Cudabait --
Oak Bay Resort is a very small and fairly rustic resort located about half way up the eastern leg of the island from the airport... it's about a 40 minute ride between the airport and the resort. The grounds at the resort are anything but landscaped and if you're expecting a stay at the Hilton, forget it. The facilities are simple and basic though functional. I'll add, too, that the local electricity cooperative would turn the power off in the Oak Ridge area at random and the water service comes and goes on a fairly random schedule, too... though the resort does have water pumped into tanks for bathing and so on -- we were never without water. Every room has hot water for showering and bottled water for drinking.
At present there are three completed buildings on the resort and two more under construction. The one we stayed in is a small two story wood construction with two small units downstairs and two upstairs. The resort's owner lives in one of the upstairs units and we were in the unit directly beneath him. Our unit was a two room kitchenette with a double bed and couch in the front room along with a small kitchen type counter, sink and cook top (with oven I believe). There's a second room behind that with another double bed, a twin bed and a small bathroom/shower off of it. Both rooms have two windows for cross-ventilation and both floor fans and ceiling fans. We really weren't in the rooms at all during the day and they were plenty comfortable at night. I never used the indoor shower as it was kind of a tight fit for a 6'2" 230lb guy like myself... but there are three outside showers with reasonable privacy. The windows in the room needed to be propped open and were both a bit heavy and sticky and the insides of the rooms are unfinished (drywall is VERY expensive there) but painted and comfortable.
Gary's cook, Cheryl is a black native islander. Thats not meant to be racists
just noting that the islanders are broken up into three groups... the Gringos, the "brown people" and the "black people" -- the Gringos are white and typically natives, Brits or Americans all of whom speak English. The "brown people" are mostly Hondurans and most (not all) pretty much refuse to, or cannot, speak English. The "black people" are also natives to the islands being leftover form the older slave trade and most all are Seventh Day Adventists and speak English, as well, though heavily accented.
In any case, Cheryl took care of cooking our meals and cleaning our rooms. Meals are served buffet style in the "dining hall" which adjoins the "dive shop" (I use these terms somewhat loosely) and consists of several picnic tables, a TV (with cable and some American channels/programming), VCR, more floor fans, a fridge with sodas and beer (honor system, $1 US each) and that's about it. Breakfast typically consisted of bread, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit and bacon. Lunch was typically fruit and cold cuts and dinner ran the gamut from crab and lobster to homemade pizza (pretty good if not a tad greasy) and corned beef. Dinner was typically accompanied by a desert of one sort or another... ice cream, homemade cherry pie and chocolate cake were the fare while I was there. I have no complaints... I ate well and was never hungry. Cheryl also cleaned our rooms... beds were made, floors swept and bathrooms cleaned daily without fail and we got fresh sheets and towels every other day.
At the time we were there, my son and I were the only two divers for the first three days, then another couple came in (hello Magnus and Jen!) for a week, so the four of us dove together. I really enjoyed this as the service was personalized and it lacked the cattle herding feel you sometimes get at resorts. We chose where we would like to dive and they took us there. Gary (the owner) personally led us on each dive and took the time to point out the "neat" things he would spot as he went along. Dive briefs were pretty lax, but his leadership was careful, competent and conservative and he did carry all the right first aid and oxygen supplies.
The resort has a single, small (like 25 foot maybe?) outboard operated by a native islander (Gringo) Lindsey... a really pleasant guy. I am informed that they have access to a second larger boat should one be needed. The boat comfortably dove the four of us plus Gary and Lindsey and in my experience could easily dive six without discomfort and could dive eight. He knew the sites and treated us very well. He'll happily sit and chat with you for hours about the islands, fishing and most anything else you like if you so desire. He is, from time to time, in the States in the Jacksonville area so I can't guarantee he'll always be there. Oh, fwiw... entry from the boat is done via back roll off the side and returning to the boat was done by first handing your weight belt up to Lindsey, then slipping out of your BCD which Lindsey would then heft into the boat, slip your fins off and hand them up while holding the wood ladder and, finally, haul your own butt up the latter back onto the boat ~smile~ There are storage compartments (wet) under the benches down both sides of the boat for your weight belt, mask, fins, etc and tanks/rigs are bungeed along the aft sides. Gearing up was completed one buddy team at a time putting on mask, fins, snorkel and weight belt then Lindsey or Gary would heft the BCD up onto the bench for you to slip into then each buddy team would roll off opposite sides of the boat when ready.
A typical dive day started with a wakeup call about 7:00am (that's 9:30 Eastern Daylight Time) and breakfast at 7:30 -- Lindsey would arrive at the dock around 8:30am and we would load ourselves into the boat and take off for the first dive. We ran down as far west as Fantasy Island (and CoCo View) or as far east as Reef House for our first dive followed by a one hour surface interval or so at either the resort, CoCo View's snack bar or at Parrot Tree (which is where the Aggressor docks) and then our second boat dive. After our second dive we would return to the resort for lunch and a longer surface interval... typically about three hours and then a third dive either from shore there at the resort in the afternoon or as a night dive or, a few times, a third boat dive for the day. William and I did three dives a day the entire time we were there excluding one dive we blew off because William got sea sick on the first dive and the last day before flying.
The sites we dove included the wreck at Fantasy Island/CoCo View's channel (a boat and a broken up C-3 aircraft called "Tattoo" -- think that through), Calvin's Crack, Half Moon Bay, Missing Link, CoCo View Wall (our deepest dive to 118 fsw), Oak Bay wall, Church Wall, Fantasy Point, Reef House and a few others I can't think of the name of at the moment. Most of the reefs started in the 15fsw range and ran to over 100fsw in a vertical drop -- sometimes with nice crags, crannies, swim through and chimneys formations to peek into. The wall right in front of the Oak Bay resort is very nice and easily reached from shore if you would like to do extra dives
one could easily empty a good many tanks just exploring the wall there at the resort and the night dive on the wall was incredible. One of the things I enjoyed about most of the reefs that started shallow was the we could explore the shallow reef for the safety stop versus hanging on a line... in fact, a "safety stop" of 10 minutes or was typical just so we could relax, explore and blow off the last of our air before getting back on the boat.
The weather while we were there was very nice. The morning/evening temps were in the 70s with a nice island breeze blowing and the daytimes were in the upper 80s to low 90s. We did get rain several mornings early (like I had to wake up and close the window because it was blowing across my bed) and we had one squall blow through during a dive in the midweek. Oh, and we saw a water spout on the next to last day on the opposite side of the island from Parrot Tree. Otherwise, I would describe the weather as perfect. The seas typically ran between flat and glassy and three foot swells with moderate chop as the worst. When the seas got too uncomfortable for the small boat we would stick to dive sites inside the reef and close to the resort like Church Wall and Fantasy Point and, frankly, they were just as enjoyable as any other. Water temps ran between 82 and 84 on every dive without exception.
If you go to Oak Bay... odds are very good that your travel/dive group will be the only divers there. It really makes the experience enjoyable. It also adds a great deal of privacy to it if you are looking to combine a dive trip with a romantic getaway. There's even a very secluded, beautiful, remote, white sand beach called "half moon bay just about ten minutes from the resort by boat that they can take you to for an afternoon outing/picnic should you desire. Gary was also kind enough to escort us up to a nearby "farm" that makes island (tropical) jams and jellies of every imaginable sort and escorted us into "town" for some tourist shopping on our last day at the resort.
Be advised that Oak Bay will cater to clothing optional divers and does have a "clothing optional" sun area. However, that's pretty much a non-issue if you're the only guests at the resort. I suppose it would only be an issue if there were other guests there and one side or the other were offended. The clothing optional sun area is set off by privacy fencing (palm frond fencing to be exact) as are the outdoor showers, so it really shouldn't ever be a problem even in the worst case.
Anyway, we were there for nine nights and completed twenty-three dives and probably could have done a bunch more had we really been gung-ho about it. The total price for two divers including all of our meals, two boat dives a day and unlimited shore diving (which we didn't take advantage of) was $1420 -- I think the standard price is around $485 plus tax per diver for seven nights, you can check the web site for the current pricing. In any case, I can honestly say there was not one dive I didn't care for aside from a night dive we had to abort due to a heavy current along the face of the wall.
That's about it. If you're interested in finer detail about any aspect of the resort of the diving, just ask. I'll do my best to give you an answer.
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