Cocos Island is a Costa Rica national park that Jacques Cousteau, the renowned underwater diver once called the most beautiful island he had ever explored . Though very few Costa Ricans have ever seen it themselves, they have named it one of Costa Rica’s Seven Wonders, and it is being considered for one of the Seven Natural Wonders on Earth.

The island is some 340 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Though it is a very small island, only about nine square miles, its fame today comes from its underwater treasure. It is one of the truly great places in the world for scuba diving, considered by some to be the best place on earth for large marine animal viewing. The island sometimes has so many sharks around it that it has been called Shark Island. There are an incredible number of species of tuna, rays, sharks, and other fish, as well as sea turtles, porpoises, and whales. Hammerhead sharks are common and some of the largest Hammerheads ever reported were seen off this island.

For centuries, the island has been famous for pirates, real and imagined. Some people believe that it served as inspiration for Robert Lewis Stevenson’s famous pirate novel Treasure Island but real pirates often hid off it to get away from the English fleet and to bury treasure there. In fact two great treasures, the Devonshire Treasure and the incomparable Lima Treasure, were buried there and, to this day, may still be there. Buried treasure, hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and jewels, waiting for discovery.

It also fired the imagination of Michael Crichton whose world famous Jurassic Park is set off the coast of Costa Rica.

With the exception of a few Costa Rica park rangers whose job it is to protect its waters from poaching, the island is uninhabited. Its isolation has protected its rainforest from depredation and until recently its underwater splendor was unmolested .

Only a few lucky people get to visit Cocos and if you want to go ashore, you will need previous permission from the rangers. Overnight camping is forbidden. But, no matter. As you walk the shores, looking out over the great Pacific, your imagination can soar. You’ll be walking the very shores that famous pirates hid buried treasure and you will not be alone. It is almost as if some of the stones themselves can talk for you are going to find rocks and boulders bearing the inscriptions of past sailors who left their moment of history behind, writing their names, the names of their ships and ports of call, even the dates. Sailors, long gone but not forgotten by the rocks. Like Kilroy, they were here.

Tags: Adventure Holiday

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