Posted 04 November 2012 - 07:39 PM
Overall it was a good trip. Media Luna is a relatively new resort, that does have a dive shop adjacent to it that provides this service to its customers. Most of the Villas were built in the past year. I booked a single room, and had the end unit on the far eastern side of the resort, overlooking the water. The king size bed was comfortable, plenty of hot water and a nice deck with a hammock. Even a flat screen TV with plenty of international channels as well as US network channels out of New York so keeping up with Hurricane Sandy was no problem.
Up on the hill in the middle of the resort was a large structure that housed the lobby, a rec room with pool tables, a ping pong table and fooseball. A workout room with new equipment was located there, and the wifi was in the lobby. The WIFI is about typical for the island. It worked most of the time and not the fastest either. I'm guessing its satellite.
Its attached to a large circular building that was stepped and served all of our meals. They were done buffet style with eggs to order at most breakfasts as well as a pasta station that was open on most lunches and dinner. There was also a coffee bar that served capaccinos. On the far end was a stage that had a sound system and was where Pup performed. Out behind the building was a deck that had an outdoor bar.
Back down on the western side of the hill back down to the water was the dive shop. Its a family run operation called Aqua Adventures. They had two large dive boats, a smaller dive boat and a fishing boat. Unfortunately one of the large dive boats was out of service the first two days. But worked well the remainder of the week. So we were split into two groups of approximately 22 divers each. Each boat had two dive masters. We did two boat dives in the morning and one boat dive in the afternoon. Shore diving was available anytime. The house site isn't Calvin's Crack, but is relatively close. The conditions under water were very good, with lots of coral. Saw plenty of marine life, from sea horses to a couple of eagle rays and turtles and plenty of varieties of fish.
One of the activities I did was getting my lionfish hunting license. Its a class that consists of a lecture that's about one hour on the impact of lionfish, how to kill them, etc. Then the next day they took us out and had us shoot coconuts. The test was being able to shoot 5 coconuts without impacting the reef. Everyone in my group passed, and didn't hear of anyone who failed. The class included a spear which you could donate back at the end of the week. We also received a license which is good for 2 years. I did kill a couple, but most of the time I left it to the true hunters in the group.
I took it easy in the evenings as I was a bit under the weather when I arrived and wanted to rest up for the diving. After we finished on Thursday, that night a group of us left the resort and went to resturant in French Harbor called Gios, which its specialty is fresh crab that was very good.
Friday a group of us went down to the west end. Other than that they have paved the road through town, it hasn't changed much. Its about a 1 hour drive from the resort. Having stayed there the last few years, it was like being home again. From there we took a ride to Jonesville, then a short boat ride to meet much of the rest of the group at a place called Hole in the Wall for steak and lobster. We hitched a ride on one of the dive boats back to the resort from there.
Overall it was a good trip with good people and good diving. However, I think I prefer a smaller, more intimate experience, and not sure if I would go on such a large trip with 45+ people, even as much as this was a great group of people to hang out for a week.
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