Roatan, what not to take?

[John_B]

Hope it's not too late, but the duty free at Roatan will sell you liquor and other goodies after you have checked your bags, but you are not allowed to take liquids on the plane. seems odd that they will sell you product you are not allowed to board with>

They will deliver the "liquids" in a sealed duty free bag to the final baggage inspection area. This is the hand inspection that takes place immediately before boarding, and is in addition to the standard x-ray security screening after paying your exit fees ($34.04 this trip, btw). Once you get back to IAH, ATL, or wherever and get through immigrations and customs, you'll need to put the liquor into your checked luggage. The same restrictions on 3 ozs of fluids apply as it would for any other flight, and they *will* confiscate it. IIRC, you'll need to have the duty free bag unopened if you get the red light, but I haven't had first hand experience in quite a while.

LWB, I'm sure you'll find that you'd need more than a golf cart to get to the West End. You can take a taxi. We did an all day dive trip to the West end via one of the CCV boats, including an hour docked for the surface interval than I spent people watching (most people in my group went shoping). No idea if FI offers an all day trip like this (but I don't know why not given that they seem to have a lot of smaller boats). Sometimes an all day trip is offered via a van (what passes for a bus on the island).

I'll get around to posting a better trip report here later tonight. EDIT: My trip report has been posted here.

I will say for the record that I was glad to be diving Nitrox the whole week.

John_B

 

[LWB]

Still here, only 2 days left.

As far is FIBR, I would say that the place is acceptable. 3 Stars might be a slight stretch. Things are actually pretty slow around the resort. There have only been two dive boats running since Saturday and even those have not been full. This after being told the first day that we could not have Nitrox (on the first day) because there weren't enough tanks. There are no bugs, thankfully, and the food is so so at best. Otherwise I like the place and the open bar makes up for any short comings.

5 of us went diving today on the West End. We hit the Odyssey and Turtle Crossing. Both were great dives and I would say Turtle Crossing was the best dive so far! I'm glad we went to the Odyssey and that gave us the only opportunity so far to see Garden Eels. It was also nice to get away from the resort and actually get some good food. I'll post a report when I get back in town, but the small dive operator did try to pull a fast one on us...so watch out for your green backs when you are here.

As far as getting to the West End, we took a van of some sort that was $15 per person round trip....you can't beat that. We even got somewhat of a tour from our driver who spoke almost no English. That was part of the fun actually.

I realize it all depends on what you are into, but I give Belize a slight edge as far as fun factor. Both have been great experiences though.

 

[John_B]

We did Butcher's Bank, Turtle Crossing, and Herbie's Fantasy for our West End dives (all three are very close to each other). We saw a total of 16 turtles and a nurse shark plus various puffer fish, southern stingrays, a spotted eagle ray, etc. Highly recommended for anyone staying at one of the resorts on the south side of the island, as the reef structure and sea life is definitely different.

John_B

 

[pelagic_by_nature]

There are garden eels you can see following the cable to the plane wreck. I saw them when I was there last week.

 

[John_B]

There are garden eels you can see following the cable to the plane wreck. I saw them when I was there last week.

Yes, I saw the garden eels there on the way to the wreckage ("plane" might be overstating it at this stage ).

I also saw a juvenile spotted moray hanging out right at the chain on my way back from a night dive (I hung out with him for about five minutes). And several juvenile barracudas one night just outside my cabana deck over the water and also later the same night on the decking to the cay where the BBQ, etc. is held.

 

[pelagic_by_nature]

If you're staying at FIBR, don't miss out on watching the tarpon hunt by the light of the gazebo. Last week there were probably 6 or 7 there every night swimming just beneath the gazebo.

 

[mrlipis]

I am always amazed when the discussion of air vs nitrox comes up and nitrox gets beat up. Everything we have learned about the hazards of diving, revolves around tissue loading. How can anyone not see the benefit of lower nitrogen levels. Just because the theoretical table shows you in a NDL, doesn't mean you can't get bent. I would rather be doing a safety stop in Pressure group O than W. With that said, do I always dive with nitrox? No, but if I am on a trip and doing 4 to 5 dives a day for a week... absolutely. Why not build in some safety margin? Now if one wants to debate the cost of nitrox vs air, I can understand that.

I was in Roatan a few weeks ago and had to take my wife to the clinic at AKR because of a rash on her arms and they were loading some local dude into the chamber. I had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Jon. As a DM I wanted to learn a few things about the process and what had happened.
This guy had been bent for over a week and was unable to walk and he been through many treatments to this point. Dr. Jon told me that he had been diving up to 7 times a day. While not the typical profile, this accident was due to repetitive dives. I was also told that the chamber is a busy place and is used very frequently. It happens folks.

 

[Jon Nellis]

Back on the topic of what to bring... Would a scooter/DPV be a nice thing to have diving at CCV?

Also, what is the expected water temp the end of May?

Thanks,
Jon

 

[Doc]

Back on the topic of what to bring... Would a scooter/DPV be a nice thing to have diving at CCV?

Also, what is the expected water temp the end of May?

Thanks,
Jon

If you can survive the hassle of airline travel with it, such a toy might be nice, but.... remember in the South side diving environment, it is not the amount of distance covered, it is instead how detailed of a look you take.

The mantra is "Go slow, Seymour" (see more)

Expect 82-84 degrees. In the 3' shallows of the CoCoView "Front Yard" last week, it was (I am not kidding) 89 degrees on one afternoon.

 

[John_B]

Back on the topic of what to bring... Would a scooter/DPV be a nice thing to have diving at CCV?

I keep thinking it'd be fun to take one of these along, and have the dive boat drop you and a buddy a couple of reefs away instead of doing the dropoffs on Newman or CCV Walls. I'm thinking you'd want two batteries per scoot, one to dive with while the other one charges. Hmmm, 10% off?