Roatan, September 2009
Roatan Trip - Sept. 2009
We left New Orleans at 6:30 in the morning and after the layover in Houston we arrived on Roatan at 12:15 PM, very uneventful trip via Continental Airlines. We were met at the airport by the representatives from Fantasy Island and after getting all the luggage, they loaded us up on the bus and took us to the resort. We arrived and were told that prior to checkin we should go on out to the outdoor restaurant and have lunch. Once we were done with lunch, we checked in and went to our room (our luggage was already there waiting for us.) We filled out the paperwork for the dive shop, got our gear together and went down to the shop to turn in the paperwork and arrange to go out on the 2:30 PM boat for a quick checkout dive. While the young lady at the shop accepted our paperwork, she informed us the shop was “closed for diving.” No shore dive (from the gazebo, no boats going out.) So, no checkout dive that afternoon at all.
The next morning I get up at 07:00 and head to the restaurant for breakfast (ok, I don’t usually eat breakfast, but the hubs does, so for me it was the morning coffee fix.) We had to be at “orientation” at 08:00, so we hurried through the morning stuff, packed up the gear and headed over to the shop.
The food at Fantasy Island is good, but not great. It is served buffet style and you can have as much as you want, which suited the hubs no end. I tried to stick to the diet I am now on and was rather successful with that. There were fresh vegetables and a salad bar, with assorted cold pasta salads for those who like that. There was usually a selection of chicken, fish and either pork or beef for each meal. Pizza and hot pastas were also offered. Dessert consisted of ice cream (choice of between 3 and 5 flavours) and flans or cakes.
The resort only had 30 guests the week we were there. The recession and the political unrest on the mainland seem to be keeping people from going to Roatan. I was told by the resort manager that it was really slow and that they attributed it to the politics more than the recession/economy problems. The people on the island are really hurting from the lack of tourist traffic. It seems this is effecting all the resorts, even CocoView right next door was only running two boats a day, rather than the 4 or more that they usually run.
Dive Shop –
I have been through the orientation 4 times before, so I just listened to see if anything had changed, in when the boats go out, the days of the night dives, etc. It hadn’t. I asked Robert, the dive shop manager if I could have Miguel as our DM (since Darrien was off that week.) Miguel was now paired up with Rocky as his boat captain, instead of his old boat captain, Pedro (who is really a sweet man.)
At Fantasy Island, you set up and take care of your own gear which I like, since I am somewhat picky about the cleaning and drying of my gear. I won’t even let the hubs touch my gear. The reg always went to the room, rather than the locker to hang dry (after I had cleaned it, of course.) I left the BCD, booties, fins, mask, etc in the locker to dry overnight at the end of each day’s diving. Dive boats go out at 9:00, 11:00 and 2:30 daily. They return to the shop after the dive. Water and fruit are provided on the boat for after the dive. The DM leads the dive, dives are limited to 50 minutes. You can gear off in the water and the boat captain will take your gear and place it at your set up area. All entrances to the water are giant stride, no back roll is available.
General stuff on the diving - the water was full of little stuff on this trip – plankton city. which accounts for what we saw on day 2, I think. Our boat, the Little Kim, had only 4 couples on it, 2 of which had made the trip down together from Texas. A single diver, Carolyn joined us on day 2. On all dives, except the last two I did, I dove a 63 and I never came up with less than 1100. When I dove the 80, I was coming up with 1600 or more. Our dive package included free NITROX, but we did not use it at all, since the diving was so easy and I was doing so well on air. With the limited time on the dives, using it to extend the bottom time was not necessary. On our boat, only the hubs and myself did the afternoon dives, so we had guided tours of some of Miguel’s favorite sites.
The dive shop was not running boats on Saturday’s (unless there was a guest who was staying two weeks) and, as we found out to our dismay, on Friday afternoons. Our package was sold with 18 boat dives and 1 night dive. We spoke with the dive shop manager about taking the Friday afternoon boat dive. He informed us he did not run boats on Friday afternoons due to safety concerns for the divers and their departures on Saturday. I told him that our plane was to leave at 1:08 PM and that DAN and PADI both state 18 hours from exiting the water to a long plane flight. He told me that he has a rule of 24 to 30 hours, but he would allow us to do a drop off dive at the gazebo after our second morning dive, with only a 15 minute surface interval. This was not safe to me, considering the depths we did on morning dives, so we nixed that idea. Based on his rules and his shut down on Saturdays as well, there was no way to make the 18 dives sold in the package, unless you took the night dive and counted that, which I did not intend to do the night dive this trip. So, I had a talk with the resort manager (who is a diver and frequently travels to Spain, his home) about what was sold to us in this package and what was being delivered. The issue was resolved and we took the Friday afternoon dive by boat. We also left the dock at 1:30 instead of 2:30 to be on the safe side and this would allow the boat captain and DM to go home early for the day. We were out of the water by 2:35 PM and that gave us 22.5 hours before our flight to Houston.
DIVING
DAY 1, Sunday, September 27th:
Dive 1: Castle Canyon (aka Iron Shore) – depth 69, viz was up to 75 feet for 47 minutes. We spent a long time at depth on this dive. Everyone went deeper than I did, I kind of hung out above them. Saw flamingo tongues, massive schools of creole wrasse, brown chromis, lobster, large crabs, indigo blue hamlets and the occasion yellow and butter hamlets. I did not take my camera on this dive, just wanted to get used to being in the water again and to relax on the dive.
Dive 2: Valley of the Kings, depth 72, viz was about 75 feet for 54 minutes. Lots of little stuff on this dive, Christmas Tree worms, feather duster worms. The usual schools of creole wrasse, bar jacks, horse eye jacks, margates, and Bermuda chub. The viz at the beginning of this dive was only about 35 feet, but it cleared up a lot during the dive. At the end of the dive, a small remora was swimming around trying to attach itself to every divers fins…I took the camera on this dive.
Dive 3: Newman’s Wall and the Prince Albert, depth was 64, viz was 50 at the beginning of the dive and about 25 at the end, 50 minutes. We say large crabs on the wall protion of the dive, lots of hamlets Queen angelfish, and tons of sponges. The wreck has lots of growth on it and I found the largest featherduster worm I have ever seen on the wreck. The viz was getting bad, so the hubs and Miguel decided it was not a good idea to penetrate the wreck. That was fine by me, since I was going to wait outside of it for them and just look at all the stuff on the deck of the wreck.
Day 2, Monday, September 28th:
Dive 1 – French Cay Bank, depth was 84 feet, viz was 50 to 75 and time was 47 minutes. Lots of cleaning shrimp in the nooks and crannies on this dive. Yellow snapper were everywhere. The wall is covered in sponges of all sizes and shapes. Some of these sponges were huge – 5 feet or more. We stayed at 75 to 85 for about 20 minutes. Everyone on this dive went deeper than I did, I stayed above them and looked around for suitable subject matter for photos.
Dive 2 – Mary’s Place, depth was 77, viz was 50 feet and time was 51 minutes. We stayed at depth for almost 25 minutes ont his dive. Again, everyone on this dive went deeper than I did, I stayed above them and looked around for suitable subject matter for photos. The DM and the hubs went much deeper on this dive than anyone else. While all the other divers went into the swim through, Carolyn and I ascended on the outside. I don’t care for swim throughs, so I avoid them when I can. We made the exit point for the swim through when the last diver (the hubs) exited. We were at about 50 feet at that point. We saw Nassau groupers, black groupers, many angelfish, crabs, many hamlets of various varieties, and huge beds of lettuce coral on the swim back to the boat.
After this dive, upon return to the dock, two of the divers developed “skin bends” – something I had never heard of before. The man, who had had previous heart problems was the sickest, unable to stand and very nauseous. His wife, a nurse, kept asking him if he was having heart problems and not DCS. The woman diver, showed no signs of anything being wrong until she went back to her room and took a hot shower. She developed bruising over the kidney area and said her skin hurt to touch, all over the abdominal areas. Both divers were sent to the chamber on the island for treatment. Both went back on Tuesday morning for a second “ride.” Both divers recovered enough to continue their vacation, but of course, diving for them was over. Their respective spouses decided to pair up and continue diving on Wednesday.
Dive 3 – Doc’s Dive, depth 71, viz was 40 to 50 and time was 49 minutes. We saw two very large crabs on the wall. Water was “dark” on this dive and viz was getting worse as the dive went on. Very nice overhangs on the wall, and barrel sponges were everywhere, as were the azure blue sponges (my favorite.) I found many sea urchins on this dive.
When we exited the water and had ‘geared off’ the boat began to head back to the dock, but took a detour to the wall in front of the resort. Miguel started yelling “whale shark”. Pretty soon the other boat from FI (with all the boat captains and DMs, the group of divers were resting as they were doing a night dive later) was there, as well as the two boats from CocoView. There was indeed a whale shark feeding directly in front of the resort. He/she was swimming off to the left of our boat and then swam directly at the boat and went under under it. I got a really good view of it as it went under our boat. It was a small one, about 12 feet long, so fairly young, I would guess. Very cool to see it!
Day 3, Tuesday, September 29th:
Dive 1 – 40 Foot Point, depth was 66, viz was about 70 feet, time was 52 minutes.
We saw a very large Cuebra snapper on this dive. Lots of stuff in the water producing backscatter in the photos I took. Very nice wall, black groupers (lots of them) off the wall about 15 feet, very big ones. There was lots of surge on this dive once we came back up to 30 feet, which made taking photos an exciting prospect.
Dive 2 – Mr Bud (tugboat) Depth 65, viz was about 50, and time was 49 minutes. There is not much to see on the Tug itself, however the wall next to it was full of life. Again, there was lots of surge when we came back up to 30 feet. At the end of this dive another small remora decided to attach to my BCD and I had a time convincing it to leave.
Dive 3 – Too Tall, Too Small, Depth 62 feet, viz was 40 feet, and time was 47 minutes. Lots of fallen coral, sponges, apparently due to the earthquake earlier this year. Found juvenile spotted drums, and the scorpionfish was at the turning point on the wall as he has been on the last 3 times I did this particular dive. The destruction of the corals and sponges was massive. This was always one of my favorite dives on Roatan, and it is dismaying to see the damage. Again, there was lots of surge when we came back up to 30 feet.
Day 4, Wednesday, September 30th:
Dive 1 - Pirate’s Point, depth 83, viz was about 50, and time was 53 minutes. Saw 2 different Green Moray free swimming on the wall. Found anenomes and yellowheaded jawfish to take pictures of. Lots of surge at about 20 feet today.
Dive 2 - Gold Chain Reef, depth 66, viz was about 45 and time was 54 minutes. Lots of anenomes on this dive. Massive fields of antler and lettuce corals almost as far as the eye could see, very beautiful. 2nd half of this dive was at 25 feet or less, making for a long safety stop. Lots of schooling bemuda chub.
Dive 3 – Anka’s Place, depth 56, viz was about 40 and time was 51 minutes. We took this dive to see the damage done by the earthquake and it was massive. The entire wall was sheared off from the mooring pin for at least 300 feet. Once past that area you can see massive cracks in the wall that will most likely be lost if another earthquake happens. The surviving wall is still beautiful – full of life and sponges. It is sad to see the small damselfish and others trying to eke out a living in the devastated areas. At about 60 feet on the surviving part of the wall I found a small trumpetfish hunting among pale mint and lilac coloured sponges.
Day 5, Thursday, October 1st:
Dive 1 – Missing Link, depth 72, viz was about 45 feet, time was 54 minutes. Saw the usual flamingo tongues, and finally found some red seahorses. Last half of this dive was in water of 35 feet or less. Lots of surge on the dive at the shallower depths.
Dive 2 – The Chimneys, depth 66 feet, viz was about 40 feet, and time was 45 minutes. The thing with this dive is the swim through chimneys, which I did not do. The go straight up and have one or more exits at right angles to the chimney. Another free swimming green moray, and an adiut spotted drum that was extremely camera shy. Again, lots of surge on the part of the dive that was 35 feet or less.
Dive 3 – Window to the Valley, depth 67, viz was about 35 feet and 50 minutes. Nice large crabs on the wall. Several thermoclines on this dive. Lots of “stuff” in the water. Small trunkfish which eluded me and my camera.
Day 6, Friday, October 2nd:
Dive 1 – John’s Spot, depth 63, viz was about 50, time was 48 minutes. Found 2 more red seahorses. Another free swimming moray eel, and a spotted eel tail was located, but we were unable to find where it’s head was. White spotted filefish pair was found at the beginning and end of this dive. We towed the CocoView boat to the FI area, where one of their boats came to tow it back to their docks.
Dive 2 – Newman’s Wall, depth 57, viz was about 50 feet, and time was 44 minutes. Lovely wall, many sponges and small fishes on it. Nothing really large though. Did find some large trumpetfish and beautiful multicoloured Christmas Tree worms.
Dive 3, last dive of the trip, Little French Cay Wall, depth 68, viz was about 50 feet, and time was 55 minutes. Found social feather duster worms, but with the surge, was impossible to get a good shot of them. Over half this dive was spent at the 60 foot mark.
Links to the pictures I took on this trip are below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/psincl5611/sets/72157622414635209/
