The hammerhead is one of the most surreal animals in the ocean, its wide, flattened head sweeping the water for prey. Seeing a wall of scalloped hammerheads schooling in the blue is a crowning achievement for any diver. These sharks gather at seamounts and current-swept points around the tropics. Here is where to see them, when to go, and the exciting news that hammerheads pass right by Isla Fuerte's advanced dive sites.
Why hammerheads school
Scalloped hammerheads famously gather in large schools by day around seamounts, then hunt alone at night. That wide head is packed with sensory organs that help them detect prey buried in the sand. They are generally shy of divers and their bubbles, so the best sightings need calm, careful behavior.
The great hammerhead, larger and solitary, is a rarer and even more impressive encounter.
The best places to see them
- Cocos Island, Costa Rica: legendary schooling hammerheads (liveaboard only).
- Galápagos, Ecuador: Darwin and Wolf islands, world-class walls of sharks.
- Malpelo, Colombia: a remote Colombian Pacific mecca for hammerheads.
- Bimini, Bahamas: winter great hammerheads in shallow water.
- The Red Sea (Daedalus): summer scalloped hammerhead schools.
When to go
Cocos and Galápagos are strongest in the cooler, plankton-rich months of roughly June to November, when big animals move in. Bimini's great hammerhead season runs December to March. Malpelo, off Colombia's Pacific, is generally best in the first months of the year.
Most of these are advanced, current-heavy sites, so build your experience and comfort before booking.
Hammerheads in Colombia and the Caribbean
Colombia is genuinely a hammerhead country. Malpelo in the Pacific is world famous, but you do not have to go that far offshore. On the Caribbean side, hammerheads are among the highlights of the deep open-water sites around Bushnell at Isla Fuerte, alongside whitetip reef sharks and harmless nurse sharks.
These are seasonal, luck-dependent sightings for advanced divers, but they are real, and they happen here.
Meet them on Bushnell's walls
Bushnell is Isla Fuerte's advanced open-water crown jewel, a set of deep walls where hammerheads and whitetips cruise the blue. It is the closest most Caribbean divers will ever get to a hammerhead without a liveaboard, and it is right here in Colombia.
Nautilus can take certified divers there and help you earn the advanced rating to dive it. See our courses and dives and the shark sites on our interactive dive map.
