Let the Diving Begin!

(Heading to the dive boat from shore.)

What an amazing time we're having here in Playas del Coco!  Yesterday we went out for our first dive trip and we were told it was the best visibility in months.  Sweeet!


We met up at the dive shop (a 5 minute walk from our hotel) at 8:00am.  After all our gear was packed in  truck, we walked the other direction to the beach where we were picked up on a little boat to be taxied to the dive boat.  That alone was pretty fun and luckily, none of us fell out!

After getting out boat briefing we decided to start putting on our wetsuits.  Let's be honest, the last time we wore these suckers we were about 15 pounds lighter and were putting them on multiple times a day!  THIS was going to take a while, lol!

We made it to our first dive site called La Tortuga, which is basically 2 islands that look like a turtle.  What a fabulous first dive we had!  Kat saw her very first sharks (White Tip Reef Sharks), and we saw heaps of octopus, Jen and I saw an Eagle Ray, tons of eels and even a gorgeous, bright yellow Sea Horse.  It was SUCH an amazing feeling being back in the water.

(Clown Nosed Shrimp)

(Puffers were everywhere!)

(One of the tons of octos we found.)

Our second dive was called Casitas and was a shallow dive with smaller critters lurking about.  We found teeny tiny Nudibranchs, crabs, more eels and more octos.  It was such a blast!!

(Kat, Risa and Jen having the time of their lives between dives.)

(Tiniest Frogfish I've ever seen!)

(This sucker was huge too!)

After diving we decided to hit up a place called Woody's, which is different than the Woody's we know and loved in HB.  This was a nice place to just chill and eat.  I think the part we liked the most was that they built around the trees instead of cutting them down for construction.  It's such a nice thing to see all around this town.  That and also the dogs and cats running the town, lol!

We headed back to the hotel after eating and decided to relax in the warm pool.  We debriefed our first dive trip and did some lazy swimming while Marisa and I dodged the birds that were plotting our demise.  We're still here so they have yet to succeed!  Jen and Kat just laugh and roll their eyes at us.

As we were showering and getting ready for dinner, I walked out on our balcony and Leo, our Italian host, was pointing and laughing, telling us to come down and look.  Jen and I quickly grabbed our cameras, as did Marisa across the way, and boy was THIS a treat!  Howler Monkeys were climbing everywhere around our hotel!  It was SO much fun to just see the swinging away and grabbing themselves a bite to eat!  Leo told us that everyday at this time they come out.  (Then and also 6:30am!  Which Marisa found out when she was awoken by one that morning.)

(Look at how happy these girls are now that we saw our monkeys!)

(Risa took this pix to prove how close they really are.  That is our roof of the hotel!)

(Apparently he's used to modeling.)

After a bajillion photos of the monkeys, we went for a sunset walk along the beach and then we were off to dinner.  We went to the same place as the night before because, seriously, their pizza is SO tasty! You can never go wrong with cheese and garlic though.  We were almost falling asleep in our food when we decided it's time to go to bed and prep for the the next morning.  What a fabulous first full day in Costa Rica!!!