Roatan
This isn’t Muck Diving! True, but that doesn’t mean those in the Midwest cannot treat themselves to some of the more exotic diving experiences. Because the traditional Muck Diver doesn’t dive in paradise everyday information on dive ops, hotels, what should I do and not do become essential when planning a trip to paradise. Because of all these questions, we thought we would give everybody a one-stop place to go to learn about these places and hopefully help with planning your next trip. Once again, the success of this relies upon those that have taken the journey. So, please help out and tell us about your trips and what worked and what did not work.
CoCo View Resort Review – Roatan
August 2010
Original Post by KingsCrab on Scuba Board
Follow-up Post by FinniMinni on Scuba Board
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Hey SCUBA folks! Just got back a couple of days ago from my first trip to Roatan, and I thought I’d throw some words of advice out there. Where to start…?
Honduras diving totally lived up to my expectations!
My wife and I honeymooned at CoCo View Resort and I want to officially give this place two thumbs up. The trip got off to a rocky start thanks to the POS airline known as DELTA. DO NOT FLY DELTA. Seriously. Every. Single. Plane. Had mechanical issues of some sort. We missed the first whole day of our honeymoon due to missed connections.
Flight to Roatan = Captain announced over the loudspeaker he had to “reboot the plane” to get a certain censor to work. 30 min gone. Upon arrival in Atlanta (which is an enormous traffic CF – 30 min gone) the “door wasn’t opening” so we sat at our gate while the clock ticked. 20 more minutes gone. RAN through the vast expanse of the Atlanta airport, actually got to our connecting Roatan flight gate 5 minutes before take off only to find out that the plane had pulled away early. Yeah. Got rerouted to Houston to catch a Continental flight the next day. (which BTW was quite nice. Continental seems to hame a nice modern fleet) So, night one of honeymoon = Hello Garden Inn at Houston.
Return Flight = Thinking a 4 hour layover was sufficient, we sat in the Roatan airport confident we wouldn’t have to stay at another flea bag airport hotel. Right? Wrong. The incoming plane to Roatan that we were waiting for was, yup, 4 hours late. End of honeymoon in Altlanta hotel. I could go on, but alas, I digress.
Bah. Enough negative. Now the good stuff!
CoCo View resort was amazing. The people were all very friendly and it was the lowest maintenance diving I have ever done. As a backpacker, I’m not used to “resort vacations” so this was a new experience. Upon arrival, we met Mitch, the recent manager, who upon hearing our tale of woe, immediately took us out for a shore dive/orientation dive. The Prince Albert wreck is about 100 yards offshore and I have to tell ya, I could do this dive 5 times a day. It is BEAUTIFUL. There is so much to keep you busy down there!
Never once did I feel like anyone working at the resort was being schmoozy or cheesey. Our divemaster was Kirk and our Captain was Dave. You never really know what to expect from a dive guide. I’ve seen all sides of the spectrum, from the “know it all” yahoo to the quiet stoic type. Well, these guys were really great. Just the right mix of professionalism and easy going attitude. Kirk and Dave were very easy to get along with and could basically talk to anyone about anything. It felt very genuine. I was amazed at how knowledgeable Kirk was about the reef too. I mean, when he said something like “A seahorse lives on this rock right about here *point at map* and I will look for him” he meant it. The guy has eagle eyes.
Anyway, it’s a slick operation and a well oiled machine. They made it SO easy to go diving.
Eat, go out on boat for first dive, drop off near wreck for second dive. Repeat.
Speaking of eating: The food was pretty damn good. The dinners were the best meals by far. I feel like the quality of the food trailed off by the end of the week, but I have to say, we had some STELLAR dinners at CoCo View. The breakfast meals were pretty average fare, but hey, neither of us got sick from the food or water so I’m not complaining. The vegetarian options were pretty lacking, or so I heard a couple people grumble, but I eat meat and was quite happy. I do wish they would have put tortillas out at every meal where they had rice and beans present, (makes sense, yeah?) but hey, minor gripe.
One thing that I really liked about CoCo View were the nice little touches. The area (garden, walkway, etc) was well maintained. Every morning when we got to breakfast, Jose the parrot was just waking up. He was nice enough to say “hello” to us everyday. (100 times or so!) The house resort poochies were always floating around looking for a pet and a bite of food. Little Gizmo was our fave! There were also a couple of humming bird feeders that were fun to watch. CoCo View had some non diving events that were a nice touch also. Fire dancers, Honduran kids doing traditional Honduran polkas, crab races, etc. Solid good fun to mix up the routine a little bit at night.
Back to diving. The water was great, and I’d say the VIS was better than average. I was a little worried about jellyfish before I went down there but it didn’t even seem to be an issue at all. Not once did I hear about any recent stingings, etc. The coral was very vibrant and beautiful. LOTS of sea fans and barrel (?) coral. The wall dives were stunning. We saw schools of squid (my personal fave) tons of schooling fishes, seahorses (thank you Kirk!) eels, giant hermit crabs, garden eels, toad fish and (to the local’s dismay) many lionfish.
SHARKDIVE: For those of you who are not yet jaded or have not done a dive like this, the Sharkdive is TOTALLY worth it. It’s a little pricy ($100 or so) but it’s fun. We did the one tank dive to watch the sharks eat and it was BAD ASS. The current was strong so the divers had to “climb” down the mooring line to get to the feeding area, but it was amazing. We had 10 or 11 sharks show up to the chum bucket. You sit with your back to a small wall and watch as the dive master opens the bucket. After we watched them eat, the guide let us free float and basically you’re floating there and sharks are all over the place cruising around. It was cool as hell. If you wanna see sharks, you WILL see them on this dive.
ZIPLINE: My wife got a cold one day so we did the Pirates of the Carribean zipline tour instead of diving. It was an hour of pure AWESOME. Scary as hell and every bit as fun. If you do this, do the EXTREME route. Again, pricy at $65 a head, but I’d do it again in a second.
As I said earlier, my wife and I are (traditionally) backpackers so resort vacations are usually not our thang. We like mixing with locals and seeing the reality of a place when we travel. Alas it was not to be this time. CoCo View is on a small island and getting back to the mainland just didn’t occur to us. I’m sad to say that not once did we even see Honduran money, but we expected to be cloistered and focused on diving when we signed up for the trip. I admit, I was a little uncomfortable with the vast difference in standard of living in Honduras. The closest we got to experiencing the local scene was from our boat, I’m afraid. At times it was difficult to see people living in shanty towns on the water’s edge as we tooled past in our fancy dive boat, but again… I digress. We tipped (EVERYONE) good so hopefully some of that will trickle back to the local economy. (small consolation, right…?)
If you are only interested in diving and chilling out, CoCo View is PERFECT.
The closest thing to a complaint about CCV is that it was a little difficult to get common items. The staff was good about trying, but still, there is no “local pharmacy” or corner store” to run to if you need something. For example, when my wife got a cold there was ONE packet of cold medicine at the gift shop. (Which was overpriced of course) Plan ahead! I will say that the staff was very helpful to us when we needed it. Example: We had no clock. Our phones had no service and usually we use our phones for the time. The staff sent someone to the mainland buy us a cheapo alarm clock though and we had one the next day!
Here is another fun tidbit for ya. We discovered that island wide power outages are planned and quite frequent on Roatan. A couple times that week, power totally dropped for about a minute. Fortunately, CCV is ready and has three huge power generators that kicked right in. Apparently they can run for about a month if they have enough fuel.
One thing that was really nice was hanging out on the sun deck. They have a sandy pathway that runs along side a long dock. The dock has a couple of “nodes” that stick out with sunning chairs on them. The end of the dock has a big shaded area with hammocks. It was SO relaxing sitting out there reading and watching divers trickle in and out of the shore line as they finished their drop off dives.
CCV has a very organized system for shore night dives as well. While we didn’t do one, it was fun to sit at the bar with a boat drink and watch the glows from the night diver’s lights out in the bay. Sigh.
(FinniMinni)
I’m going to chime in on this one as it appears that maybe I was there at CoCoview the same time you were. I ditto what Kingscrab said about the great dive operation. If you are looking for a lowkey, relaxed, nothing but diving vacation, this is a great place to go. We stayed in one of the cabanas over the water and it was wonderful. The grounds were kept up very nicely. I will say on the animal front for Cocoview, they need to learn about parrot upkeep, the two parrots in the front of the resort had dirty cages, no toys and their food was not kept up regularly. We did mention this to Mitch and Deb (managers), so we will see what they do about it. The dogs are kept happy though. Bring bug spray, at least two cans. One for your cubby at the dock, so when you rinse off after you come back from a dive, you can spray on your bug spray, one at your room so you can spray on some after your shower. If you do that, you will be bite free. The food was subpar,but you were usually hungry and if you didn’t like what they were having they always had a decent salad bar so, you won’t starve and there was plenty of food. I will second the compliments on the dive staff. They are amazing. They all go out of their way to make sure that you are happy. They will tailor the dives to fit the divers on their boats, which makes for great diving. I did witness where we dropped off a diver on the Prince Albert, she forgot her weights but we had already left. I was looking back and saw her waving at us and mentioned it to our captain who promptly turned around…just as another cocoview boat saw her and began racing to give her assistance. It made me happy to see that anyone that saw a diver that needed help went right away. It did not have to be someone from their boat and the other boat did have to see that we were already turning around to go back but because they were closer and did not know the issue, they responded quickly to the diver. I also noticed huge fans were installed in the area where they fill tanks to insure good clean fills. And they have incorporated a sign in/out sheet for night dives as well as the beacon that flashes when a diver is out at night. Good safety measures on their part. Our boat was crewed by Mark and Gringo…they were great and could not have been more personable or gone out of their way to make sure we were happy. They actually kept some dolphins running with our boat the whole way to our drop off dive, so when we jumped in the water for our dive there were 3-4 dolphins swimming within 5-8 feet of us! Overall, I think this is a great dive operation and anyone who goes and says they didn’t have a good time won’t have a good time no matter where they go because they are looking for things to complain about.
Oh, and on the Delta note…my husband travels for work and would not fly Delta because he said that any flight you take with them is delayed, almost always to mechanical issues. I believe he was held up one time for faulty brakes and they said, “well, if we don’t fix it in the next 30 minutes we will just go and we will fix it after we land.” What? Avoid Delta if you can.
Roatan Trip Report
5/15/2010-5/29/2010
Original Post by GeoRoc01 on ScubaToys
I just got back from a two week trip to Roatan, staying at Casa Calico and diving with Coconut Tree Divers. The primary purpose of this trip was to do my DSAT Tec Deep Course. But given that the course was 10 days, I had some free days as well for some fun dives as well as a chance to do a little sight seeing. My class review can be found here My DSAT Tec Deep Class
Accomodations – Stayed at Casa Calico, a B&B on the northern edge of the East End. It was easily within walking distance into town without being in the prime nightlife areas, so it was very quiet. We were also on a bay so there was a nice northerly breeze on most days. They have units both with and w/o kitchenettes, and at $400 a week including breakfast and wifi, seemed like a bargain. The rooms were clean and looked to have been remodeled recently. Jeff, the owner was around daily as he splits his time between here and the Cigar bar, which he also owns. Plenty of off street parking if you chose to rent a car, which we did on the last day.
Diving – Dove with Coconut Tree Divers. As I stated above, I was taking a class, which I already posted a review of, and won’t repeat here. Fun dives were $25 each. Nitrox fills were $8 per tank. O2 fills were 2 cents/psi. I did 17 dives overall. Trimix is also available, but I am not sure what the rate is. Guided tech dives are $60 each. Everyone at the dive shop was very friendly and helpful. They teach quite a few classes, with small numbers. Same with the ratio of DMs to divers on the boat. Most of the time it was no more than 3-4 to 1, many times even less.
Meals – breakfast was at Casa Calico. Adjacent to Coconut Tree Divers was Cindy’s Place and she had great specials for 100lmps, so lunch was primarily there. Dinners we ate at a variety of places. Probably the best value is Rotisserie Chicken, although the smoked chicken at 50-bar was a great deal too. We also ate a few times at the Argentinian grill Poca De Iris, which was very good also. Had good meals at the Lighthouse and Eagle Ray. Those meals ran closer to $20 US per person.
Other – Rented a car with Budget for the last day of off gassing. It was $60 including insurance. Was great until I went to fill the tank. The tank door wouldn’t open so I couldn’t refill it. At the airport they wanted to charge me a for a full tank ($58) but I eventually got the guy to take a $20 in cash in order to settle it. There is a gift shop in Coxen Hole that we hit up on both trips called Yabba Ding Ding that I go to get a bottle of the Celasse Special Hot Sauce, although the size of the bottle definitely smaller since last year.
My Dive buddy doesn’t have dental insurance and had her teeth taken care of for a replacement filling. The total cost was $50. She went to Clinica Esperante, where we brought some needed OTC drugs such as pre-natal medicine for the clinic as well. Jeff, the owner of the Cigar bar said that a dental office was opening behind his place that was being sponsored by Carnival Cruise lines. If you need dental care, its worth looking into. The dentist she saw was a retired US dentist.
Anthony’s Key Resort
Original Post by Zoey from ScubaToys (March/April 2010)
If you are an avid diver, Anthony’s Key is a great destination. I and several other couples were picked up at the airport and driven directly to the resort, which is about a 15 minute drive give or take. All of your luggage is taken directly to your cabana while you are being checked in, which by the way was quite easy and quick. We received a brief, but informative overview of the resort and its amenities.
I stayed in hill cabana #5. Just an FYI, it is about 158 steps from the main pee-gravel road up to the room. So, if you have an aversion to walking up steps, this is not the room for you. Personally, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. The room was clean and the AC worked well. I had two beds within the room. Pretty comfortable, but I know it’s a subjective opinion, and hence really not worth squat. Lighting was somewhat sparse so reading at night was a little difficult. Great view out the large ocean facing windows. A personally generated security code safe was within the room. It appears that each cabana has it’s own hot water heater, so cold showers were never a problem. No tv or phone in the room. Make sure to look for the scuba diving facts book (can’t remember the name of it). It’s got a lot of fascinating/neat facts and figures. Staff did a nice job cleaning the room each day. Overall, the cabana was nothing exciting, but perfect for a week of diving.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served at the main, open-air dining area most days. Breakfast was the same menu each day, but had enough of a variety to keep from getting bored. Lunch and dinner were set menu’s with a choice of starter and entree. One of our diving days was to an island owned by Anthony’s, where we had lunch. Great experience as the island serves a dual purpose as an “exotic” animal rescue/training area. More on that later.
One evening we were served a BBQ dinner on the Key after watching fire dancers perform. It was a great show, and one of the performers managed to catch his clothing on fire twice. He took it in stride and never missed a beat. I suspect it occurs at each show.
Overall, the food was pretty darn good. I’m a moderately picky eater, yet always left the table stuffed to the gills. Service in the restaurant(s) was great. I thought that ordering off a menu would slow the process down, but it didn’t at all.
On to the diving:
There is no diving on the day of your arrival, and solo diving is prohibited. You are assigned to a boat and DM, which you will remain with for the duration of your stay. Frankly, this made tipping much easier. One captain….One DM.
The boats were well maintained. You could do either a rear water entry (giant stride), or back roll off the side. O2 and light medical supplies were on-board. Both the DM and Captain were excellent. No complaints at all. We had around 10 people on our boat, which IMHO was boarder line being too many. It was a mix of newer and experienced divers. What was nice was that the DM monitored the newer divers, and when they became low on air, he assisted them to the surface and allowed the more experienced divers to continue. Who doesn’t hate hitting the surface with 1500 psi left in the tank? My dives, on average, were an hour.
Anthony’s has 2 scheduled night dives, both of which I did. Quite enjoyable, and if you haven’t done this, I would highly suggest giving it a try. Lights are available for rent at the dive shop.
I wont discuss the critters I came across as I’m sure others before me have done so ad nauseam, but I will concur that diving in Roatan is exceptional. In my opinion, diving on the South side is better, but that’s not to say that the North side is bad at all. However, having said that, we all know how unpredictable diving can be. One day you might see a Whale Shark at one location, and the next day nothing. Nevertheless, just a simple opinion on my part.
I’ve previously stayed at Fantasy Island (wouldn’t recommend this resort), so diving the Island is not new to me. Weather was not cooperating with us during my week long stay, but the shop took it in stride. Wind was the major issue, which made it too wavy for diving the North side. On those days, we traveled to the South side by bus. All of our gear was loaded in a truck and driven to the awaiting boats that were docked next to the airport. Unfortunately for us, this meant that we would only get in a two-tank day. Shore diving, which is done from the Key (very jagged rock/coral entry point for those concerned) was closed all week due to surge/swell. I did manage to sneak in a channel dive on one day. Aside from a small plane sunk in the channel, there’s not a lot more to see. I did run across 2 Lion Fish, which I reported.
Gear can be stored within private, locked lockers. A photo/camera shop is on the premises, but is somewhat limited in goods. A videographer dives with each boat on several occasions, so if you would like a copy of your diving experience, it is available for purchase.
Nitrox is available and plentiful (32% give or take). It’s stored within a single building, where 2 analyzers are available. You can check your tanks whenever you choose. Typically, I checked 3 tanks in the morning before heading out. You mark the tanks with the boat name and your diver number, and set them aside. The DM and Captain will put them on the boat for you.
I have all of my own gear, so I can’t comment on rental equipment.
Hyperbaric chamber and clinic is on the premise. Don’t forget to make a monetary donation. Being that I’m a paramedic & nurse, I had to check out the clinic/HBO chamber. Nice little chamber they have there. I also saw a portable x-ray machine, and a well stocked medication room. I may very well be mistaken, but it appears that the clinic accepts donated medications/equipment, which isn’t uncommon abroad. Physicians are available during set hours, and are on-call after hours.
All in all, I did 19 dives during a week’s stay.
Staff, aside from the dive shop, were friendly enough. At all times I felt safe at the resort. Armed security was present, yet hidden in a way. They usually wandered around in the periphery of the jungle foliage, which made it difficult to see them, but they could easily see you.
I should probably talk about the island with the rescued animals before you fall asleep reading this. Honestly, I can’t remember the name of the island or where it’s located. I can say that it’s owned by Anthony’s and that several ‘exotic’ animals reside on the island. They tell us that they are rescue animals. I saw, up and close,: Sea lions, dolphins, Nurse Sharks, Ray’s, Capuchin monkeys, baby alligators, beautiful birds, and big cats. By no means is this an exhaustive list. All of the animals, unlike the dump they call a “zoo” over at Fantasy Island, appear to be well cared for.
The island has a gift shop, ancient ruins area (I didn’t check this out as I spent too much time playing around with the monkeys), a large pool, and outdoors dining area. I should also mention that dolphins, in addition to this location, reside at the key at Anthony’s. They do training at both locations, and you can pay to get a hands-on with them.
I didn’t spend any time at the Marine Institute at Anthony’s, but I did tour the museum. It’s a self guided tour which contains numerous artifacts of Roatan history. It’s worth a jaunt through.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the bugs. In particular, the No-see-ums. I had not a single bite on my legs. I did not use bug spray (damb TSA took all of it, and my toothpaste, before I arrived. That’s another story in itself). Having said that, my back and arms received all of the damage. I only saw one mosquito while there, thus I must conclude the bites were from another unknown source. The bites looked worse than they felt, and yes, they itched a bit. It didn’t bug me enough (no pun intended) to purchase more spray.
Without a doubt, I’ve left a lot out of this report. I’m sure others have filled in the blanks several times over, and I’m positive I’ve echoed many sentiments.
Unequivocally, I can say that I would return/recommend this resort.
Trip Report- Fantasy Island Roatan, Honduras 08/01/09-08/08/09
Original Post by DevilDiver on ScubaToys
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Trip Report- Fantasy Island Roatan, Honduras 08/01/09-08/08/09
Roatan is still a divers destination, recent political issues have not effected the daily routine that I could tell. Fantasy Island is about a 20 min ride from the airport and is an island off of the main island with a single bridge with a gaurd shack keeping the island priviate.
The resort has new owners as of the first of the year and they have put some much needed money into it. There is more work needed but things are on their way in the right direction. Rooms are simple with bed, bath, small table and refrigerator for the pitchers of fresh water for drinking. Most rooms are beach view with the exception of building H witch is on a hilltop (4 flights of stairs) but right behind the dive shop.
The food needs improvement, not that they do not have the supplies but the Chef that has been hired does not seem motivated or possibly talented. It’s not bad but it could definitely be better….Breakfast and lunch are the high points.
Now for the important stuff…… Diving!
Fantasy Island is really all about diving and you can do allot of it. The dive shop has a good clean compressor and they use it. The fill room is neat and orderly and they keep plenty of tanks available. They have equipment for rent if needed that look used but in good condition, a small camera and accessory shop if you need batteries or clips but selection is limited. They offer specialties and classes if you want to add another PADI card to your collection as well.
The shop runs three boat dive a day, and unlimited shore diving. The boats need a little work but they had 4 new engines delivered while we were there and plan on refitting each boat. From the boat the entries are off the back and there are two ladders for exits.
You are assigned to a boat at the first of the week and stay with the same boat and DM and captain for your stay. Some returning divers request the same boat and crew from prior trips, seems that they do not have allot of turnover with employees.
You have lockers at the shop to store your gear so you do not have to carry anything back to your room unless you want to. The locker room is locked every night after 8pm so if you do a late night dive you will have to store your gear overnight.
Shore dives are done off a gazebo at the end of a short pier that a small skiff will take you to and pick you up. The shore dive is a great dive with a plane wreck and a ship (The Prince Albert) just short swim from shore. You can also swim out to Newman’s Wall or the Coco View Wall (Coco View is right across the lagoon from Fantasy Island. These are some of the best dives sites and are great day or night and you can even put an extra tank on the boat and do a drop off on the way back in off one of the walls and swim back to the resort.
The boat diving is typical Caribbean diving with the usual species and corals. Not so much for large fish but there are a few around, good possibility for Eagle Rays and maybe a Nurse Shark or two. Good assortments of reef fish and healthy corals for the most part. There was some damage from a recent earthquake that left some cracks and knocked over sponges and damaged the outer wall at the Ankas Place site where you can see where the coral broke loose and fell to the depths. There is an abundance of Black Coral and plenty of big healthy sponges and Sea Fans.
It was common to see schools of Chub and Spade Fish with a few large Snapper as well that seem to like to swim along with you on a few dives. I saw no Turtles but there were some spotted on other boats, we did see five octopus on one night dive and a Caribbean Spanish Dancer.
Fantasy Island is a great destination but do not expect luxury. This is more of the budget resort on the island but if you like to keep it simple and do allot of diving (easy to do 4-5 or more) and not break the bank it is worth checking out.
Sites visited on this trip include:
Mary’s Place, Mr. Bud (Tugboat), Ankas Place, Iron Shores, Newman’s Wall, Coco View Wall, Prince Albert, Missing Link, Gold Chain Reef, John’s Spot, Valley of the Kings, Connie’s Dream, Carib Point, Inside Outside, Pirates Point and French Key Cut.
Original Post by DivingMedic on ScubaToys Forum
Roatan/ AKR
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Trip report from diving with AKR in Roatan June 12th through the 20th.
We stay in a Key Superior cabin. The cabin had a great view. The best sunrises I have seen in years. Watched the sun rise every morning over the hills of Roatan. Cabins are clean, the water is safe to drink from the tap. Yes there was a few bugs mostly ants in the morning around the shower and toilet, but just one or two and just squish em and your good to go.
Diving there was good. Reefs are in great shape. I did see some damage to one reef from the earthquake in May. There was also another earthquake while I was diving. It was a 4.2 that was 15 miles off of Utila. It caused a really nasty surge for a minute but that was it. There was no damage around the islands from that quake. High light was doing two dive with my ten year old daughter. First dive she only went to 18 feet. There was a surge going, but it was her very first ocean dive. The second dive was great. She went to 40 feet, was so excited to see every thing down on the reef. She found a Juvenile Spotted Drum, knew the hand signal for it. She even saw a Eagle Ray towards the end of the dive. The dive master put some bait in the water after we got in and 4-6 Nassua Groupers, Mutton and Dog Tooth Snappers came around. The kids on the dive loved that.
To me AKR runs a good dive operation. They keep the boats in good shape, dive masters pay attention to the divers and are good at finding things to see. One of the divers on my boat had a minor flood on his camera and the Photo Shop at AKR was able to fix it. It saved my boat mate about 12k worth of camera equipment.
Critters seen was a pregnant Green Moray Eel, two pregant sea horses, several turtles. One turtle ( Hawksbill) didn’t even mind when the dive master and I settled down on each side of him for pictures for a good 5 minutes. He just sat there eating away, paying us no mind.
My daughter did the Dolphin Camp there, it was a very worth while experience for her. Not only did she get to play with dolphins during the week but learned about their behaviors and conservation about all sea animals and creatures.
Original Post by CamaroChick on ScubaToys
You will love Anthony’s Key!!
I wish we had stayed there instead of Blue Bahia which is just up the beach. Lots of good dive sites close by – make sure to do the 2 deep wrecks there – the Odyessy and I forget the name of the other one, but they’re both in about 110′ of water. Do the dolphin SNORKEL, not the dive – there is much more interaction and it is worth every penny if that’s your kind of thing. YES BRING LOTS OF DEET – the bugs are as bad as they say. Visit Gumbalimba park and do the zip line – you will be sore but it is lots of fun. Spend some time in the park itself playing with monkeys and parrots. Visit West End for shopping, dining, nightlife, etc.
Have fun!!
Original Post by Larry200 on ScubaToys
Roatan Shark Dive
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+1 for Waihuka Adventure Divers shark dive on Roatan. My wife and I did their shark dive on February 3 and it was an exceptional dive. We had the good fortune to have the company founder, Sergio Tritto, as our dive master. I can’t imagine a better pre-dive orientation than the one he gave. My wife, and a couple of the other divers, had done shark dives at other locations, and all said that this was by far the best shark dive that they had done. The highlight of the dive, current and other conditions permitting, is that the divers get to swim with the sharks for several minutes. So I’m swimming along in a school of sharks and divers (about 14-16 sharks and 9 divers), thinking this couldn’t get any cooler, and then somebody bumps into me. I turn my head to give the inattentive diver the evil eye, except, it’s NOT a diver. That happened twice more to me and also to some of the other divers. Eventually, Sergio motioned us back to the coral wall and eventually opened the bait bucket to start a couple minutes of shark mayhem. When the bait fish was gone, the sharks departed.
– Larry B.