I'm just back from a lovely trip to Anthony's Key Resort in Roatan. The first few days were cold with big waves rolling in from the north, so AKR had moved boats to the south side of the island and bused divers to the south side where we got 2 or 3 dives in per day. The weather warmed up, the winds shifted and the waves mostly down (except for one dive where I blew through 400 lbs of air with reg in mouth trying to get on a bucking dive boat...), so they resumed diving directly from AKR with 3 or 4 dives a day available. The DMs and boat captains were friendly and I thought did a great job showing us their dive sites while also helping a number of fairly inexperienced divers who did scary things. The overall operation at AKR lived up to the glowing reviews I have read/heard and everyone from the resort was very friendly and helpful at all times. My only slight niggle was the food, which was very rich (or something) and I struggled with acid indigestion for about half the trip. I have a fairly simple diet normally, so this might be something that is more of a personal issue than an AKR issue.
The coral has started bleaching at Roatan, which of course is not ideal. The locals said this round of bleaching started in September and they are hoping it reverses and things come back quickly. I didn't take pics of the worst of the bleaching, but you can see some of it in the pics:
Roatan 2017 by Joe Blow
I was one of the people delayed by the airport problems at RTB, apparently due to lack of a fire engine (although I'm not entirely sure I believe that) on Saturday, 16 Dec 2017. Passengers spent about 3 hours in line on Saturday and another 3 hours on Sunday. Staff behind the counters was extraordinarily slow and confused...they seemed well out of their depth. The airport volunteers came around and said the airport was down to one fire engine so only small planes could use the airport. United and American, apparently, only had larger planes scheduled, so of the US airlines, only Delta was conducting flights. On the 17th, the story was that a fire engine had been shipped to the island, so flight operations could resume as normal. Some of the passengers on my flight spotted 3 fire engines at the airport on Sunday. We also were given 100% assurances on Saturday that the flights would happen Sunday...so it all seems a bit fishy.
Mitigating all of this was AKR's staff, who remained extremely helpful and cheerful through everything. AKR's people guarded my luggage, checked in with me to see how things were going and then had a bus ready to take me back to AKR where an extra night with meals was only $70 after taxes. The next day they scheduled buses to match our requested times. Other resorts may do just as well, but after this experience, I am a true believer in all the great things said about AKR. I will be definitely returning to visit there again.
The coral has started bleaching at Roatan, which of course is not ideal. The locals said this round of bleaching started in September and they are hoping it reverses and things come back quickly. I didn't take pics of the worst of the bleaching, but you can see some of it in the pics:
Roatan 2017 by Joe Blow
I was one of the people delayed by the airport problems at RTB, apparently due to lack of a fire engine (although I'm not entirely sure I believe that) on Saturday, 16 Dec 2017. Passengers spent about 3 hours in line on Saturday and another 3 hours on Sunday. Staff behind the counters was extraordinarily slow and confused...they seemed well out of their depth. The airport volunteers came around and said the airport was down to one fire engine so only small planes could use the airport. United and American, apparently, only had larger planes scheduled, so of the US airlines, only Delta was conducting flights. On the 17th, the story was that a fire engine had been shipped to the island, so flight operations could resume as normal. Some of the passengers on my flight spotted 3 fire engines at the airport on Sunday. We also were given 100% assurances on Saturday that the flights would happen Sunday...so it all seems a bit fishy.
Mitigating all of this was AKR's staff, who remained extremely helpful and cheerful through everything. AKR's people guarded my luggage, checked in with me to see how things were going and then had a bus ready to take me back to AKR where an extra night with meals was only $70 after taxes. The next day they scheduled buses to match our requested times. Other resorts may do just as well, but after this experience, I am a true believer in all the great things said about AKR. I will be definitely returning to visit there again.
