Qualla: Cocos Island National Park

Cocos Island National Park: Introduction

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shannon Rankin, NOAA, Public domain. The approach takes thirty-six hours by boat, and when the cliffs finally rise out of the Pacific they look like somewhere a novelist would invent. Cocos Island is real, though. It is a Costa Rican national park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the only thing that breaks the ocean surface for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. You are allowed to dive its waters. You are allowed to hike its ridges with a ranger. You are not allowed to stay the night. And for three centuries, people have come here to look for buried treasure anyway.

Image: Shannon Rankin, NOAA | Public domain

Cocos Island National Park: The Waters That Drew the World

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty (UK)., Public domain. The surrounding ocean is the reason Cocos Island ended up on the world-heritage list. Schooling hammerhead sharks - sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds at a time - aggregate around the island's submerged pinnacles and have made it one of the most famous dive destinations on the ...

Image: Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty (UK). | Public domain

Cocos Island National Park: The Pirate Story

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор В, CC BY-SA 2.0. The island's pirate lore is thick enough to have inspired its own literature. Three of history's supposedly largest treasure caches are said to lie buried here - among them the hoard of Lima, which a British captain named William Thompson allegedly stashed on Cocos in 1820 while ...

Image: Виктор В | CC BY-SA 2.0

Cocos Island National Park: The Island Itself

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Axxis10, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cocos is rugged, dense, and relentlessly wet. Its twenty-four square kilometers of land contain more than two hundred waterfalls, three sheltered bays, and tropical forest that averages rainfall measured in meters rather than millimeters. The tops of the interior cliffs disappear...

Image: Axxis10 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cocos Island National Park: Getting There, Getting Ashore

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Axxis10, CC BY-SA 3.0. Access is deliberately hard. Cocos is a thirty-six-hour boat ride from the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas and requires a government permit. Overnight stays on shore are prohibited for tourists - you sleep on your live-aboard dive boat, not on the island. The main trips are run by...

Image: Axxis10 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cocos Island National Park: What You Actually Do Here

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shannon Rankin, NOAA, Public domain. For most visitors, the day revolves around the water. Two or three dives in the morning and afternoon, with the surface time spent watching frigatebirds wheel against the cliffs. Snorkeling in the bays is a less extreme alternative. A hike to the summit is worth the grind if the ...

Image: Shannon Rankin, NOAA | Public domain