i witnessed a crocodile attack at manuel antonio national park
a mere 5 minutes before it happened, our guide was telling us a crocodile was spotted in the water the day before, then commented how there were people in the water the day of. they sometimes cross the 25 or so feet of land to the beach from their estuary during the night, and sometimes one doesn't make it back to the estuary by morning because the water is cloudy or something. i was standing in the shade looking out at the water. there were about 5 people in the water, not far out... a middle-aged woman screamed and i knew what it was immediately. i couldn't believe it was happening and felt totally helpless. i don't think anyone else knew what was going on, but she continued to scream for her life and her head was dragged under the water a few times. the bf thought she had cramps or something. in fact i'm sure most people had no idea what was going on since you could not see the croc from the shore. the couple swimming near her started running out of the water, then the man started pulling her arm, trying to get her out. two other guys, one from my tour group, ran into the water to get her out and they finally succeeded. the crocodile had bitten her ass and was clamping down, trying to drag her down and drown her. it could have been a lot worse had it bitten a leg. i can't imagine the sheer terror of enjoying a beautiful beach, then looking back and seeing a 10-12 foot crocodile right there. the guy in my group said as he reached her in the water, only then could he see the crocodile and its head was over a foot long. it was one of the most terrifying things i've ever seen. curiously enough, the rangers were amongst the slowest to react. after the attack, the croc could be seen swimming in the water. i do have to question having a beach open where something like this could happen.
posted by snarkylush @ 5:46 PM
19 Comments:
hey! I think you were in my group, its bri! I was looking up to see if the story was on google and found this...it sure was terrifying!!
Hope the rest of your trip was amazing!
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yes, hey! i hope you had no further close encounters. i did a search and didn't find anything and thought it was fucked up that there was no info out there, so had to post this.
yeah i cant believe there is NOTHING about it!!! thats a little crazy
my feeling is they need some stronger preventative measures but... maybe their regulations are a bit different. i just really hope it doesn't happen again. hey your boy was a hero!
That is messed up!! i swam in that beach just a week ago or so. Im still in Costa Rica and i swim in the ocean almost everyday. Thats so wierd... We stayed in Manuel Antonio for 4 days and nobody warned or told us anything about this. Nor the guids, the hotelowner or the locals. I think they wont tell the tourists because the tourist are a vital part of the economy in Costa Rica and for the locals. We actually went on a boattrip to the Mangroves were we saw a Caiman!
How ever it is really fuuucked up!!
yeah, i'm sure the locals aren't in a rush to tell tourists because of possible lost $$$.
a friend of mine who was vacationing in M.A. at the time told me about this incident, and I am amazed there is no information about it anywhere. Was the woman seriously hurt?
no, luckily she was not. i don't think i could've handled serious gore upclose and personal
In my opinion, when someone swims in the Pacific Ocean, it is there responsibility to be intelligent enough to realize that in life there are risks everywhere and to make educational decisions based on that. This seems to be an isolated incident and is not a common occurrence in Manuel Antonio. Caimans are often seen in Manuel Antonio and crocodiles do exist in Costa Rica, as do poisonous snakes and other dangerous creatures. Nobody should be held accountable for an incident such as this, it is not Disneyworld, where people have actually died, it is the real world, a large ocean and many animals. In other words, it was simply an unlucky and unfortunate incident involving a wild animal, not the result of a lacking tourist security process in Costa Rica. Educated people should realize that this is the real world, not heaven just yet.
Although I sort of agree with Anonymous, I think people should at least be warned. There should be a sign outside of the beach or at the entrance. I was there around the 20th of August and the only reason I knew to watch out was because the Forbes Costa Rica 2009 said that the beach might be a home to a crocodile or two.
We saw one of the crocodiles that day.
there should absolutely be signage. in australia, any public beach - a beach without any kind of guard or ranger - will have signs stating dangers of riptides, sharks, jellyfish, what have you. i'm not stupid, but was stilled shocked to see this.
I go to Costa Rica fairly often and have seen many crocodiles in the wild (from a safe distance), and it is absolutely your individual responsibility to educate your self when traveling. It’s no different than the tourist in Hawaii that got chewed up by a tiger shark while surfing in Maui, or the couple in Africa that got killed by a bull elephant when they got too close. People need to take more personal responsibility when traveling; after all, we are in the information age, look stuff up, it’s free! FACT: Every year, some dip-shit falls into the Grand Canyon while sight seeing, it’s the biggest hole in the world, you should be able to avoid falling in!
I heard that in that beach in Costa Rica must be careful with wild animals!
I just got back from Quepos/MA. No one told us about this either until we were on the public beach right next to MA and the lifeguard kept telling people to not go in beyond their thighs because of crocs. I speak Spanish so I asked him. He sees them frequently especially in the morning. They are 4-6 meters long and there was a fatal attack in MA..I did not ask when but later I did verify that with a ranger in MA park. I did some research on the internet..Spanish language sites and there are several fatalities each yr...in rivers but there have also been very severe attacks in Jaco and other areas, One surfer who has a FB page about this with a picture of his ripped up leg said there had been 16 attacks so far that yr ( he did not say what yr that was)in Jaco area beaches. I was shocked...if I did not speak Spanish and if we had not been at the public beach, we would have had no idea. I talked to other American tourists in the airport..no one had a clue. Y guidebook only mentioned rivers and estuaries but the lifegueard told me it has been documented that they can hang out in salt water
I was at M.A National Park today (Aug. 24th 2013), my b/f and I had been in the water all afternoon. Laid down to rest for a bit, and as we got up to go in again to cool off I saw what I thought was a large piece of driftwood. Only to realize everyone else pointing and taking pictures. That was no driftwood we saw!!!! Many disagreed with the majority of spectators and said crocs don't go in saltwater, especially a part such as where we were. I am surely confident now that what we all witnessed (and not once, but we all continued watching and spotted it multiple times only about 25 ft away from shore) was def a croc!!
I was there yesterday (August 24, 2013) too with three friends and there was totally a very large crocodile swimming out just past the waves. I didn't believe it at first. I have been going to Manuel Antonio two or three times a year for the past ten years and have never even seen a big crocodile so I was shocked. It seemed that when I asked some of the locals they didn't seem surprised but in the past ten years this possibility was never mentioned. I think that maybe it only can happen a certain time of year and I think that maybe because there was an insane amount of rain the night before that might have washed the crocodiles away from the river mouth. Whatever the situation was, those who run the park need to pay more attention. There are no signs posted on that beach warning about this and no rangers showed up to clear the beach. They need to pay more attention or close that second beach during the rainy season!
I was there in January of this year and we saw the croc. I saw it through a guide's telescope. There was a sign on the beach saying "crocodile on beach, no swimming," and I have a photo of that sign. I didn't hire a guide, but they still were telling each visitor to not swim on beach #1 or 2 (can't remember which) because of the croc and they were counting every person coming in and out, if I can recall correctly. I didn't swim there that day, just hiked. The croc was quite large, as big as some that I've seen in Belize. Honestly, being eaten by a croc is one of my worst nightmares. The guide and my hotel people said they get washed out in the heavy rains and that they sometimes hang out and eat fish. I am going back in November, and this post is super unsettling to me since it'll be rainier then. My hotel guys said their private beach doesn't get crocs because there is no river mouth nearby. Dear lord I hope they're telling the truth because I'm planning on a destination wedding here and it'd kinda ruin things if my 6 year old nephew gets turned into lunch! Having said all this, I think yes, you should be individually aware and be like me...do research. That's how I found this post. But if you ask the guides and hotels, they should MOST certainly tell you the truth about when it's safe to swim, etc, because they know best.
I am staying near Playa Negra Beach in Guanacaste and yesterday a 3 metre long croc was seen just off the beach where folks were surfing. I too was completely astonished as I had no idea crocs left the rivers ... and I have been swimming every day very near the mouth of what looks like it might be a river estuary that connects to the ocean during the rainy season. Some signage would certainly be welcome.
While I was snorcoling at man well Antonio’s national parks beach I noticed that all the fish had disappeared and then something swam under me it was kinda camouflage with the sand but I could make out it’s mouth shape it must of been a young crocodile to think there could of been bigger ones there is terrifying
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