rmarrash
Registered
Pictures are not great. Only have a P&S and this is my first experience shooting underwater so I have a lot to learn.
Trip Pictures
Just a very quick review of AKR and the week Sep 28th - Oct 4th:
Weather:
Rained every night (and morning) we were there. On Wed and Thur it was also raining most of the day so we had to dive the other side due to the weather. The ride over to the otherside was the ride of a lifetime. 6-8 foot swells. But this weather did not really ruin our vacation.
AKR Site:
I was happy with the choice we made. The room was nice (Superior Key) and the activities around the resort were nice. I could definitely see how coming during summer could be a problem if you are trying to get away from kids though. Although it was adults (and a few teens snorkellers ) the week we were there. Food was about a 3/5. The soups, salads and most main courses were good. The hamburgers were not so good
AKR Staff:
Our Dive Master Marvin and our Boat Captain Noel were great. Noel was about the happiest person I have met in a long time. Marvin was really good at finding the critters and knew the dive sites well. As for all the complaints around tipping and the pressures I read about it. We did not feel pressured at all. They gave us some guidance during orientation and that was it. Even when pressed about how much to tip, they were reluctant to give us a number
The Diving:
Wrecks:
We dove both of the ships, Aguilla and Odessy. The weather was pretty bad the day we drove the Odessy so visibility was not so good but that ship is huge. The Aguilla had some nice groupers and a Green Moray that make their home there.
Shark and Dolphin Dives
The Shark Dive was fantastic and Sergio from Waihuka Adventure Divers was great. He has been doing this for 9 years and it was great to hear his story about how it all came about. I highly recommend doing this dive for anyone considering it. The day we were there had very little current so we were able to swim with the sharks for about 20 minutes instead of just getting stuck holding on for dear life. Total dive was about 45min
The dolphin dive was nice but I was hoping for a bit more. My wife definitely got a lot mroe interaction than I did. In my prep for the vacation, I read about how the dolphins show up towards the end. While they did show up early, they disappeared for awhile and most of the interaction defintiely did happen towards the end of the Dive.
The Dolphin Snorkel was very cool. If you see the pics, there was one point I had 8 of them around me!
I was lucky enough to get a shot of the new 3 day old Dolphin that was born at AKR. I was not suppose to have a camera doing the snorkel encounter but since there were only 4 people, the trainer cut me some slack and let me keep it. The most amazing thing about catching a shot of the calf was how protective the dolphins were with it. I had one dolphin actually cut off my path and continue cross back and forth (think of a police car on the freeway slowing down all the traffic by crossing back and forth between lanes) and you can see her in the picture.
Doplins are amazing and beautiful animals and seeing a 3 day old one was quite a treat.
Mary's Place:
I know RoatanMan, and a few others say it is overrated but this was a real highlight for us. Since we are new to diving and this was our first real dive trip, being able to swim through those huge cracks was an amazing feeling for us. Definitely a highlight for us and also the bad weather was the reason we got to go there. AKR usually does not dive the site since it is on the south side.
We did many other sites
Hole in the wall
Key hole
connies dream
green outhouse
whitehole
...
a couple of other comments:
-We also got our EANx certs while we were there which I was happy about.
- Getting into the airport was an experience. 2 people working immigration and as with other immigration officers, they were in no hurry
- The only other boats we saw out on the water during a trip to the south side on Wed and Thursday was CCV boats.
- On exiting the airport, the CCV assistant Manager was at the airport counter helping "everyone" get through. The computers were down, the plane left late, we missed our connections but it was interesting to see her helping everyone. A great Marketing program (she handed our business cards to a few of us that chatted wih her )
- For those of you who looked at the pictures. What type of fish would eatout a Lobster like that? The entire thing was intact except for the meat.
Thanks,
Russell
Trip Pictures
Just a very quick review of AKR and the week Sep 28th - Oct 4th:
Weather:
Rained every night (and morning) we were there. On Wed and Thur it was also raining most of the day so we had to dive the other side due to the weather. The ride over to the otherside was the ride of a lifetime. 6-8 foot swells. But this weather did not really ruin our vacation.
AKR Site:
I was happy with the choice we made. The room was nice (Superior Key) and the activities around the resort were nice. I could definitely see how coming during summer could be a problem if you are trying to get away from kids though. Although it was adults (and a few teens snorkellers ) the week we were there. Food was about a 3/5. The soups, salads and most main courses were good. The hamburgers were not so good
AKR Staff:
Our Dive Master Marvin and our Boat Captain Noel were great. Noel was about the happiest person I have met in a long time. Marvin was really good at finding the critters and knew the dive sites well. As for all the complaints around tipping and the pressures I read about it. We did not feel pressured at all. They gave us some guidance during orientation and that was it. Even when pressed about how much to tip, they were reluctant to give us a number
The Diving:
Wrecks:
We dove both of the ships, Aguilla and Odessy. The weather was pretty bad the day we drove the Odessy so visibility was not so good but that ship is huge. The Aguilla had some nice groupers and a Green Moray that make their home there.
Shark and Dolphin Dives
The Shark Dive was fantastic and Sergio from Waihuka Adventure Divers was great. He has been doing this for 9 years and it was great to hear his story about how it all came about. I highly recommend doing this dive for anyone considering it. The day we were there had very little current so we were able to swim with the sharks for about 20 minutes instead of just getting stuck holding on for dear life. Total dive was about 45min
The dolphin dive was nice but I was hoping for a bit more. My wife definitely got a lot mroe interaction than I did. In my prep for the vacation, I read about how the dolphins show up towards the end. While they did show up early, they disappeared for awhile and most of the interaction defintiely did happen towards the end of the Dive.
The Dolphin Snorkel was very cool. If you see the pics, there was one point I had 8 of them around me!
I was lucky enough to get a shot of the new 3 day old Dolphin that was born at AKR. I was not suppose to have a camera doing the snorkel encounter but since there were only 4 people, the trainer cut me some slack and let me keep it. The most amazing thing about catching a shot of the calf was how protective the dolphins were with it. I had one dolphin actually cut off my path and continue cross back and forth (think of a police car on the freeway slowing down all the traffic by crossing back and forth between lanes) and you can see her in the picture.
Doplins are amazing and beautiful animals and seeing a 3 day old one was quite a treat.
Mary's Place:
I know RoatanMan, and a few others say it is overrated but this was a real highlight for us. Since we are new to diving and this was our first real dive trip, being able to swim through those huge cracks was an amazing feeling for us. Definitely a highlight for us and also the bad weather was the reason we got to go there. AKR usually does not dive the site since it is on the south side.
We did many other sites
Hole in the wall
Key hole
connies dream
green outhouse
whitehole
...
a couple of other comments:
-We also got our EANx certs while we were there which I was happy about.
- Getting into the airport was an experience. 2 people working immigration and as with other immigration officers, they were in no hurry
- The only other boats we saw out on the water during a trip to the south side on Wed and Thursday was CCV boats.
- On exiting the airport, the CCV assistant Manager was at the airport counter helping "everyone" get through. The computers were down, the plane left late, we missed our connections but it was interesting to see her helping everyone. A great Marketing program (she handed our business cards to a few of us that chatted wih her )
- For those of you who looked at the pictures. What type of fish would eatout a Lobster like that? The entire thing was intact except for the meat.
Thanks,
Russell
