Scuba Diving Manuelita Inside Whitetip Sharks Cocos Island

Your first Cocos dive and one of our favorites is Manuelita Island inside, which faces the calm waters of Chatham Bay. This well-protected site receives little current or swells. These calm conditions support a beautiful shallow garden at depths ranging from 20 to 70 feet. It is a macro-photographers heaven. Countless fish, eels, lobsters and many other critters are residents of the hard coral reef and the adjacent sand slope.

Large fish are frequent visitors to this site, including hammerheads, black tip sharks, white tip sharks and numerous marble rays. At this spot, large schools of white tip sharks can be seen feeding at dark. It is the best night dive spot.

Cocos Island is also home to at least twenty seven endemic fish species including the exotic red-lipped batfish. The terrestrial life at Cocos also exhibits a high number of endemic plants. Here there exist around seventy out of the two hundred thirty five identified vascular plant species in the world, some twenty five species of moss, twenty seven species of liverwort and eighty five species of fungus. There are upwards of eighty seven bird species, including the famous Cocos Island cuckoo, finch and flycatcher. There are three hundred sixty two species of insects, of which sixty four are endemic, and two native reptiles.