deco_martini
Contributor
I found out that a trip report I posted in the days of yore at scubadiving.com was no longer attributed to me and had lost all of the comments posted on it. I am re-posting it here so at least I'm re-claiming it as mine (it had a lot of comments at SD before the great purge). It was one of the more well-read reports on that site before they ruined the site.
Notes: The CocoView now has all cabanas air conditioned. Some things have changed since October 2004 (10 years ago!). I was also young hot-headed opinionated diver back then. Now, I am older. ::cough::.
And now before adieu is in any way furthered, the report. CocoView Oct-2004. (queue flashback sounds)
martini diving at the ccv
Alright folks, here the rules:
1. no pics in my post, trust me, it’s more entertaining without them
2. don't get offended, if I jest, it’s just teasing, take it in stride
So, me and my dive buddy decided to go somewhere there hadn't been destroyed this hurricane season so we went to Roatan and picked the CocoView based on other people's experiences.
The Flight:
Two reward tickets later and we were flying first class on Continental to Roatan. I recommend first class because it means you will be first off the plane and you won't have to stand out on the hot humid runway waiting to get inside the airport because the immigration booth is right inside the door. And continental, get a better first class snack. Those over-peppercorned salami pieces have to go.
Customs:
Customs was easy. CocoView people took our bags through for us and loaded them for the resort while we at hotdogs that seemed to be mostly chicken and rubber tires from the snack hut at the airport.
The Coco:
We got to the coco and were immediately scuttled up for a scuba introduction from the couple running the dive shop. After all these people had been traveling all day and were sweaty with heinous BO from standing out in the sun one guy (leading a group of divers from North Carolina) decided to keep making loud wry responses during the introduction. He had an English accent so we nicknamed him English Bob. English Bob proved that English charm and sophistication died when the Prince ditched Diana for Bowles.
The First Dive:
The coco gets you in the water quick. After the orientation we were dispatched to get our gear and get on the dock for our first dive! I was happy since I usually write off my first day of any trip as a non-diving day. We collected out gear and headed to the water for a shore dive. We made the mistake of getting behind everyone else and saw nothing but silt on our way to deeper water.
The vis on the shore dive can be really good or really bad, and can change quickly. There is a massive wreck out there and vis around it can be iffy. You will imagine my surprise when at the end of a dive a five foot goliath grouprt swam out of the murk right in front of me and nearly made me defecate my ubercool X-Cel 1.5/.5 warm water dive suit.
When you get through with this dive and get back to your room, you will realize that you have been eaten alive by noseeums and curse for several minutes. You will then wear DEET the rest of the week, and even when you’re sleeping if you are in the un-air-conditioned cabanas (like we were).
Night Dive:
Me and my pal did a night dive that same night. If you want to night dive CoCoView, stay at 15-24 feet along the coco wall left or right and you will have a great dive. We found several large snapper who followed us around, octopi, a snake eel, a gigantic black snail the size of a volleyball with purple and blue highlights that we couldn't identify in any book (I dubbed it Jeramy's Dream Snail), tons of small shrimp and macro life. This is also sea cucumber city. Every kind imaginable. Do the night dives, don't go too deep.
The Next Day:
We got on our assigned boat the next day for boat diving. Here is the trick to boat diving. Don't dive too deep and follow the dive master. The best life on the boat dives will be above 60 feet. If you brag about finding a thermocline at 125 feet when we get back on the boat after 4 days of diving it doesn't mean you are a cool tech diver, it means you went to the wrong place for deep dives and you should probably loosen your mask since your mask ring is deeper than your last dive and it’s still there hours later.
The Drop Off Dive:
You get dropped off at one of two walls on your way back to the resort. Each leads to the wreck I mentioned before and the shore. DON"T DIVE DEEP. The best sea life on the drop-off dives is above 30 feet. It’s like an aquarium up there. We even saw the bridled burrfish in three different spots. We nicknamed the drop-off dive the "deco stop dive". We went on all of them. One day you might see 4 gigantic crabs on the wall. The next day you might see a 3 foot black grouper with a sharksucker.
The Chow:
The chow is edible. For lunch I stuck with the beans, rice, and tortillas they had every day and ate Rolaids. Tip: On BBQ night they will serve ribs and chicken. To make BBQ ribs you either smoke the ribs until tender or do them yankee style and just boil them before putting them on the grill. CocoView’s BBQ ribs are neither smoked nor boiled and have the texture of shoe leather. The Yellow Lab at the resort looks forward to this night. Stick with the chicken. Why didn't I help the cooking staff? Because there is no way you are getting good ribs when I didn't: duh. The sweet and low for the tea is clumped in the packets from the humidity. Also, the salt is usually clumped even though they use rice.
Dinner was always good and dessert was usually great.
Overall:
Visibility: good but not cayman good, more like bahamas good
Water Temp: warmer than cayman
Current: None
Waves: wave action never got bad, boat rides were chum free
Conclusions:
1. DON'T DIVE DEEP. There is really no point here.
2. Take DEET in your carryon so you will have it handy.
3. Take rolaids or maybe immodium. You can have to bust a 3 alarm foamer in the john after accidentally sipping your shower water. And by the way, the cabana johns have a good flush about every 5 minutes, so be careful. If you bust a foamer don't use too much paper.
4. Do the nighttime shore dives. I recommend a tec 40 and a tec 400. Use the tec 40 on the shallow reefs since its softness won't scare away everything. Don't take the ultramegacannon light or you will scare everything but the snappers and jacks using your light to hunt away.
5. Leave the tech gear at home! This is martini diving: warm, clear and no current. Leave the deco bottles and pony bottles at home! And don't take a pony bottle, 2 knives, spool, sausage, and 30 pounds of other crap down if you don't even know how to rinse your mask after applying defog or put on your mask so tight that you still have mask ring 4 hours later. (can you tell I saw this diver there?)
6. Don't squirt me with a squirt gun before I've had my coffee and not expect me to pull you aside you later when you aren't with the group you are leading and not have to explain to you why you will have the gun sticking out of your butt if you do that again English Bob. Bad Englishman!
7. You can dive 5 times a day here easy. Time your meals right and eat plenty of complex carbs and you should be fine. We took some snickers marathon bars also to help keep us going.
8. For the night dive the first people in have to put a strobe on a buoy. For the love of all that isn't retarded, put the strobe on the buoy chain down at the marker and not on top of the buoy. The last people returning from night dives have to snag the strobe and if you leave it on top those people will find themselves in a swarm of photosensitive sea wasps.
9. Take a thin hood and pair of gloves on the night dives in case your trip is full of night dive noobies who don't understand where to put the strobe even after the orientation dive where it is clearly explained. Gloves are forbidden in Roatan but sneak them on your night dive.
10. Larval thimble jellies: Didn't run into these. The only thing that gave us a problem were the sea wasps and that was caused by diver error.
11. Pack light, two swim suits, a pair of umbro shorts (wear them sans underwear, trust me) and a couple of sheer undershirts. Heavy cotton clothing will just get funky.
PS: I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it. Oh, and we saw a herd of dolphins. The Coco was great value diving and we would definitely do it again. Staff was great, diving was great.
Notes: The CocoView now has all cabanas air conditioned. Some things have changed since October 2004 (10 years ago!). I was also young hot-headed opinionated diver back then. Now, I am older. ::cough::.
And now before adieu is in any way furthered, the report. CocoView Oct-2004. (queue flashback sounds)
martini diving at the ccv
Alright folks, here the rules:
1. no pics in my post, trust me, it’s more entertaining without them
2. don't get offended, if I jest, it’s just teasing, take it in stride
So, me and my dive buddy decided to go somewhere there hadn't been destroyed this hurricane season so we went to Roatan and picked the CocoView based on other people's experiences.
The Flight:
Two reward tickets later and we were flying first class on Continental to Roatan. I recommend first class because it means you will be first off the plane and you won't have to stand out on the hot humid runway waiting to get inside the airport because the immigration booth is right inside the door. And continental, get a better first class snack. Those over-peppercorned salami pieces have to go.
Customs:
Customs was easy. CocoView people took our bags through for us and loaded them for the resort while we at hotdogs that seemed to be mostly chicken and rubber tires from the snack hut at the airport.
The Coco:
We got to the coco and were immediately scuttled up for a scuba introduction from the couple running the dive shop. After all these people had been traveling all day and were sweaty with heinous BO from standing out in the sun one guy (leading a group of divers from North Carolina) decided to keep making loud wry responses during the introduction. He had an English accent so we nicknamed him English Bob. English Bob proved that English charm and sophistication died when the Prince ditched Diana for Bowles.
The First Dive:
The coco gets you in the water quick. After the orientation we were dispatched to get our gear and get on the dock for our first dive! I was happy since I usually write off my first day of any trip as a non-diving day. We collected out gear and headed to the water for a shore dive. We made the mistake of getting behind everyone else and saw nothing but silt on our way to deeper water.
The vis on the shore dive can be really good or really bad, and can change quickly. There is a massive wreck out there and vis around it can be iffy. You will imagine my surprise when at the end of a dive a five foot goliath grouprt swam out of the murk right in front of me and nearly made me defecate my ubercool X-Cel 1.5/.5 warm water dive suit.
When you get through with this dive and get back to your room, you will realize that you have been eaten alive by noseeums and curse for several minutes. You will then wear DEET the rest of the week, and even when you’re sleeping if you are in the un-air-conditioned cabanas (like we were).
Night Dive:
Me and my pal did a night dive that same night. If you want to night dive CoCoView, stay at 15-24 feet along the coco wall left or right and you will have a great dive. We found several large snapper who followed us around, octopi, a snake eel, a gigantic black snail the size of a volleyball with purple and blue highlights that we couldn't identify in any book (I dubbed it Jeramy's Dream Snail), tons of small shrimp and macro life. This is also sea cucumber city. Every kind imaginable. Do the night dives, don't go too deep.
The Next Day:
We got on our assigned boat the next day for boat diving. Here is the trick to boat diving. Don't dive too deep and follow the dive master. The best life on the boat dives will be above 60 feet. If you brag about finding a thermocline at 125 feet when we get back on the boat after 4 days of diving it doesn't mean you are a cool tech diver, it means you went to the wrong place for deep dives and you should probably loosen your mask since your mask ring is deeper than your last dive and it’s still there hours later.
The Drop Off Dive:
You get dropped off at one of two walls on your way back to the resort. Each leads to the wreck I mentioned before and the shore. DON"T DIVE DEEP. The best sea life on the drop-off dives is above 30 feet. It’s like an aquarium up there. We even saw the bridled burrfish in three different spots. We nicknamed the drop-off dive the "deco stop dive". We went on all of them. One day you might see 4 gigantic crabs on the wall. The next day you might see a 3 foot black grouper with a sharksucker.
The Chow:
The chow is edible. For lunch I stuck with the beans, rice, and tortillas they had every day and ate Rolaids. Tip: On BBQ night they will serve ribs and chicken. To make BBQ ribs you either smoke the ribs until tender or do them yankee style and just boil them before putting them on the grill. CocoView’s BBQ ribs are neither smoked nor boiled and have the texture of shoe leather. The Yellow Lab at the resort looks forward to this night. Stick with the chicken. Why didn't I help the cooking staff? Because there is no way you are getting good ribs when I didn't: duh. The sweet and low for the tea is clumped in the packets from the humidity. Also, the salt is usually clumped even though they use rice.
Dinner was always good and dessert was usually great.
Overall:
Visibility: good but not cayman good, more like bahamas good
Water Temp: warmer than cayman
Current: None
Waves: wave action never got bad, boat rides were chum free
Conclusions:
1. DON'T DIVE DEEP. There is really no point here.
2. Take DEET in your carryon so you will have it handy.
3. Take rolaids or maybe immodium. You can have to bust a 3 alarm foamer in the john after accidentally sipping your shower water. And by the way, the cabana johns have a good flush about every 5 minutes, so be careful. If you bust a foamer don't use too much paper.
4. Do the nighttime shore dives. I recommend a tec 40 and a tec 400. Use the tec 40 on the shallow reefs since its softness won't scare away everything. Don't take the ultramegacannon light or you will scare everything but the snappers and jacks using your light to hunt away.
5. Leave the tech gear at home! This is martini diving: warm, clear and no current. Leave the deco bottles and pony bottles at home! And don't take a pony bottle, 2 knives, spool, sausage, and 30 pounds of other crap down if you don't even know how to rinse your mask after applying defog or put on your mask so tight that you still have mask ring 4 hours later. (can you tell I saw this diver there?)
6. Don't squirt me with a squirt gun before I've had my coffee and not expect me to pull you aside you later when you aren't with the group you are leading and not have to explain to you why you will have the gun sticking out of your butt if you do that again English Bob. Bad Englishman!
7. You can dive 5 times a day here easy. Time your meals right and eat plenty of complex carbs and you should be fine. We took some snickers marathon bars also to help keep us going.
8. For the night dive the first people in have to put a strobe on a buoy. For the love of all that isn't retarded, put the strobe on the buoy chain down at the marker and not on top of the buoy. The last people returning from night dives have to snag the strobe and if you leave it on top those people will find themselves in a swarm of photosensitive sea wasps.
9. Take a thin hood and pair of gloves on the night dives in case your trip is full of night dive noobies who don't understand where to put the strobe even after the orientation dive where it is clearly explained. Gloves are forbidden in Roatan but sneak them on your night dive.
10. Larval thimble jellies: Didn't run into these. The only thing that gave us a problem were the sea wasps and that was caused by diver error.
11. Pack light, two swim suits, a pair of umbro shorts (wear them sans underwear, trust me) and a couple of sheer undershirts. Heavy cotton clothing will just get funky.
PS: I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it. Oh, and we saw a herd of dolphins. The Coco was great value diving and we would definitely do it again. Staff was great, diving was great.
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