Quick Report - Crowded Dive Sites

[entropy]

Thanks for the feedback.

We are looking for great house reef for shore diving (my sister in law has gill and refused to get out of the water) , small numbers on the boats, healthy reefs, and if possible the ability to prepare our own food. We are a family that has been diving together for a number of years, mostly Bonaire as previously stated. We usually average a min of 60 min dives on air with 63 and 50 tank sizes, but fairly shallow at 60 and above.

I will keep checking on comparisons between CoCOview and FIBR and RHR etc. It looks like we can take the non meal option at the houses next to CC View, so that might be part of the answer.

Looking forward to more comments. Lydia

 

[Byte Me]

I believe you can take the no food option in the beach houses. The one we saw (new friends were staying in BH10) was very nice and they're quite close to the diving area, bar, food, etc. They're all with ocean views as well. Theirs has stove, fridge, microwave, sink, etc.

FIBR has shore diving but if you want to do CCV or Neumann's wall or the PA Wreck when we were there they had small boats dropping people off rather than having folks swim out since the winds blow NE and directly into FIBR so it make swimming out against the waves and surge a bit of a problem. Much less of an issue from CCV. I did 3 shore dives and only on the first night dive did we have any issue with coming back in and then it was fairly easy if you waited for the surge to help you along!

 

[lmorin]

I just want chime in and agree with Byte Me. My wife and I have been to CCV twice. It has, by far, the most diver friendly gear storage/water/boat access arrangement that I have encountered. I haven't done a live-aboard, but the organization at CCV is, I imagine, the land-based equivalent. Our experience with numbers of divers per boat is also the same as Byte Me describes, and we have had no encounters with FI or other dive boats at moorings. I do remember once having to wait a couple of minutes for a mooring while a FI boat got all its divers back. For what it's worth, my wife and I do most of our own cooking when we go to Bonaire or the FL Keys. However, CCV is a different story and it's part of the whole convenience-that-allows-divers-to-dive thing that makes it pleasurable to not do our own food preparation.

 

[ncchuck]

I find it so interesting that several people in this and other posts indicate that CCV boats "typically" have only 10 to 12 divers. In other posts, sometimes by these same divers, they indicate that CCV often fills up quickly and you need to book early. I don't know how many boats they have but they have 26 rooms. That would "typically" mean 50 divers. That would seem to indicate they have and use 4 or 5 large boats most of the time. Maybe? All I can say is we never saw a boat (at least 8 between the two resorts) with less than 15 divers during our week. Maybe that was a popular week and totally unusual. I have often considered going to CCV because of the many good reviews but I'd just hate diving with 15 or more divers since I've been so spoiled by diving with less in all my trips to Roatan. I also prefer visiting a different dive site each time rather than being dropped off at the same place for several dives a week. I can and have done the wall immediately in front of RHR several times but it's my choice not there's. I could easily dive 5 times a day if I had the stamina.

RHR has 11 rooms with a maximum of 22 divers. They have two boats that hold 12 and 10 divers each. They are several miles east of the other two resorts which are right next to each other. FI has over 100 rooms but I have no idea how many people they have diving at one time. Because their rates are sometimes pretty low, they get a lot of bargain shoppers that might not want to pay the CCV rate. That seems to put a lot of divers in the same area. There is only so much reef these resorts can reach at an economical price.

All I"m trying to say is there is a lot better chance of doing dives on sites that get less than 20 divers a week at RHR that at either of the other two. West End can be even worse. Does this mean the sites are better. NO. Does it mean there 80% fewer divers per week on each dive site - probably. Does it mean there is less damage, definately. Does it mean you should see for yourself - you decide.

Just as an example of what I"m talking about, the damage to Mary's Place got so bad they actually closed the site for a couple of years and then scheduled visits for a while after that to limit damage. I haven't been there in a couple of years so I can't speak about it now.

Even though I've been diving for almost 20 years and have well over 1000 dives around the world, I'm not great at spotting things. I think I have a better chance of spotting whatever the DM points out when there are only a few divers versus a large number. If you have 15 divers and 6 or 7 of those are taking pictures, it can get crowded in a hurry around a seahorse.

I don't know how the diving works at the other resorts but we did several dives over an hour at RHR. There was no time limit on any dives.

 

[Doc]

Just as an example of what I"m talking about, the damage to Mary's Place got so bad they actually closed the site for a couple of years and then scheduled visits for a while after that to limit damage. I haven't been there in a couple of years so I can't speak about it now.

That explains it, then.

 

[Byte Me]

I find it so interesting that several people in this and other posts indicate that CCV boats "typically" have only 10 to 12 divers. In other posts, sometimes by these same divers, they indicate that CCV often fills up quickly and you need to book early. I don't know how many boats they have but they have 26 rooms. That would "typically" mean 50 divers. That would seem to indicate they have and use 4 or 5 large boats most of the time. Maybe? All I can say is we never saw a boat (at least 8 between the two resorts) with less than 15 divers during our week. Maybe that was a popular week and totally unusual.

Some of those folks even provided pictures of the dive board showing the MAX number of people that could be on your boat and then pictures of the boats! Yes, they have 4 50' boats made for nothing but diving - dual ladders on the back, moon well center boat entry, no-slosh camera tanks, etc. (They have another smaller boat with no moon well but still has dual ladders and the rest of the accoutrements) So that makes 12-13 per boat the theoretical max plus the DM plus the captain. However, everyone doesn't go on every dive. As I said, our max was 17 because we were all together as a group but we only had double digits once. The entire time I always had at least 6 tank holder "holes" all to myself. Two for my tanks and two on either side of me before the next diver's stuff. Room for my mask, hat, t-shirt, etc.

I'm sure RHR is nice - I've seen RoatanMan's pictures. But people return to CCV because the diving is SO EASY you don't even have to think about it. The system they have worked out makes it easy to wake up, have breakfast, walk over to your locker, grab your exposure protection and mask (camera, etc) jump on the boat and go! Night dives couldn't be easier, shore dives couldn't be easier - in either case you just walk out the platform, finish gearing up and follow the anchor chain out to the wall or the wreck. The front yard at CCV looked to me to be an easier layout and it sure it hard to argue with a 140' wreck right off the dive platform! The "redundancy" of CCV or Neumann's wall was something that turned out to be a non issue - want to see something different? Change your depth by 10'. I dove the PA Wreck at least 6 times and saw something different each time. As I've said before, my expectations were very high going there and they exceeded them, I now know the reason CCV is the most returned to dive resort in the world.

By the way, Mary's Place - GLORIOUS! It was a wonderful dive made better by the extra little swim through my "personal" guide took me on and seeing the free swimming moray at the bottom of the cavern was icing on the cake.

 

[robint]

rather than constantly arguing about how many divers are on the boats at CCV, why don't you just click on the dock webcam and count each morning and afternoon.

Welcome to CoCo View Resort

The 4 boats that they use every week are right there in plain sight. Looks like this week, the yellow boat has a bigger group, but not the other 3.

 

[Byte Me]

I don't know how the diving works at the other resorts but we did several dives over an hour at RHR. There was no time limit on any dives.

As I said in my earlier post

At CCV my bottom time on boat dives was regularly over 50 minutes and I always came up with >400psi in the tank. They ask you limit your bottom time to one hour as a courtesy to the whole group. On drop offs, shore and night dives you could stay out for hours if your profile allowed it.

Twenty dives accumulated during the week:

CCV Wall and PA Wreck orientation - 49 min
Big French Cay Cut - 56 min
PA Wreck (proper tour w/ Doc) - 48 min
Sponge Garden - 52 min
Neumann's Wall & PA wreck - 40 min
Valley of the Kings - 53 min
CCV Wall and PA Wreck - 51 min
PA Wreck (night) - 40 min
French Cay Bank - 47 min
40' Point - 53 min
CCV Wall and PA wreck - 48 min
Cara a Cara (Waihuka shark dive) - 40 min
Mary's Place - 56 min
CCV Wall and PA wreck - 58 min
PA Wreck (night) - 44 min
Big French Cay Cut / Mr. Bud - 59 min
Gold Chain Reef - 61 min
CCV Wall & PA wreck - 50 min
Too tall Too small - 52 min
Neumann's Wall & PA - 45 min

All of the CCV/Neumann's/PA dives are at least 10 minutes longer. My VT3 considers the dive over if you get above 5' depth but there is so much little life in the shallows and on the way in you have to take your time to appreciate it all! That's the region where I saw all 6 of the spotted eagle rays I saw that week and almost all of the peacock flounder, squid, moray eel, etc...

 

[Byte Me]

rather than constantly arguing about how many divers are on the boats at CCV, why don't you just click on the dock webcam and count each morning and afternoon.

Welcome to CoCo View Resort

The 4 boats that they use every week are right there in plain sight. Looks like this week, the yellow boat has a bigger group, but not the other 3.

Good point! Boats leave at 8:30 AM and 2:00 PM Mountain time (adjust to central time after we "fall back" for daylight savings time as they don't observe that) so prior to those times you'll see the most activity.

 

[ncchuck]

Sorry if any of my comments sounded like arguing. I truely did not know how many boats CCV had and now I do. I'm impressed but still don't want that many divers visiting the same dive sites every single week. If you've every visited a new or seldom used dive site you'll immediately know why.
My point is simple:
CCV and FI next to each other meaning the potential of well over 100 divers or more per week.
RHR several miles away with no other resorts and 20 divers max.
Potential divers on a dive site in one week is 400% greater west of RHR.
Potential for damage on a dive site is 400% greater.
Live in owners at RHR that personally make sure everyone is happy.
3 distinct dive sites per day at RHR.
Drop off dives available both morning and afternoon.
Extremely easy access to shore dive on Reef House Wall at any time.
Good Food and plentiful.
Very high rate of repeat visitors.
Very experienced dive staff.
Great walk in dive locker with plenty of room.
Beautiful setting in authentic native village on smal Keye.
Easy access to water taxi, car taxi and Roatan bus.
Mangrove tours available directly from resort with native guides.
What's not to like?