Cocos Island: Costa Rica’s Wild World Beneath The Pacific

A WILD WORLD BENEATH THE SURFACE.

Costa Rica’s biodiversity does not end at the shoreline.

Far into the Pacific, Cocos Island rises from open ocean as one of the country’s most extraordinary protected environments. UNESCO recognizes it as a World Heritage Site, and the island is the only oceanic island in the Eastern Tropical Pacific with humid tropical forest.

Above the surface: rainforest.

Below it: another world entirely.

AN ISLAND APART

Cocos Island sits roughly 530 kilometers off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.

Its isolation is part of what makes the ecosystem exceptional. Ocean currents and underwater topography support remarkable concentrations of pelagic life around the island and surrounding seamounts.

UNESCO notes roughly 300 fish species in its waters, along with sharks, rays, tuna, dolphins and other large marine animals.

For divers, the most iconic image is often a school of scalloped hammerhead sharks moving through blue water in numbers that feel almost impossible.

National Geographic Explorer Enric Sala famously described the waters around Cocos as an “underwater Jurassic Park.”

The phrase captures the feeling without needing much explanation.

A MARINE WILDERNESS

Cocos is not a beach-resort island.

It is remote, protected and governed around conservation. Access is highly controlled, and the journey itself is substantial. That distance helps preserve the sense that this is not simply another place on an itinerary.

It is a marine wilderness.

The conservation story is also larger than the island’s shoreline. The waters surrounding Cocos sit within an important Eastern Tropical Pacific marine region through which migratory species move across national boundaries.

Protecting the sea requires thinking beyond a single point on a map.

530 KM INTO THE PACIFIC.

AROUND 300 FISH SPECIES.

UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE.

UNESCO identifies Cocos Island as the only oceanic island in the Eastern Tropical Pacific with humid tropical forest—an unusual combination of terrestrial and marine biodiversity in one remote protected landscape.

WHAT COCOS CHANGES ABOUT THE COSTA RICA STORY

When people imagine Costa Rica, the first images are often terrestrial: monkeys, sloths, rainforest, volcanoes.

Cocos Island expands the frame.

Costa Rica is also a Pacific country whose natural identity continues offshore. Sharks, rays, reefs, pelagic fish and deep-water ecosystems are part of the same national conservation story.

This matters because living on the Pacific changes the horizon psychologically.

The ocean stops being scenery.

It becomes another ecosystem.

Another frontier.

Another reminder that nature extends far beyond what can be seen from land.

THE SUEÑOS DEL MAR CONNECTION

Cocos Island is remote and is not a day trip from Jacó.

Its connection to Sueños del Mar is more conceptual—and more meaningful.

The project sits just steps from the Pacific. Its philosophy of tropical living is therefore shaped not only by forest, but by water. The Oasis creates an internal relationship with water. Jacó Beach places the ocean within everyday reach. And the broader Costa Rican story reminds residents that the Pacific outside the community belongs to one of the planet’s richest natural regions.

Sueños del Mar is about living closer to nature.

Cocos Island reminds us how much of that nature remains unseen beneath the surface.

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