: | Global Television |
Episode Number: | 39013 |
Title: | Cocos Island |
Languages: | E De |
52 Mins | |
Produced: | 2005 |
The fascinating underwater world that surrounds the legendary Cocos Island is a unique treasure. Its biodiversity and vast populations of marine life have turned it into a paradise for both divers and marine biologists alike.
From the small harbour of Puntarenas the journey of the Undersea Hunter and its experienced crew travels more than five hundred kilometres in a southwesterly direction, far away from the economic problems of Costa Rica to an unspoiled and natural world, once the haunt of pirates. The journey from the mainland to the isolated and remote Cocos Island takes a little over thirty hours.
In the underwater caves, rocky alcoves and ocean bed around Cocos Island there are huge numbers of Whitetip Sharks. Scientists and marine biologists such as Frenchman, Jacques Cousteau, and Austrian, Hans Hass, developed much interest in the island and travelled to this remote location in the South Pacific to document the beauty of this special place.
The plant life beneath the water is like that of an enchanting garden. Both the surroundings of Cocos Island and its marine flora are protected as they form the basis of a unique habitat. Here it is rare to spot only a single fish, so diverse and full of life is the ocean close to the island that began to rise from the bottom of the Pacific around two and a half million years ago as a result of volcanic activity.
Due to this exceptional habitat and its fantastic biodiversity it is no wonder that the waters of Cocos Island attract divers from all over the world. Nevertheless, the island and the sea creatures that inhabit its coastal waters have been spared mass tourism.
Even though no one has discovered buried treasure each member of the expedition has been made richer by their many wonderful impressions of this wonderful island.