Any good diver will tell you that you shouldn't just look down or straight ahead when underwater, because you will miss so much of what's going on around and above you. The ocean is a three-dimensional place, after all. And so, bearing this in mind, I turned on my back and watched my bubbles languidly journey up toward the dappled surface - and nearly drowned at what I saw there.
Four enormous shadows - huge winged shapes the color of storm clouds - drifting overhead like silent spacecraft. Manta rays, with their mouths agape, sifting for plankton and other tiny things.
My spasmodic reaction may have looked comical if anyone had witnessed it, but nobody did, and try as I might to gain the attention of my diving companions with frantic gestures and muffled yelps, I could not halt their egress. They never noticed my flailing, and hence they never saw the elegant giants. I paused, watching the luminous fins of my party move further away from me, undecided whether to give chase and catch up with them or to let them go and stay with the mantas. The decision did not take long to make! So I consciously broke the golden rule of diving - don't go alone - and chose the Company of giant fish over that of my colleagues.
The shadows were in no hurry, and I stayed below them, tickling their bellies with my bubbles for what felt like an eternity. This was a boyhood dream; well worth the scolding I received from the dive master once back on board. "Ahhhh - lovely! "
Yet another wonderful day at Caño Island; a tiny offshore national park, located 10.5 miles from Corcovado on the Osa Península. I have been here many times, above and below the ocean, watching dolphins and humpbacks leap, turtles sunning themselves and sharks galore circling like ominous gangsters.
They're harmless white tips, thank goodness, who grace the rocks and sandy bottom wherever you care to look. It's really quite a draw for the divers and snorkelers from all over the world who choose to vacation here. Working on a tan (or to be more precise, a burn) my group and I kill time on the sandy shore of the island watching a group, of athletic teens play volleyball. We must remain here for another three hours until the little bubbles in our bloodstream (a side effect of scuba diving) work their way out through our lungs. It's not exactly purgatory waiting it out on a beautiful 500 acre tropical island, especially one with such an interesting history.
Caño Island, with its verdant jungles, towering palm trees and neon blue shallows is, in fact, one of the world's prettiest graveyards. There aren't any tombstones or visible crypts, but there is certainly no shortage of dead bodies (all of them underground, thankfully). For hundreds, if not thousands of years, long before the Spanish arrived in their galleons, the Diquís Indians were ferrying bodies from the mainland on little wooden rafts of their own.
Caño Island was a sacred place for the long gone indigenous, possibly because lightning strikes here with more frequency than anywhere else in Costa Rica. And so, perhaps to be closer to their deities after death, the living brought their dead, depositing them into the island's hallowed soil. As a reminder of such times, Caño is littered with ancient artifacts, ranging from giant stone spheres to ornate corn grinding pestles. At one time, there were possibly hundreds of these objects on the tiny island, but alas, that is no longer the case. Tourists, collectors, thieves and vandals have accounted for the majority. However, the larger pieces still remain partially buried beneath the loamy soils for anyone to sea.
While taking a break from the sun, I encounter a variety of carvings and bolas among the towering trees and wonder at the people who sat at these very spot centuries ago, bidding a fond farewell to an in-law or friend. Could they imagine what the future would bring to their burial grounds - a procession of tourists bedecked in flip- flops, smelling of coconut oil? Probably not! I doubt they would be too happy about it. However, trampling tourists are certainly the lesser of two evils when one considers that the entire island, including the ancestral graves, were fated to vanish beneath a European mega- resort. Thankfully, local outrage and somewhat untidy paperwork helped authorities quash the project, paving the way for national park status.
Caño Island and the waters surrounding it are now fully protected by Costa Rican law on paper at least. Today, despite the "protection" and a plethora of eco-minded tourists visiting from afar, Caño waters and wildlife are still under perilous threat. An increase in long-liner fishing activity, combined with commercial shrimp netting, is destroying the ecosystem. Nets drift onto the "protected" corals and rocks, entangling sharks and turtles, killing sport fish and injuring dolphins. It is against the law to practice commercial fishing anywhere near the island, but the park wardens are handicapped by the fact that they are understaffed and do not have a decent boat. The commercial fishermen are laughing, but the tourist industry and concerned conservationists most certainly are not.
For the moment, sport fishermen (practicing catch and release) are almost guaranteed a bill fish (or two or three or four) every day they are on the water, but that will change forever if the long-liners continue to catch and kill these species as a by-product. An increase in the wasteful practice of shark finning (the removal of the shark’s dorsal fin for the Asian market while the rest of the shark is thrown back into the water to die) is directly threatening the diving industry, and upsetting the delicate balance of nature.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. A variety of action groups have banded together in order to comber the growing fide of damage, and with luck and hard work they hope to encourage the development of a marine reserve that will extend from the mainland well beyond the limit of Caño Island itself commercial fishing will become a thing of the past, leaving the waters free for sport fishing, divers and snorkelers all important benefactors to the local economy. But most importantly, as far as I am concerned, there will be a special protected place where the gentle giants can drift at ease. Mouths agape, sharks can be as ominous as they like, and humpback whales can leap around like overexcited schoolchildren - for now and forever.
Activities and Sports 
