SauroScubaDivers
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Well we're back... We had a great trip. Flew in Saturday June 27th and hopped a puddle jumper over to AC. The convenience factor was worth the extra money in my opinion. And the views were spectacular! When we landed on AC, we didn't have any hotel arrangements made, so we walked over to Rubys to see if they had any available rooms, turns out they were booked solid, so we took a cab down to the Conch Shell Hotel. It's not mentioned in any of the guidebooks we saw, but an acquaintance at the airport said it was a nice place to stay.
The Conch Shell Hotel was VERY clean, and right on the beach, the downstairs rooms are just rooms, and i think the upstairs rooms have small kitchenettes (we stayed downstairs) with no AC, but the ocean breezes and fans were enough to keep things cool. The beds were the tempurpedic foam mattresses and were super comfortable! It's right across the beach from Amigos Del Mar dive shop (a wonderful operation) and convenient to town and dining. There's a local bar right across the street next to Lilly's we watched the US Brasil soccer game with the locals. It was fun, they sure get excited about soccer! Conch Shell for us $50/night was a deal given the prices of some of the other nearby hotels. The manager Alex lives onsite, so if you have any questions or problems he's right there to help.
We did 2 days of local diving, one afternoon snorkel, and a blue hole day trip. all with amigos, very top notch dive shop, Renee and Tony were great captain and dive master respectively. The big boat out for the blue hole trip is really really nice. Big and comfortable, it held all 25 of us passengers with room to spare. Be sure to sit on the upper deck for the ride out and back, as you get much better views. I think the two dives after the blue hole were better, but having not done the blue hole before, it was neat. I'm not sure i'd go back just to do the blue hole again, but the other dives i'd do again in a heartbeat! Comming back in we came across a superpod of dolphins easily over 150... they were playing in the boat wake and jumping up out of the water doing flips it was really neat.. and the guys at amigos slowed down and let all of us really see the dolphins. We probably drove around in circles for 20 minutes! it was great.
I had purchased an Intova-800 camera for the trip, i just wanted a cheap underwater camera to take a few pictures. It worked great, and the video feature was neat when we were doing swimthroughs in the reef. The only thing i would mention about the camera would be to get a dessecant packet to put in the case while diving. Since we were staying in a hotel with no AC, the humidity would cause the case to get foggy when the batteries heated up when taking lots of photos in a short amount of time. I think the dessecant would help with that little bit of humidity and fogging problems. As it was i put some antifog drops on the waterproof case and rinsed (like you do for your mask) and that helped. The red filter worked for depths greater than say 45-50 feet, but there was a little bit of a middle ground where the red filter was too much, but taking it off produced overly blue photos, i'm sure with time i'll figure out how to work things better. But I got some decent photos with my little inexpensive camera.
I got a few neat backlit pictures of the stalagtites in the blue hole. but i have to say i now have much respect for underwater photographers. I got alot of "fishtail" pictures too
looking into taking an underwater photograpy class now... one thing leads to another.
We then moved inland for a few days. Did a day trip to Tikal to see the myan ruins and then did the ATM cave. Both were neat, but i think the diving was better.
Be sure to get the papusas on middle street at waragumas! Mickeys, Pirates Pizza, and Lilly's were good places to eat too. . All in all a great trip.
The Conch Shell Hotel was VERY clean, and right on the beach, the downstairs rooms are just rooms, and i think the upstairs rooms have small kitchenettes (we stayed downstairs) with no AC, but the ocean breezes and fans were enough to keep things cool. The beds were the tempurpedic foam mattresses and were super comfortable! It's right across the beach from Amigos Del Mar dive shop (a wonderful operation) and convenient to town and dining. There's a local bar right across the street next to Lilly's we watched the US Brasil soccer game with the locals. It was fun, they sure get excited about soccer! Conch Shell for us $50/night was a deal given the prices of some of the other nearby hotels. The manager Alex lives onsite, so if you have any questions or problems he's right there to help.
We did 2 days of local diving, one afternoon snorkel, and a blue hole day trip. all with amigos, very top notch dive shop, Renee and Tony were great captain and dive master respectively. The big boat out for the blue hole trip is really really nice. Big and comfortable, it held all 25 of us passengers with room to spare. Be sure to sit on the upper deck for the ride out and back, as you get much better views. I think the two dives after the blue hole were better, but having not done the blue hole before, it was neat. I'm not sure i'd go back just to do the blue hole again, but the other dives i'd do again in a heartbeat! Comming back in we came across a superpod of dolphins easily over 150... they were playing in the boat wake and jumping up out of the water doing flips it was really neat.. and the guys at amigos slowed down and let all of us really see the dolphins. We probably drove around in circles for 20 minutes! it was great.
I had purchased an Intova-800 camera for the trip, i just wanted a cheap underwater camera to take a few pictures. It worked great, and the video feature was neat when we were doing swimthroughs in the reef. The only thing i would mention about the camera would be to get a dessecant packet to put in the case while diving. Since we were staying in a hotel with no AC, the humidity would cause the case to get foggy when the batteries heated up when taking lots of photos in a short amount of time. I think the dessecant would help with that little bit of humidity and fogging problems. As it was i put some antifog drops on the waterproof case and rinsed (like you do for your mask) and that helped. The red filter worked for depths greater than say 45-50 feet, but there was a little bit of a middle ground where the red filter was too much, but taking it off produced overly blue photos, i'm sure with time i'll figure out how to work things better. But I got some decent photos with my little inexpensive camera.
I got a few neat backlit pictures of the stalagtites in the blue hole. but i have to say i now have much respect for underwater photographers. I got alot of "fishtail" pictures too
looking into taking an underwater photograpy class now... one thing leads to another. We then moved inland for a few days. Did a day trip to Tikal to see the myan ruins and then did the ATM cave. Both were neat, but i think the diving was better.
Be sure to get the papusas on middle street at waragumas! Mickeys, Pirates Pizza, and Lilly's were good places to eat too. . All in all a great trip.
