jiminmd
Registered
Inn of Last Resort 6/26 7/5
My wife and I just got back from our eighth trip to ILR. We have been going down for a week in late January/early February and a week over the fourth of July. Weve always had great trips and this week was one of the best yet. Other than being a little breezy all week and a little wet the early part of our stay the weather was great. The breeze kept the temperatures down and it was very pleasant sitting in the open bar/dinning room area or at the lagoon. The diving was fantastic. It was a little overcast, the water was very clear and when the sun came out the visibility was excellent and the reef looked spectacular.
The Resort
This is an all inclusive resort that provides all meals, non- alcoholic drinks (also not included are soft drinks), airport transfers (they also pre board you for your departure) and three boat dives per day Sunday through Thursday, two dives Friday and no dives Saturday. The third dive Tuesday is a night dive. This works out well for Saturday to Saturday trips. They also offer unlimited shore dives, but it is a long swim through the lagoon to Fish Den. They will have staff lug your tanks over to the lagoon for you. Weve never done it, talked about it a lot, others have. The Lagoon is good for snorkeling but not deep enough for diving.
The food is from a fixed menu. If they are having something you dont like or cant eat they will accommodate you. If you have special dietary needs its best to let them know when you book and remind them a week before you get there. The food is usually good but this week it was very good. The home made soups you get at every dinner are excellent.
The rooms are large, clean and well air conditioned. They have a queen and two singles, desk and lock box. The bath is small but serviceable. They have daily maid service and the rooms are done before you are finished with your second dive. The resort has free wireless internet that is accessible from your room.
Top Side Activities
ILR has a pool table, TV, books and board games in the bar area. You can lounge or snorkel in the lagoon. The drinks are reasonably priced. If you want more action than that you need to go off the resort. It is a $3pp taxi ride to West End a little more for West Bay. You can rent a car for as little as $35/d. Since we were there over a no dive Saturday, we rented a car for the first time and got to see some of the island we usually dont get to see. Our favorite resort manager/pirate Ed is no longer at ILR but he is in Oakridge working on Gerry the beer guys pirate ship. When it is finished it will add a little fun to top side activities. Right now they have arrangements with a couple of resorts and a cruise ship to stage periodic raids. The ship is very impressive. It is 110 feet long and 22 feet wide. It will have four real cannons. They will offer day trips for standard wrenching and plundering. We had a great day visiting with Ed. He drug us to a barbeque joint in Oakridge that rivals The Hole in the Wall in grunginess but the food is good and the rum is cheap. We also went to West End Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday night for open mike night at Lands End good fun and Thursday night for dinner. An alternative to taking a land taxi back to the resort is to take a water taxi back.
The Diving
We did 19 boat dives in the nine days we were there. Antonio is the dive master, he is also an instructor. He was very competent and makes the dives educational and fun. He is good at pointing out the unusual critters. The dive boat worked everyday without issues. I know that in the past sometimes ILRs boats can be problematic, but not this trip. We never lost a dive on any of our previous trips due to boat issues. The shortest dive we had was 50 minutes and the longest about 85 minutes with average about 65 minutes.
I am not going to review each dive but will just give highlights. We did a new to us dive site Pablos Place. We did it as a drift. There were a number of large barrel sponges and each had a large lobster in it. The coral was very dense and in very good shape. We saw a turtle at about 120 ft. I swam down and got couple of good photos. I think this will become one of my favorite sites. We saw a lot of turtles during the trip, some large some small. We saw a very large green turtle with two large remoras. The unusual thing was the lime green color of one of the remoras. I saw two large barracuda feeding on a group of small fish out a little way from the wall. I found a well camouflaged scorpion fish; I found my first flamingo tongue. I found a small twig like pipe fish. On the night dive we found a large light tan toad fish. It was a very unusual color. We found some tear drop crabs in a purple vase sponge, these were a first for us. We saw some neck crabs, Petersen (sp?) shrimp, cork screw anemones, big yellow anemones and the usual fish and morays. On the last dive of the trip we were at around 70 feet when Antonio banged his tank and pointed up. We had a fly over of either a small (7-8 ft wing tip to wing tip) manta or Antonio thinks it was a lost (as in it should be in Pacific) mobula (sp?) ray. I got a picture but it was shooting up so it is almost a silhouette. But you can clearly see that it is a manta type ray. This was a very good last dive of this trip.
It was my first time taking pictures. I bought a Canon G9 with Canon housing. The pictures arent great but some came out ok. It would have worked out better if I did not leave the cameras instruction manual at home, advice that I captured from the Canon sub forum and the cameras usb cable on my end table. I will post some pictures when I learn how to do it.
My wife and I just got back from our eighth trip to ILR. We have been going down for a week in late January/early February and a week over the fourth of July. Weve always had great trips and this week was one of the best yet. Other than being a little breezy all week and a little wet the early part of our stay the weather was great. The breeze kept the temperatures down and it was very pleasant sitting in the open bar/dinning room area or at the lagoon. The diving was fantastic. It was a little overcast, the water was very clear and when the sun came out the visibility was excellent and the reef looked spectacular.
The Resort
This is an all inclusive resort that provides all meals, non- alcoholic drinks (also not included are soft drinks), airport transfers (they also pre board you for your departure) and three boat dives per day Sunday through Thursday, two dives Friday and no dives Saturday. The third dive Tuesday is a night dive. This works out well for Saturday to Saturday trips. They also offer unlimited shore dives, but it is a long swim through the lagoon to Fish Den. They will have staff lug your tanks over to the lagoon for you. Weve never done it, talked about it a lot, others have. The Lagoon is good for snorkeling but not deep enough for diving.
The food is from a fixed menu. If they are having something you dont like or cant eat they will accommodate you. If you have special dietary needs its best to let them know when you book and remind them a week before you get there. The food is usually good but this week it was very good. The home made soups you get at every dinner are excellent.
The rooms are large, clean and well air conditioned. They have a queen and two singles, desk and lock box. The bath is small but serviceable. They have daily maid service and the rooms are done before you are finished with your second dive. The resort has free wireless internet that is accessible from your room.
Top Side Activities
ILR has a pool table, TV, books and board games in the bar area. You can lounge or snorkel in the lagoon. The drinks are reasonably priced. If you want more action than that you need to go off the resort. It is a $3pp taxi ride to West End a little more for West Bay. You can rent a car for as little as $35/d. Since we were there over a no dive Saturday, we rented a car for the first time and got to see some of the island we usually dont get to see. Our favorite resort manager/pirate Ed is no longer at ILR but he is in Oakridge working on Gerry the beer guys pirate ship. When it is finished it will add a little fun to top side activities. Right now they have arrangements with a couple of resorts and a cruise ship to stage periodic raids. The ship is very impressive. It is 110 feet long and 22 feet wide. It will have four real cannons. They will offer day trips for standard wrenching and plundering. We had a great day visiting with Ed. He drug us to a barbeque joint in Oakridge that rivals The Hole in the Wall in grunginess but the food is good and the rum is cheap. We also went to West End Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday night for open mike night at Lands End good fun and Thursday night for dinner. An alternative to taking a land taxi back to the resort is to take a water taxi back.
The Diving
We did 19 boat dives in the nine days we were there. Antonio is the dive master, he is also an instructor. He was very competent and makes the dives educational and fun. He is good at pointing out the unusual critters. The dive boat worked everyday without issues. I know that in the past sometimes ILRs boats can be problematic, but not this trip. We never lost a dive on any of our previous trips due to boat issues. The shortest dive we had was 50 minutes and the longest about 85 minutes with average about 65 minutes.
I am not going to review each dive but will just give highlights. We did a new to us dive site Pablos Place. We did it as a drift. There were a number of large barrel sponges and each had a large lobster in it. The coral was very dense and in very good shape. We saw a turtle at about 120 ft. I swam down and got couple of good photos. I think this will become one of my favorite sites. We saw a lot of turtles during the trip, some large some small. We saw a very large green turtle with two large remoras. The unusual thing was the lime green color of one of the remoras. I saw two large barracuda feeding on a group of small fish out a little way from the wall. I found a well camouflaged scorpion fish; I found my first flamingo tongue. I found a small twig like pipe fish. On the night dive we found a large light tan toad fish. It was a very unusual color. We found some tear drop crabs in a purple vase sponge, these were a first for us. We saw some neck crabs, Petersen (sp?) shrimp, cork screw anemones, big yellow anemones and the usual fish and morays. On the last dive of the trip we were at around 70 feet when Antonio banged his tank and pointed up. We had a fly over of either a small (7-8 ft wing tip to wing tip) manta or Antonio thinks it was a lost (as in it should be in Pacific) mobula (sp?) ray. I got a picture but it was shooting up so it is almost a silhouette. But you can clearly see that it is a manta type ray. This was a very good last dive of this trip.
It was my first time taking pictures. I bought a Canon G9 with Canon housing. The pictures arent great but some came out ok. It would have worked out better if I did not leave the cameras instruction manual at home, advice that I captured from the Canon sub forum and the cameras usb cable on my end table. I will post some pictures when I learn how to do it.
