13 replies to this topic

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

Well, fellow SD'ers, the Roatan trip started for me with a very early wake-up call on 9/5, to catch my 6am flight to Houston where I met up with Tim aka buckeyediver and Lynne aka diverlynne. We ate a casual breakfast at Ruby's Diner in the international terminal, and then met up with Carla aka rkymtnwy, Scott aka Gentdiver and George aka diveteacher at our gate. The flight was on time and uneventful, and we were on-island shortly after noon. The immigration line was long and slow, but we chatted with others around us and swapped diving stories. The resort owners, Ted & Cam, along with their cadre of hired hands, met us at the airport and made sure we got through everything OK. I'm pretty sure nobody had any lost or delayed luggage!! However, we had some delays getting Bruce aka ScubaShafer, Sanja aka Pisces1961 and Dan aka Dantheengineer to the island. I'll let one of them explain their adventures, but they arrived by lunch the following day.

The rest of Saturday was spent getting checked in, filling out paperwork, unpacking and checking all our gear, getting our buddy assignments, and hanging out getting to know each other. Saturday evening, the resort owners gave a resort briefing and a basic itinerary of events.

Sunday morning, we got our dive op orientation and started diving. We were split onto two boats, since our group was too big for just one. The boats had a fresh water tub for cameras, but not for masks. They had a shower on board to rinse masks with instead of a tub. No camera table....the cameras basically stayed in the tub, and gear bags were either under our benches or piled on the center area of the boat. The boat offered cold water for drinking, fresh fruit & cookies for the surface intervals, and divers also brought snacks & candies on board to share. I was on the Miss Eloise, captained by Ricardo and DM'd by Sherwin, and they did a fantastic job helping with gear (or leaving it alone, if you preferred), helping you in & out of the water, handing down cameras, and Sherwin did his best to find & point out whatever critters he could.

We had a nice combination of slow drift diving and moored diving, and a nice combo of wall diving and reef diving. Although there was less coral bleaching this year than I saw last year, unfortunately there is a lot of algae. Much of that is on the sandy bottom areas, and it's all from human activities. The bright side is that there were more critters this year than last year, so maybe the Marine Park fee is helping, although I never did see anyone working in an official Marine Park capacity. There is a wide variety of hard & soft corals in the reefs around Roatan, and I had fun practicing with my new camera trying to get good pics of the variety. We saw 2 types of turtles, one seahorse, MANY lobsters and crabs (Ari, you'll have to post a picture of that HUGE crab I spotted but couldn't get a picture of), bumphead parrotfish, midnight parrotfish, very large groupers and jacks, more arrow crabs than I could keep track of, fireworms (Mandi, thank you for pointing one out that I got close to while taking a pic of something else!), not one but TWO free-swimming large green moray eels (during the day, on two different reefs), nudis, conchs, and all the usual pretty little fishes in better numbers than last year.

The night dive was on Monday night, and I had to abort due to a broken mask, so I'll let someone else report on that dive. I missed the first dive the next morning while I ran into town to replace my mask, and was lucky enough to find the Sueno del Mar dive op, who had stacks of various diopter lenses ready to pop into a mask for me. (I will never leave my backup mask at home again!)

11 of us did the Dolphin Dive at Anthony's Key Resort on Tuesday afternoon, which was cool. They had 3 babies in the lagoon, all just a month old and very cute. Two of the 3 dolphins that were out for our encounter were very happy to play & swim around the divers. The oldest male, Paya, must have found something more interesting to do, because he did not stick around!

5 or 6 of us did the Shark Dive with Waihuka Divers on the other side of the island on Wednesday afternoon. I admit I had never done a shark dive before, not thinking it wise to be anywhere in the vicinity if there was shark feeding going on. This operation does not chum, and although there were a couple of fish in a bucket, I would not call it a feeding, but more a treat at the end of our dive. We all backrolled off the small boat and headed down the mooring line to 70 feet, where we backed up in a line up against a coral head, and the sharks started arriving. All of them female reef sharks, and all of them were much bigger than me and I'm 6ft tall! I counted 11 of them, but may have missed one since they don't sit still for a head count. As soon as all of the sharks arrived & the DM deemed the current to be safe and the sharks showing docile behavior, he allowed us to rise off the bottom and swim with the sharks for 15 minutes or so. What a thrill!!!!! The sharks did not bump into me once, but they did come close and seemed to be checking us out as much as we were checking them out. I hope some of my pics turn out well, but we had a videographer in the water with us, so I bought the DVD just to make sure! After the swim, we all settled back on the sand by the coral head, and the sharks got their treat, then started to leave us. We swam around the bottom for a couple of minutes looking for shark teeth, then headed up the line for our safety stop. From start to finish, the dive was about 35 minutes or so, and fascinating. I highly recommend this particular shark dive.

Thursday evening brought the crab races and pig roast party, which benefits the e-learning centers that the resort is involved with. Our very own Stan aka scubaski won the crab races, and generously donated his winnings to the children's learning center. There was a band playing live music, and I got Keith aka keithintulsa out on the dance floor so we could both learn to dance the Punta. Lots of fun, but it's a bit too hot & humid for outdoor dancing!

Friday afternoon was the zip line canopy tour, and we did the Gumbalimba Park zip line again. Way cool, but would have been better if we hadn't been right behind a huge group, who tended to periodically slow the line down. Friday night brought the Tacky Tourist costume contest, and there were only 3 brave (or is it foolish??) souls who participated. I'm quite sure there will be pictures in the Gallery, for those who are curious.....

All in all, I really enjoyed the diving (yes, my friends, I had an entire week of diving without feeding the fish once!!!) I dived with friends I had met before, and made some new friends as well. I had just as much fun in the evenings, talking with all of you!

I can't wait for WW to post the 2010 trips......

[scubaski]

The Divers;



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Less WW on extended SI during photo op.

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•  Roatan_Diver_2_resize.jpg   1.21MB   43 downloads

Edited by scubaski, 13 September 2009 - 03:32 PM.

[Bubble2Bubble]

Tammy,
You always write the Best Dive Reports Stan you always provide SD Members with Great Pic's ....and... I cant wait to hear the stories from the other Diver's



Bubski

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

Thanks, Bubski! I have asked the IT Admin guys to create a Roatan gallery, so we can start uploading our pics for all to enjoy.

[dustbowl diver]

Thanks for sharing!!

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

The Roatan trip photo gallery is now open! Check it out HERE.

Any Premier Member with pics from the trip can upload them now. Please make sure the pics are around 200Kb or so to upload without problems.....

Here's a sample....

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•  IMG_0515_c.JPG   213.73KB   36 downloads

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

Several of you wanted to get the drink recipe for what I had in my travel flask......yummmmmmm.....enjoy!

This makes a tall glass, so don't use a regular highball glass....and my shots are generous!

1 shot Crown Royal
1 shot Sour Apple Pucker schnapps
1 shot 99 Apples schnapps
fill glass with ice
fill glass with cranberry juice (I used cran-apple juice in Roatan)

[ScubaShafer]

Several of you wanted to get the drink recipe for what I had in my travel flask......yummmmmmm.....enjoy!

This makes a tall glass, so don't use a regular highball glass....and my shots are generous!

1 shot Crown Royal
1 shot Sour Apple Pucker schnapps
1 shot 99 Apples schnapps
fill glass with ice
fill glass with cranberry juice (I used cran-apple juice in Roatan)

Yummy!!! Remember ... an apple (or two) a day, keeps the Doctor away!

[DiverBabs]

Several of you wanted to get the drink recipe for what I had in my travel flask......yummmmmmm.....enjoy!

This makes a tall glass, so don't use a regular highball glass....and my shots are generous!

1 shot Crown Royal
1 shot Sour Apple Pucker schnapps
1 shot 99 Apples schnapps
fill glass with ice
fill glass with cranberry juice (I used cran-apple juice in Roatan)

Yummy!!! Remember ... an apple (or two) a day, keeps the Doctor away!

What???!!!??? No Butterscotch Schnapps!!??

[scubaski]

Roatan dive uploaded to YouTube.

"Turtle with Sanja & Kamala" starring Sanja, Kamala and Turtle with cameos appearances of SD.coms finest divers.




PS Keys Krawl clips still posted.

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

Thanks for the link, Stan! Way cool!

[ev780]

All in all, I really enjoyed the diving (yes, my friends, I had an entire week of diving without feeding the fish once!!!) I dived with friends I had met before, and made some new friends as well. I had just as much fun in the evenings, talking with all of you!

That right there is great news!!! I remember watching you last year and feeling so bad for you. Glad you got it under control. Many dives ahead!!


Fred

[WreckWench]

All in all, I really enjoyed the diving (yes, my friends, I had an entire week of diving without feeding the fish once!!!) I dived with friends I had met before, and made some new friends as well. I had just as much fun in the evenings, talking with all of you!

That right there is great news!!! I remember watching you last year and feeling so bad for you. Glad you got it under control. Many dives ahead!!


Fred

Oh yeah....diving takes on even more enjoyment when you aren't puking! LOL!

[scubaski]

Dan the Engineer, Scubashafer and Yurtle on the Wall, uploaded to YouTube. Unfortanatly I was called out on some copyrighted material so the video soundtrack is not balanced correctly. The upside I have viewers subscribing to my new video clips. The new link is below, along with the 1st Roatan clip. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded




Roatan dive uploaded to YouTube.

"Turtle with Sanja & Kamala" starring Sanja, Kamala and Turtle with cameos appearances of SD.coms finest divers.




PS Keys Krawl clips still posted.