are mere crumbs in the universe.
That jolt and my self-imposed time out felt like a reset on a week that didn’t start out so great. So when, while we were making our way back to Drake Bay from Caño Island, we saw a mama and baby humpback whale not 10 metres from the boat, and then papa whale breached the surface with a punctuational tail slap, I got the feeling that things were going to be okay.
The whales saved the day.
Big shoutout to Costa Rica Adventure Divers for a team of professional and fun divemasters/instructors. If you’re in Drake Bay, I highly recommend them.
As if spending a week spotting whale sharks wasn’t enough!
Another aspect of the first half of the itinerary was to experience some of the other flora and fauna in and around Nosy Be. So one morning we set off to see Nosy Tanikely, a marine reserve with a lovely, preserved reef. We snorkeled there for a bit before heading farther out to look for more whale sharks.
Back at Sakatia, afternoons were for napping or swimming with giant green sea turtles in the sea grasses by the lodge. Alternately, there was a lot of nothing to do if one was so inclined. In hindsight, I’m meshing together days here and calling out highlights because I stopped trying to keep track of sightings and particulars as the days melted into one under the hot sun. There was the afternoon I was sitting on the porch of my bungalow when two chickens very deliberately climbed the steps to have some water from my foot pail. There were brilliant sunsets overlooking the little sacred forest. There were early morning walks in the mangroves at low tide.
3 / 6
On another morning, we were up and out early to get to a remote island called Nosy Iranja, a 3-hour boat ride out into the waters of the Mozambique Channel. We spotted fewer whale sharks as we entered the deeper (and choppier) water, but as we travelled, a pod of spinner dolphins joined us to play in the boat’s wake. And as we approached Iranja, we watched as a humpback whale family (mom, brand new calf, and dad) slowly cruised through the water, making their way out to sea (and apparently towards Antarctica); the baby getting used to its giant fins, slapping and playing in the water as they swam.
As if the magic of the sea creatures wasn’t sublime enough, we approached the beach where we were to spend the night in beachside “tents”. Pictures cannot do the setting justice, but close your eyes and imagine the whitest sand beach you can conjure, the warm turquoise waters painted in a rainbow of blues. We walked through a small village, up to the phare (lighthouse) at the top of the island, then down the other side to watch the sunset by a spit where at low tide one could walk across to yet another teeny island to hide away from the world. The mojito on the beach felt like an indulgent cherry on top.
4 / 13
Our last day was spent on dry land, taking a walk through the paths in Parc National de Lokobe. Lokobe occupies most of the southern tip of Nosy Be and is home to 72 species of amphibians and reptiles, 48 species of birds, and even 2 species of lemurs that are considered microendemic to Nosy Be: the Nosy Be sportive lemur (you can see them in the photos below), and the Nosy Be mouse lemur.
5 / 13
After a (frankly, unexpectedly hard) paddle out to the entrance via local wooden canoe called a pirogue, we entered the park to find more flora and fauna. Here, we saw a tree boa and other snakes, a variety of chameleons, and lemurs – including the very little and very adorable mouse lemur, who we saw curled up and sleeping in some palm fronds. Plied with a local lunch and plenty of fresh, ripe, mangoes (and jackfruit!), the group unanimously determined the outing (as well as the sea tow back to where we started) a roaring success.
Did you miss Part I of this adventure? Click here. Next stop: the mainland!
About 6 years ago, before the world went sideways and back when I had a regular habit of diving in far-flung places, I stumbled upon a post by a marine biologist with the Marine Megafauna Foundation talking about research he was doing on whale sharks in general, and in Madagascar in particular. The Mozambique channel is a whale shark hotspot, and apparently it was discovered that a particular stretch of ocean around Nosy Be had similarly attracted a large and healthy population. With whale sharks, both fortunately and unfortunately, comes tourism. So I was happy to see that an environmentally-aware wildlife travel company called Aqua-Firma partnered with MMF scientists to mix research with eco-conscious travel and came up with a formula to respectfully send willing adventurers to watch (and play) while the scientists did some of their work. I wanted in! It took 6 years, 2-1/2 of which Madagascar was closed to foreigners due to Covid, but I made it happen (and then some…).
I was to learn that locally, the Madagascar Whale Shark Project was well under weigh. Founded by the amazing Stella Diamant, the Project is leading research, education, and conservation efforts on the ground (and in the water) to study and protect these amazing creatures in and around Nosy Be and other areas of Madagascar.
Overall, I was in Madagascar for about 3 weeks. Here’s my telling of the adventure in several parts.
Sharks and palms: A fine line between ecotourism and impact
It starts on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean called Nosy Sakatia. Sakatia is just off Nosy Be, which is off the north-westerly end of Madagascar (which is in the Indian Ocean, off East Africa). The northwest of the country is littered with these idyllic white-sand tropical islands. It’s on one of these that Part I of my adventure was to start: 10 days at a little oasis called Sakatia Lodge for the above-mentioned whale shark trip.
Nosy Sakatia has its own sacred forest in which black lemurs, fruit bats, chameleons and other critters live. There are no cars…and an unwritten no shoes policy. In other words, my kind of place. So I arrived there a couple days before the itinerary was to begin in earnest to shut the rest of the world out, get some dives in, and take much-needed naps in the tropical air. Sakatia lies roughly 13° below the equator, so it’s late spring here, the opposite of the impending dreariness of autumn back home. The lodge resides in a small bay that opens to the waters between Nosy Be and the Mozambique channel proper.
A portent to the days to follow came in the form of a sighting of a small humpback whale greeting us in that little bay to say good morning before our first dive. Getting back in the water after not diving for nearly 4 years was like coming home.
It’s hard to explain diving to a non-diver, but it was like reinflating something within myself that had dried out. Just making bubbles underwater again felt like a gift. I’m happy to report that the corals are in remarkable shape, and although warming, the waters and its denizens seem to have withstood many of the fates of much of the (over-) developing world. So I spent 2 days diving: small reefs and sandy plateaus and even a small wreck that gave way to one of the most gorgeous coral gardens I’ve ever seen. I clocked my 200th dive on this trip, so it felt significant to dive with a team that appreciated the sheer joy of diving and natural wonder more than just delivering a guest experience. During the week, I’d do a couple more: a night dive and a final early morning dive on an exquisite reef that could double as a work of art. Back on the boat, I remarked to another diver that it looked like someone painted what a reef should look like.
On the evening of my 3rd day there, the rest of the group arrived: our fearful trip leader, an assortment of Brits, Scots, and Americans, and Stella, our whale shark researcher for the week. A genial group, some divers, some not, and even a couple on their honeymoon! Fingers crossed that the shark gods would deliver.
Lights out came early for me and I slept like a log, the dreamless sleep of recovery from 6 months of going non-stop. I woke most mornings with the sun. I was beginning to feel more human.
That’s me. Photo courtesy of Stephen Burgess @UW_Burgess
How to hunt for sharks
The daily plan was to head out into the sea after breakfast, in search of circling seabirds and tuna leaping on the surface, a froth that indicates bait balls of sardines and other tiny fish schooling in the waters below. In this part of the world, whale sharks feed on these tiny fish, so where there’s a bait ball there’s usually a whale shark.
ID: Each shark has a unique pattern, like a fingerprint. So for research, they are looking to identify resident and new sharks against the sharks in the Sharkbook international database. This is done by observing an area just over the left fin. Part of the process is easing into the water near the shark in order to get close enough to get an ID photo (the experts freedive), and when possible, the researchers attach tags: flagging and tagging, as it were. The wonder of it all is the work between the boat driver, the guide and the scientist to spot the bait balls and spot the shark and position the boat (quickly and safely) so we have the best chance to get in the water and see the animal. It’s all done quite orderly and safely, but seems a tad chaotic with the excitement never seeming to wane as we find shark after shark each day. We’d locate a shark, enter the water gently, and swim to (and with) the animal, in awe of each giant mouthful of teeny fish, of every elegant swim-by. It is breathtaking to watch the grace of these massive fish – and the ones here by Nosy Be are small in comparison (5-10 metres vs. more mature whale sharks that can be up to 15-20+ metres long).
Over the 5 days we were at sea, we spotted a total of 15 unique whale sharks (all male, as they trend in these waters) and a whopping 7 that the Project hadn’t previously identified. Fun fact: 9 of our sighted sharks were the first sighted this year (yay, us!). One shark, Ernest, has been a regular here for years…he was first identified in 2015.
To throw in bonus critters, we also saw mobula rays, two mantas, turtles, and schools and schools of the tiny baitfish that are so critical to the food chain for these marine giants. To date, and through the Project, there have been over 500 individual whale sharks identified in the waters off Nosy Be. When tags are deployed, they can be tracked and monitored for feeding and migration activity. It feels like they are doing important work to protect these gentle giants. I’m glad to have contributed minorly to the efforts.
I am so grateful to have spent this time here, but I’ll be honest, I’m worried about the sharks. Because if we were 10 people on a boat doing things the right and responsible way, there are or will be 10 boats that don’t. Research is important. So is education and conscious action and leaving soft footprints in the sand rather than the harsher kind. People like Stella and the Madagascar Whale Shark Project and the caring folks at Les Baleines Rand’eau are leading efforts to ensure this goes the right way. Read more about what they’re doing here.
I’ll be back there, of that I’m sure. It’s one of these places that works its way into your heart, delivering turquoise-infused dreams. Or maybe it was just the rhum arrangé.
Shameless plug for conservation sake: via the Madagascar Whale Shark Project’s website you can make a donation, adopt a whale shark, or even name a whale shark!
I’ll close Part I here for now. Stay tuned for the rest of the aquatic (and land) adventures!
I begin Part II in a weird little hotel on the other side of the water, having just spent the past 6 days on a boat in the Mergui (Myeik) Archipelago, dodging currents and battling low visibility, diving some of the most lush underwater gardens I’ve seen in years.
I’m in Kawthaung, Myanmar’s southernmost point, and my official point of entry to this country.
First, the undersea world.
Diving is a strange contradiction, as well as an ethical paradox. To get to the places that have not been impacted (as much) by climate change and unchecked tourism and the unsustainable overconsumption to which this world has become addicted, one needs to travel further and further abroad, which requires planes, trains, buses, boats, etc. to get one there.
I’m convinced that the more people who discover diving will have their eyes opened to the pervasive problems the foundation of our ecosystem faces. I’ve diatribed on this before: without healthy oceans, we do not have a healthy planet. And one cannot get the true picture of what a healthy ocean looks like unless one sees the contrast.
I dove in Thailand 3 years ago and nearly cried each day I saw dead reefs, bleached and crushed corals, and a distinct lack of fish, with the exception of one dive site, Richelieu Rock, situated a difficult-enough distance from the mainland to not have the daily touristic pounding that is seen in the rest of the Similan Islands (shortly after we were there, Thailand’s government actually closed Koh Tachai because it had gotten so bad). Same observations last year in The Seychelles, where it’s clear that their reefs have not bounced back from a devastating bleaching event the year prior. The oceans are too warm. The landscape appears normal at the surface (for a given value of normal), yet scratch the idyllic surface and you quickly see there’s trouble lurking.
Enter, Myanmar: I wanted to give this part of the world another shot, and with 3 weeks in Southeast Asia planned and not much of an itinerary, I decided to add some diving days to see how the ocean is doing.
First off, it is difficult to get to the Mergui Archipelago. Situated quite a ways offshore from nearly anywhere, there is virtually no diving industry here, as one must get on a liveaboard to hit most of the charted sites. This bodes well for the reef, because the lack of frequent day-tripping snorkel and dive boats means that hordes of tourists won’t be tromping on the corals, nor should their fuel or trash. I’ll get back to the trash later.
Optimistic indication #2: the distance from any coastal building boom (if there were one here) means that toxins from industry and development running into the reefs isn’t yet being exacerbated by the depletion of mangroves and natural boundaries. Yet being the operative word.
Massively strong currents and wild thermocline are natural in this region (5-10° fluctuations in ocean temperature weren’t at all uncommon), as is the less-than-optimal visibility. These factors, too, make this a “not for everyone” diving destination. And these wild waters help nature do its thing: creating sea-creature superhighways to move critters and nutrients and food sources, cleansing the habitats in the process.
So we begin with a habitat that is less intruded-upon than most. Yet, our first night, anchored off an island some 6 hours northwest of Kawthaung, we’re shocked to see a horizon ablaze with fishing boats. These local commercial fishermen are trolling with massive nets that drag along the bottom of the ocean, collecting squid plus whatever bycatch happens into the fray. It’s a disconcerting sight to say the least.
By day, dive after dive, we visit reefs are teeming with schools of fish and soft corals, creating dream-like undersea forests in pinks and yellows I’ve never before experienced.
And dive after dive, I’m also wondering where the bigger stuff is. The reef sharks and mantas and dolphins and turtles and rays and whale sharks that should be flourishing in these waters, amongst these healthy reefs, given all the lower little stuff on offer for them…
Pay attention to the damselfish and how he’s harassing the poor octo!
So one afternoon, we take the zodiac out to one of the little islands; an idyllic uninhabited gem plonked in the middle of the ocean. As we land, a siren of sorts is sounding… turns out it’s some sort of beach insect that emits a wail akin to a fire signal, so loud, that as we walk to the jungle at the edge of the beach, it hurts the ears. And I get a lump in my throat realising that it is an alarm…the natural world is in a massive amount of trouble. Here, in the middle of the sea, where nobody lives, is a carpet of plastic trash.
Back on the dive boat, as we get to islands closer to civilisation again, we begin to see the impacts of the fishermen, a warming climate and more people: damaged, bleached and dead corals, dive sites strewn with “ghost nets” and stray lines and hooks, increasingly fewer, and noticeably smaller, schools of fish… the plastic-littered beach nearly broke my heart, yet an hour or a day or a month of cleanup won’t help the endemic worldwide consumption at its root.
I’m running this all over in my mind and I’m wondering when the breaking point will be for this place as well. Nature needs the balance of top predators and small; the plastic will choke the beaches and eventually the sea birds, then the small fish that feed the medium that feed the bigger ones…and the food chain needs its balance to remain intact.
Lest we forget: we, too, are of the animal kingdom and simultaneously the worst perpetrators of the misdeeds to it.
On this dive boat, we were all given water bottles instead of plastic; they used real plates and cutlery; we cut fishing lines and hooks from the reef; they reported our findings to the authorities… it’s a small dent in a massive problem to which I don’t have a solution. But I think conscious consumption and responsible travel and deliberate choices and intelligent conversations are all imperative places to start.
With these thoughts mulling in my head, we head back to dry land. For me, it’s another 10 days of new experiences in a land I know very little about. The boat drops me where I started this piece, in the town of Kauthaung (pronounced something like cow-tongue), and from here I will travel northwards.
