November, the rainiest month

[BoundForElsewhere]

Doc,

Thank you for all these updates. Has any of this weather precluded diving as yet?

 

[Doc]

Doc,

Thank you for all these updates. Has any of this weather precluded diving as yet?

For the most part: no.

The are several little subtext questions and lines of thinking in regards to weather at this time of year in the Caribbean basin. The Caribbean storm season runs generally from August through November. They spill off on either side, but so many people forget (or ignore) that November is truly the rainiest month in Roatan. Many cheerleaders …people from the tourist board , if you will , must say how great it is. “Oh you were going to be wet anyway”, this is really not the case. Behaviours and numbers of creatures change dramatically with the colder water from the rain and run off as well as the lack of salinity so when you go diving -yeah you were wet anyway, but the critters don’t like it ! so you’re gonna have to poke a little harder and look a little longer to find something interesting. But if your time of vacation is limited to the season -Roatan in the Bay Islands are truly your best choice- they are south of the standard hurricane track doesn’t mean theyre hurricane proof. However, the most you ever usually see in the Bay Islands is a good tropical storm. The historic storm track is North of this line:

The one thing that really shuts down diving is the wind and wave as you can see by today’s pictures. It’s really hitting pretty hard on the west side , west end , north west side. This is pretty common at this time of year where -but on the south side, it’s comparatively flat, it’s still is not glass . Very rarely does diving of any sort get cancelled on the southside but quite often on the west and north things do get shut down. That’s why many such operations in that area do close during the month of November- the ones of that area that have deep pockets either move boats to the south side to landing that they have over there or they put you in the boat and take you around (which is not really a great idea) Suffice to say at this time today anyway…do you wanna be diving on the southside? Good to go. There’s no one answer but November 2023 has been pretty good for accessible diving- was the diving spectacular ? it’s in the eyes of the beholder .

It’s similar in many ways to going on a ski vacation when we go to a mountain town for that one week in the snow we as visitors are prone to go out in any condition, whereas you look at the locals and they only ski on the perfect days, same with diving, I’ve been to Roatan and Caribbean, diving so many times if it’s Raining or inclement I always consider starting a new hobby of drinking to go with that cigar.

Just anecdotally because I am making these observations via WebCam while sitting safely at home in the United States. I could see that every day in November , CoCoView has sent out their boats. I can also see that the other WebCams in this case Banana Rama and Roatan Divers has missed a few days and that’s understandable because for the case of Banana Rama, they have no dock and wading through that surf is problematic . for the other WebCam, Roatan Divers, they’re not an AI resort and they’re dependent on people coming in and wanting to do charters -it’s a little different -so it’s not casting aspersions on them it’s just they all have different business models and in this case more importantly, different weather. (Wind and wave)

Throughout the entire month, I’ve looked at night and you can watch the parade of night Divers at CoCoView, pretty predictable, very regular

These annually predictable rains will accomplish one very important thing. You may have noticed all of the hue and cry over coral bleaching, and the white look to all the corals, notably in the Caribbean basin- as soon as the water cools, and it does this by rainwater -this coral bleaching or this pox will go away. right now instead of seeing temperatures in the shallows of 88°. It was getting up to 96°. The corals do not like that ! with the rain. It should cool down dramatically.

We, as a species are very shortsighted. The corals have seen this before -they were here before we were, and they’ll be here long after we’re gone. Nothing really new.

 

[Gdog]

Would trade a rainy day on Roatan for a rainy day week here in the Seattle area right now.

 

[Doc]

Would trade a rainy day on Roatan for a rainy day week here in the Seattle area right now.

Seattle? You could barely trade even for Chicago.

 

[Doc]

Saturday 18 November

 

[Doc]

Sunday 11/19
No rain

 

[Doc]

Monday 11/20
So clear you can see the mainland mountains from CocoViews “front yard” cam… and from Roatan Divers- a cruise ship on the horizon.

 

[Dan G]

Rain and last night that raised the water levels. The "weight check dock" was close to submerged and the water by the shore was murky. Lots of debris on the ground, too. Small surges during the AM dive and the buoys by Newman's Wall were tough to see on the way back. Mistakenly ended up at the airplane. This afternoon was a swimming pool at Mr. Bud's Wreck. Ladders on the back of the boat were as still as a pipehorse.

 

[Doc]

Rain and last night that raised the water levels. The "weight check dock" was close to submerged….

What the DMs refer to as “marea alta”,

Dry again again today 11/22.

How ‘bout that?

 

[Gdog]

Looks great!!