Cano Island

Drake Bay · Osa Peninsula · Costa Rica

Cano Island rises from the Pacific Ocean roughly 17 kilometres off the wild Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica's last great wilderness on its southern Pacific coast. The island is a designated Biological Reserve, completely uninhabited and strictly protected, with no infrastructure beyond a ranger station and basic trail. This isolation, combined with nutrient-rich currents sweeping north from the Equatorial Counter Current, has created one of the most productive and biodiverse marine environments on the Central American Pacific coast. For divers based in Drake Bay, Cano Island is the centrepiece of what many consider Costa Rica's best Pacific diving. The boat ride from Drake Bay crosses open ocean for about forty-five minutes before the island's forested profile appears on the horizon. I descended at Bajo del Diablo, the most celebrated dive site, and the whitetip reef sharks were waiting. Not one or two, but an aggregation of at least twenty whitetips piled on top of each other on a sandy patch between basalt boulders, their bodies overlapping in a display of communal resting that never fails to astonish. The sharks lay motionless, gills pumping rhythmically, completely undisturbed by our group settling on the sand a few metres away. The rocky reef surrounding the island is constructed from volcanic basalt, creating dramatic formations of boulders, tunnels, and overhangs. Every surface is covered in marine life. Giant Panamic green morays draped from crevices, their bodies as thick as a diver's thigh. King angelfish and Cortez angelfish patrolled their territories with the aggressive confidence of fish that have never encountered a speargun. Schools of Pacific creolefish filled the water column in shimmering clouds of thousands. The pelagic dimension elevates Cano Island from excellent to exceptional. During my February visit, a school of scalloped hammerheads appeared at the edge of visibility, perhaps fifteen animals swimming in their characteristic formation at the boundary of the rocky reef and open water. The encounter lasted only minutes before they dissolved into the blue, but those minutes justified the entire trip. Whale sharks visit during late summer, and humpback whale songs provide an ethereal soundtrack during the southern migration months.