Open Water Certification - West Bay

[dphip]

Newbie here-
I'll be in Roatan next week, staying at the Isla Pearl (anyone ever heard of it?). Anyway, I've been reading like mad on this board for the past couple of weeks and appreciate all of the insight. Unfortunately, a lot of it will have to wait until I'm an experienced diver...

Which leads me to my question--if you had to pick one dive shop in the West Bay/ West End/ Sandy Bay area to recommend for a first time diver, who would it be? And why? If there is even a specific dm you would recommend, let me know that as well.

Banarama is I think the closest shop to my hotel...any news on them?

Another off-topic question--what kind of restrictions are there in terms of bringing food into Honduras from the States? (our place has a kitchen and I have read that the grocery stores aren't always "fully" stocked.

Cheers to all!

 

[Doc]

Another off-topic question--what kind of restrictions are there in terms of bringing food into Honduras from the States? (our place has a kitchen and I have read that the grocery stores aren't always "fully" stocked.

West Bay is quite a hike from either of the two kind-of real looking almost grocery stores. There are small bodegas in West Bay that will take care of most of your issues.

Don't try to import any beef or chicken, nor any type of cheese. They will confiscate it and eat it. The laws were passed under the guise of health issues, but it is really protectionism of local production. Somehow this got extended from the intended container loads to small pddly items that a tourist might carry. The inspectors quickly developed a taste for beef jerkey.

I brought in a stading rib roast that I had the butcher put "Pork" stickers all over. That got through.

 

[shadowdiver]

You should be ok bringing stuff in, I have had salmon and cheese brought in. There is a small convenience store now, down by Fosters/Coconut Tree. There is also a deli opened in the new mall in West Bay. Bananarama is a good op, one thing is they don't have a dock so you need to wade out to the boats with all your gear. Why not ask your hotel to recommend a place, some of the shops in West End will come and pick you up from West Bay, and there is a pretty big difference on the prices. much cheaper in West End, without safety or quality being compromised. I like Coconut Tree Divers.

 

[EcoloDiver]

In terms of open water certification, or any other diving experiences, I want to give a high recommendation to Reef Gliders in West End.

We dived with two other operations in West End before settling on Reef Gliders. One of the other operations took 9 people on a long, somewhat complicated, sometimes narrowing swim-through at Blue Channel that was definitely not appropriate for the kinds of dog-paddling, bicycle-kick novices that we saw in the group.

We had talked with Reef Gliders the first day but chose a couple of other ones based on "price" for single fun dives. Big mistake. We actually got the same price with Reef Gliders as long as we bought a "pack" of 10 dives -- which you can split between a couple, so it's just 5 dives actually.

The difference in quality was SUBSTANTIAL. Reef Gliders is a small operation, run by a couple from Britain. They never have more than 4 divers to a divemaster or instructor. In fact, all but one of their trip leaders is an instructor, and the divemaster Alex is as superb as any good instructor. Alex is calm, patient, relaxed, selfless, and completely service-oriented (customer-oriented). At the other two dive operations the defining characteristic of the divemasters we encountered was ego. They were more interested in impressing us (and the girls) than in teaching or caring for us. Everyone at Reef Gliders that we saw has the divers in mind, moves at a relaxed but confident pace, and explains things in detail. And Alex certainly knows how to find everything from micro (tiny lettuce sea slugs) to macro (lobsters, crabs hiding in small caves, turtles, eagle ray -- well, maybe it was just his good luck!). Oh, and in most of our dives it has just been the leader and two of us! (In one it was four persons total.)

We eventually talked ourselves into going for Advanced Open Water certification and have just completed the deep dive. This is being done with instructor Cameron, another terrific leader. Calm, organized, confident, and client-centered. Today we'll either do drift-diving or, if the winds are too strong (seems like they may be), the boat captain will stay on this side of the island and we'll likely do peak-performace-buoyancy instead.

So, my vote is completely for Reef Gliders.

 

[champ]

West End. Tyll's Dive shop. They give very personal attention to people getting their certificaiton.

 

[chuck41]

Just got back from 11 days on West Bay Beach. Stayed at Fosters and dove with Octapus Dive School which is co-located right at Fosters. They were great and we had several people staying at the Island Pearl diving with us. They are a good dive school for new divers and have instructors with lots of patience. See my trip report at: http://scuba.royalcs.com It has a number of pictures of the area there as well as what you will see underwater.
TAKE PLENTY DEET AND BUG TREATMENT STUFF!!!!! If the wind is calm you WILL need it.

 

[k8brandt]

Don't miss a smoothie at Rudy's. The best!

 

[youngfam]

Hello everyone,

I apologize, new to scubaboard and not sure how to start my own thread so jumped in here as I also have a question about bananarama. My husband and 2 adult children have reservations there the end of June - have already sent our deposit.

Read yest on another Roatan forum from someone who had a terrible experience at Bananarama in one of the suites - biggest problem was bedbugs that bit them terribly and kept them from the beds (they couldn't get another room nor a refund when left early for an emergency back home)

Can anyone shed any light on this?