Cocos Island is located in the Eastern Tropical Pacific approximately 300 miles southwest of Cabo Blanco, Costa Rica. A rugged and incredibly beautiful island, today Cocos Island is the most sacred National park in Costa Rica's extensive park system.
Please note, this island is ''sometimes confused'' with the [http://wikitravel.org/en/Cocos_Islands Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands] (or simply Cocos Islands or Keeling Islands) which is in the middle of the Indian Ocean some 2750km north-west of Perth, and 900km west south-west of Christmas Island. The island was annexed by the UK in 1857, and transferred to the Australian Government in 1955.
Among Cocos Island's many attributes is a startling degree of biodiversity. This island's world-renowned waters explode with life, including innumerable white tip reef sharks, schooling hammerhead sharks, dolphins, mantas and marbled rays, giant moray eels, sailfish, and of course the occasional whale shark. Other common encounters are large schools of jacks and tuna, silky sharks, silver tip sharks, marlin, Creole fish, green turtles and octopus. On the Island you will encounter a lot of pigs and not much else besides the usual vegetation.
The island is supposed to hold three of the largest treasure troves of all time. From pirates to the entire horde of Lima which was hidden there from Simon Bolivar and his troops in 1821.
As tourists are allowed ashore only with permission of island rangers, there are very limited ways to be able to step foot on the island but one of the best ways to experience this natural beauty is through a dive trip. There are two fully equipped dive boats that do week and a half trips out to the Island and back, they are the [http://www.aggressor.com/subpage.php?d=10 Okeanos Aggressor] and [http://www.underseahunter.com/uh.htm Undersea Hunter].
Getting around the island is a little tricky. The main types of transportation are by foot or bike usually used for hikes and sight-seeing tours. The few locals who live here mainly use foot, or bike, or small motor bikes and dirt bikes.