Northwest Dive Club

Anyone have any experience or recommendations for north pacific coast costa rica (esp Papagayo Gulf) dive services / boats / sites -- Define do's or do nots?

Also any similar comments on non-dive related c-r adventures is appreciated.

Appreciate any thoughts.

Rocket Frog Divers

Supposed to be the beat boat on the coast for day trips.

Awesome. Thanks Tom. I"ll check them out for sure!

A few years ago we dove with Summer Salt out of Playa Del Coco, and thought they were good. The Bat Islands boast bull sharks; unfortunately we didn't see any when we were there.. but had a great time anyway.
If you're as far south as the Flamingo area, please DO NOT dive with Costa Rica Divers. Long story but basically out at the Catalina Islands, a freak storm came up and the boat flipped and sank from under us in 8-10 seas (18' open bow skiff). A few hours later, Costa Rica Divers went back out and amazingly found all their gear except some weights but none of the gear of the 4 divers was ever located. They suggested we talk with their spanish speaking attorney but would not return calls or letters. End result - we lost all our gear except my bc (which I grabbed while we bobbed around in the waters 2 miles from shore.
As a side note, a bit further south by Tamarindo is Pacific Coast Divers. They are under new owners now but the 18 year old kid that worked there at the time as a captain, basically saved our lives. We've never dove with them but like to steer business their way when possible.
Both times we were there, we split our time between diving and land excursions. Arenal is beautiful and of course Monteverde should not be missed. We rented a 4x4 suv each time and would recommend it. It's wonderful to just drive about, and we never had a bit of trouble anywhere we went. If you're in the Flamingo area and have a vehicle, check out Playa Grande beach its covered with thousands of the 3" spiral shells "Turritella communis".
Land in Liberia if you can - San Jose is a dirty dangerous city (we were nearly robbed of our camera in broad daylight).
We love Costa Rica and have considered buying a place there.

We had a really good experience with Deep Blue Diving in Playa del Cocos. Very safety conscious, fun, and accommodated our desire to do a lot more diving than their usual 2 dives a day. They took us out for 4 or 5 dives each day and gave us a "hard core diver" price which was reasonable. They really knew the sites but when sea conditions forced us to go someplace that really wasn't a site, they found a place that we liked so much, we asked to go back to it the next day.

Holy smokes Octoloco -- Glad you came back to tell the tale. Wow, just wow.

Yes, the cloud forest and arenal are definitely on the list. And no plans for SanJose and flying in through Liberia when we go we think.

WB - also always good to hear about good safety conscious outfits. Very important to us of course.

Thanks everyone for the great advice and I'll keep y'all posted how it all plays out.