Re taking dive gear on La Costena airline: I was anxious about it; La Costena says 1 30 lb checked bag and one 'personal item' like a book or pair of binoculars or computer. Maria at Casa Iguana told me that since I was coming at a busy time (Christmas) that La Costena would be enforcing this restriction. The do say you can take scuba gear as an extra bag, paying $1.30/lb I think, but that this would be 'standby', thus no promise it would go on the plane. I had planned to put my clothes and bulky gear (BC, fins, wetsuit) in the checked bag and heavy small stuff (regs, lights) in my small personal item bag and hope I got lucky.
Then I noted that my flight from the US was getting in at 1 pm and the flight to Big Corn was leaving at 2 and that La Costena wanted you to check in an hour-and-a-half before flight time, another thing that discussion boards said was sometimes enforced, sometimes not. So it seemed to me to be a chance that I might not make the connection, and that having a checked bag from the US that I had to retrieve in Managua would make it even less likely. So I ended up just bringing a carry-on bag with wetsuit, mask, computer, and a few lights for night diving.
Turns out bringing my gear would have been no problem. Clearing immigration was a slow process -- the agents enter a lot of info by hunt-and-peck typing, so there was plenty of time for a checked by to get to baggage claim while clearing immigration. La Costena was very relaxed, and while you couldn't carry on a regular sized carry on bag, people we bringing on sizable 'personal item' bags -- plenty big for regs and misc heavy hear. This isn't United or Delta. The La Costena terminal isn't in the main terminal, it's in a small building off to the side. We'd booked ahead online but no print your boarding pass at home -- arrived at the desk and our names were written on a clipboard and we were given reusable laminated plastic numbered boarding cards. We it got to be time to leave, probably closer to 3 than 2, they took the first 40 or so passengers (our numbers were in the 60s), boarded them on the plane, and took off, leaving us in the terminal with no agent or anyone to ask questions to. The anglos in the crowd looked nervous; the locals not at all. In about half an hour or so the rest of us were bundled out on to the runway and on to another plane and off we went.
So could have taken all my own gear. It wasn't terrible not taking it though; there was plenty of rental gear on the island. The diving itself was just OK, not really all that much better than the local diving here in Florida, the Jupiter/West palm drifts and the Keys reefs -- we didn't get to go to Blowing Rock because of the winds and probably only got to see about 8 different sites in the 10 dives we did. But the cost wasn't bad -- these are single-tank boat dives at about $30/each, with 3/day possible plus a potential night dive if there's enough interest. The DMs are great, and Dive Little Corn is a well run outfit once you're there. Good luck with contact prior to arrival -- Maria at Casa Iguana told us that because we were there at a busy time reservations were necessary for the dives, but I never got acknowledgements or either my room reservation or dive reservations prior to arriving in spite of probably a dozen e-mails over the 6 - 8 weeks before arriving -- just no response. Everything worked out fine; just had to be less American Anxious and more Island Time.
The 'town' side of the island is the sheltered side which means much less wind, while the other side (with Casa Iguanga and Island B&B) is on the windy side. Being on the windy side is a good thing -- much cooler and less sticky, and it's still just a 10 minute walk from town. I didn't get cell service on the windward side, but Casa Iguana's internet was up most of the time, and I did get cell service on the town site (Movistar, which worked with my T-Mobile plan, that includes data (slow)), so I could always do e-mail.
