First I want to thank all the help I got in these forums and as retribution I will summarize (sorry, not very short really) my dive experience on this cruise ship vacation.
We (my girlfriend and I) boarded the Royal Caribbean ship Grandeur of the Seas in Colon, Panama on Nov. 28th, 2010 for a 7 night trip with ports of call in Cartagena in Colombia; Montego Bay in Jamaica; Georgetown in Grand Cayman; and Roatan in Honduras. I was already decided to dive in the 3 islands visited so I started my email inquiries to dive operators already in August. I finally settled with 3 operators (see my post when planning the cruise ) with Jamaica Scuba Divers Ltd aka Scuba Jamaica in Montego Bay, with Divers Down aka Cruise Diver in Georgetown and Barefoot Divers in Barefoot Cay Resort in Roatan.
My experience was quite mixed... but luckily it was from less to more, so the order of the trip was the correct one: the best diving was definitively Roatan.
Dec. 1st, Jamaica: It took me a while to get in touch with the driver that was sent to pick us up. The driver was finally contacted by a lady from the Tourist Info. boot at the cruise terminal. He then took us to the Wind Key resort just at the other side of the cruise ship docks bay, about a 5 min. ride. Inside the resort, which had a very nice private beach and swimming pool, plus bar and restaurant so my girl friend who does not dive could spend the 2.5 hours enjoying the facility, I was picked up directly on the beach by the dive boat. There were two other divers from the resort and we went to the first site: Spanish Anchor. Dive briefing was very simple and I was given my weights and tank while I assembled my gear. The boat was small so we used the roll back entry. Visibility was not the best as the weather had been rough during the previous days, but good enough (21m/70ft) and we enjoyed a very smooth dive with plenty of corals though the fish population was not great. The dive was not deeper than 14m and we visited 2 big old anchors. We also saw a medium sized lion fish. The DM called the dive at around 40min for the safety stop close to the boat mooring.
We returned to the resort for a surface interval of 1 hour, fill the usual forms and pay for the two dives (USD 90) and then went out again, this time with only me, and we went to another nearby site called Secrets (in front of Secrets Resort). This dive was deeper (down to 26m/85ft) and we swam around a wall and between many coral heads. Again the fish was not abundant with the exception of 5 lion fish which seem to have settled down here without any attempt to control them. What was not very nice to see was a big fish trap, like a big crab cage, that had several lobster and many coral fish trapped inside. This shows that fishing here is allowed and explains the lack of fish seen. At around 35 min the DM called me to the safety stop. I was then taken back to the beach and joined my girlfriend to be transported back to the ship. After lunch on the ship we went out again and hired a driver to show us a bit of Montego Bay, ride that we enjoyed very much.
Dec. 2nd, Grand Cayman: We were supposed to arrive directly in front of Georgetown port and then tendered off to port, but according to the ship captain, due to rough seas on that part of the island, we stopped in front of another place in the southern side of the island where other cruise ships were also waiting for the tender boats. I must admit that the tender dock was pretty rudimentary and had nothing but a pier for two tenders and a small construction for the personnel, so after disembarking the tender, we had to walk out of the pier and then find transportation on our own (for those not having arranged a ship excursion) which was quite messy as there were many minibuses and taxis, all calling for people to different places. I was lucky that I found 4 other divers from another ship that had appointed their dives with Divers Down too, so we managed to get all together in one of the minibuses and were taken directly to the Divers Down shop in Georgetown for USD 5 each. The dive shop was very well equipped and after a long process of filling forms and credit card charging, we finally headed out to the pier. There were around 10 divers, and since the seas were choppy, we were taken in two vans to a nearby pier that was better protected from the swells, where the dive boat picked us up. The boat was quite comfortable and while travelling to the first site we could assemble our gear and got a very good dive briefing. During the dive briefing I was assigned a dive buddy, a young man from Panama that to my surprise, he was on the same cruise ship as me, so we kept diving together for the rest of the cruise. First dive site was in Eagle's Nest, a nice wall typical of the island. Fish abundance was better than Jamaica though not great. Visibility was a bit better too, about 25m/80ft. We went down to 29m/95ft to get a good sight of the wall's corals. We were called to the safety stop at 40 min. The surface interval was spent on the boat with some snacks provided by the crew. The second dive was on a wreck "Oro Verde" that was sunk on purpose as artificial reef. The ship was badly torn by hurricane Gilbert and now it is spread over a large sandy area much closer to shore than the original place. The only part that survived was the bow, which hosts an old green moray that lives there since years. Depth was 15m/50ft and the dive was called at 45min. Since it was already quite late to get back to our ships on our own, the dive operator offered to take us back to the ship pier (a 20min ride) so we went back directly from the dive boat to the long line of cruise passengers waiting to board the tender. That line took us about 45 min to get on the tender boat, showing this operation to be the weakest part of Grand Cayman, for not having built a cruise pier after all these years... even though it looks a pretty rich country. They say it is to protect the reef... but I don't buy that.
Dec. 3rd, Roatan: We arrived at 10 AM LT to Roatan Coxen Hole port where we disembarked as quickly as possible (there was a bit of a mess inside the ship though, with long lines of people over the ship internal stairs) and looked for a taxi that could drive the three of us (my buddy from Panama and my girlfriend) to Barefoot Resort on the south of Roatan, but east of the ship port. Finally we got a car and quickly covered the 20 min ride to the resort where we were awaited by the dive boat. The Barefoot Divers dive shop looked excellent and fully equipped. I even got Nitrox. Since the day was not really appealing for a beach resort (cloudy and not so hot) my girlfriend decided to use the same taxi to do some sightseeing around the west end of the island while we dove. My buddy and I, and together with the DMs, decided we had enough time for two boat dives before needing to run back to the ship, so the taxi agreed to pick us up 45 min before the ship last boarding time. The first dive was to one of the most beautiful sites in Roatan: Mary's Place. This site is really awesome as it is a large coral platform that cracked in two parts, and these cracks go all the way down to more than 40m/130ft. The dive begins going down through one of the cracks to around 31m/105ft and swam through it until the exit at the wall side. Then we swam along the wall to enter a second crack and swam through until the exit on the other side of the platform. The cracks were quite narrow, just wide enough for one diver at a time. We ended the dive staying on top of the platform between 5m to 9m, where we made our safety stop. The site is really nice and we saw a lot of fish including a huge barracuda. This site is only allowed to be visited by experienced divers with good buoyancy control since indiscriminate use in the past made a lot of damage to it and had to be closed for a long time for recovery. The dive lasted 45 min. For the surface interval we went back to the resort where we had some snacks and the DMs had lunch. At around 1:30pm we went out for the second dive, this time only my buddy and I plus the DM because the two other divers from the previous dive decided not to dive anymore that day (I am sure they regretted that decision!). The dive site chosen, not far from the resort was John's Spot, where we found a very nice wall, full of corals and fish. We saw a couple of lion fish and two drum fish in different stages of growth, including a very tiny juvenile with its long featherlike dorsal fin. But the safety stop was going to give us the impression of a lifetime: just before we started the ascent to the surface, I heard a strange noise in my back, and as I turn my head, a big dolphin rushes passing very close to me, but too fast to allow me to turn on my video camera on time. I waited for a return but nothing happened. I was regretting having switched off the camera prematurely when I hear again the noise, this time louder and I almost dropped my regulator when I saw a large pod of around 8 or 10 bottle nose dolphins approaching from everywhere and swimming around me, quickly circling me faster than I could follow with my camera, and this lasted for perhaps 40 seconds that seemed like an eternity... I will never forget that; my first encounter with wild dolphins while scuba diving. One last dolphin came to check on me when I was already on the surface so I just submerged enough to get some more video of this very calm and nearby dolphin. You can check my videos here:
The pod circling us:
[youtubehq]jGviVDpXAuE[/youtubehq]
A dolphin that came later:
[youtubehq]AtUCdw3d1qY[/youtubehq]
Well, I was surprised that everybody in the boat were commenting about the dolphins circling mostly around me... it could be because of my strong video lights or, and I like to believe this one: I was telling the boat DM that when planning my dive trip to Roatan I immediately discarded diving with Anothonys Key Resort when I learned they keep a dolphinarium for tourists to swim/dive with dolphins paying big money. The dolphins are not animals that you can keep in captivity for many reasons, and furthermore, that is part of a millionaire industry of dolphin commerce where the dolphin slaughterers of Taiji, Japan take a big role. For anybody that has watched the documentary/movie The Cove, this is quite clear: Dolphinariums and dolphin killing go hand to hand.
Back in the dive shop, everybody was talking about our luck, especially the DM that had been working there for 2 years but this never happened to him before. Well, the return to the cruise ship was right in time as the taxi came as agreed to pick us up and reached the cruise terminal with time to buy a few souvenirs. I am so happy that I ended my dive vacation with such a highlight! Now, I only want to come back to Roatan and stay at least for a week of diving there.
Happy New Year 2011 to all of you and hoping it brings lots of good dives to all of us! (for me it brings at least San Andres, Colombia in a couple weeks, and Galapagos liveaboard in July :blinking
Peter
We (my girlfriend and I) boarded the Royal Caribbean ship Grandeur of the Seas in Colon, Panama on Nov. 28th, 2010 for a 7 night trip with ports of call in Cartagena in Colombia; Montego Bay in Jamaica; Georgetown in Grand Cayman; and Roatan in Honduras. I was already decided to dive in the 3 islands visited so I started my email inquiries to dive operators already in August. I finally settled with 3 operators (see my post when planning the cruise ) with Jamaica Scuba Divers Ltd aka Scuba Jamaica in Montego Bay, with Divers Down aka Cruise Diver in Georgetown and Barefoot Divers in Barefoot Cay Resort in Roatan.
My experience was quite mixed... but luckily it was from less to more, so the order of the trip was the correct one: the best diving was definitively Roatan.
Dec. 1st, Jamaica: It took me a while to get in touch with the driver that was sent to pick us up. The driver was finally contacted by a lady from the Tourist Info. boot at the cruise terminal. He then took us to the Wind Key resort just at the other side of the cruise ship docks bay, about a 5 min. ride. Inside the resort, which had a very nice private beach and swimming pool, plus bar and restaurant so my girl friend who does not dive could spend the 2.5 hours enjoying the facility, I was picked up directly on the beach by the dive boat. There were two other divers from the resort and we went to the first site: Spanish Anchor. Dive briefing was very simple and I was given my weights and tank while I assembled my gear. The boat was small so we used the roll back entry. Visibility was not the best as the weather had been rough during the previous days, but good enough (21m/70ft) and we enjoyed a very smooth dive with plenty of corals though the fish population was not great. The dive was not deeper than 14m and we visited 2 big old anchors. We also saw a medium sized lion fish. The DM called the dive at around 40min for the safety stop close to the boat mooring.
We returned to the resort for a surface interval of 1 hour, fill the usual forms and pay for the two dives (USD 90) and then went out again, this time with only me, and we went to another nearby site called Secrets (in front of Secrets Resort). This dive was deeper (down to 26m/85ft) and we swam around a wall and between many coral heads. Again the fish was not abundant with the exception of 5 lion fish which seem to have settled down here without any attempt to control them. What was not very nice to see was a big fish trap, like a big crab cage, that had several lobster and many coral fish trapped inside. This shows that fishing here is allowed and explains the lack of fish seen. At around 35 min the DM called me to the safety stop. I was then taken back to the beach and joined my girlfriend to be transported back to the ship. After lunch on the ship we went out again and hired a driver to show us a bit of Montego Bay, ride that we enjoyed very much.
Dec. 2nd, Grand Cayman: We were supposed to arrive directly in front of Georgetown port and then tendered off to port, but according to the ship captain, due to rough seas on that part of the island, we stopped in front of another place in the southern side of the island where other cruise ships were also waiting for the tender boats. I must admit that the tender dock was pretty rudimentary and had nothing but a pier for two tenders and a small construction for the personnel, so after disembarking the tender, we had to walk out of the pier and then find transportation on our own (for those not having arranged a ship excursion) which was quite messy as there were many minibuses and taxis, all calling for people to different places. I was lucky that I found 4 other divers from another ship that had appointed their dives with Divers Down too, so we managed to get all together in one of the minibuses and were taken directly to the Divers Down shop in Georgetown for USD 5 each. The dive shop was very well equipped and after a long process of filling forms and credit card charging, we finally headed out to the pier. There were around 10 divers, and since the seas were choppy, we were taken in two vans to a nearby pier that was better protected from the swells, where the dive boat picked us up. The boat was quite comfortable and while travelling to the first site we could assemble our gear and got a very good dive briefing. During the dive briefing I was assigned a dive buddy, a young man from Panama that to my surprise, he was on the same cruise ship as me, so we kept diving together for the rest of the cruise. First dive site was in Eagle's Nest, a nice wall typical of the island. Fish abundance was better than Jamaica though not great. Visibility was a bit better too, about 25m/80ft. We went down to 29m/95ft to get a good sight of the wall's corals. We were called to the safety stop at 40 min. The surface interval was spent on the boat with some snacks provided by the crew. The second dive was on a wreck "Oro Verde" that was sunk on purpose as artificial reef. The ship was badly torn by hurricane Gilbert and now it is spread over a large sandy area much closer to shore than the original place. The only part that survived was the bow, which hosts an old green moray that lives there since years. Depth was 15m/50ft and the dive was called at 45min. Since it was already quite late to get back to our ships on our own, the dive operator offered to take us back to the ship pier (a 20min ride) so we went back directly from the dive boat to the long line of cruise passengers waiting to board the tender. That line took us about 45 min to get on the tender boat, showing this operation to be the weakest part of Grand Cayman, for not having built a cruise pier after all these years... even though it looks a pretty rich country. They say it is to protect the reef... but I don't buy that.
Dec. 3rd, Roatan: We arrived at 10 AM LT to Roatan Coxen Hole port where we disembarked as quickly as possible (there was a bit of a mess inside the ship though, with long lines of people over the ship internal stairs) and looked for a taxi that could drive the three of us (my buddy from Panama and my girlfriend) to Barefoot Resort on the south of Roatan, but east of the ship port. Finally we got a car and quickly covered the 20 min ride to the resort where we were awaited by the dive boat. The Barefoot Divers dive shop looked excellent and fully equipped. I even got Nitrox. Since the day was not really appealing for a beach resort (cloudy and not so hot) my girlfriend decided to use the same taxi to do some sightseeing around the west end of the island while we dove. My buddy and I, and together with the DMs, decided we had enough time for two boat dives before needing to run back to the ship, so the taxi agreed to pick us up 45 min before the ship last boarding time. The first dive was to one of the most beautiful sites in Roatan: Mary's Place. This site is really awesome as it is a large coral platform that cracked in two parts, and these cracks go all the way down to more than 40m/130ft. The dive begins going down through one of the cracks to around 31m/105ft and swam through it until the exit at the wall side. Then we swam along the wall to enter a second crack and swam through until the exit on the other side of the platform. The cracks were quite narrow, just wide enough for one diver at a time. We ended the dive staying on top of the platform between 5m to 9m, where we made our safety stop. The site is really nice and we saw a lot of fish including a huge barracuda. This site is only allowed to be visited by experienced divers with good buoyancy control since indiscriminate use in the past made a lot of damage to it and had to be closed for a long time for recovery. The dive lasted 45 min. For the surface interval we went back to the resort where we had some snacks and the DMs had lunch. At around 1:30pm we went out for the second dive, this time only my buddy and I plus the DM because the two other divers from the previous dive decided not to dive anymore that day (I am sure they regretted that decision!). The dive site chosen, not far from the resort was John's Spot, where we found a very nice wall, full of corals and fish. We saw a couple of lion fish and two drum fish in different stages of growth, including a very tiny juvenile with its long featherlike dorsal fin. But the safety stop was going to give us the impression of a lifetime: just before we started the ascent to the surface, I heard a strange noise in my back, and as I turn my head, a big dolphin rushes passing very close to me, but too fast to allow me to turn on my video camera on time. I waited for a return but nothing happened. I was regretting having switched off the camera prematurely when I hear again the noise, this time louder and I almost dropped my regulator when I saw a large pod of around 8 or 10 bottle nose dolphins approaching from everywhere and swimming around me, quickly circling me faster than I could follow with my camera, and this lasted for perhaps 40 seconds that seemed like an eternity... I will never forget that; my first encounter with wild dolphins while scuba diving. One last dolphin came to check on me when I was already on the surface so I just submerged enough to get some more video of this very calm and nearby dolphin. You can check my videos here:
The pod circling us:
[youtubehq]jGviVDpXAuE[/youtubehq]
A dolphin that came later:
[youtubehq]AtUCdw3d1qY[/youtubehq]
Well, I was surprised that everybody in the boat were commenting about the dolphins circling mostly around me... it could be because of my strong video lights or, and I like to believe this one: I was telling the boat DM that when planning my dive trip to Roatan I immediately discarded diving with Anothonys Key Resort when I learned they keep a dolphinarium for tourists to swim/dive with dolphins paying big money. The dolphins are not animals that you can keep in captivity for many reasons, and furthermore, that is part of a millionaire industry of dolphin commerce where the dolphin slaughterers of Taiji, Japan take a big role. For anybody that has watched the documentary/movie The Cove, this is quite clear: Dolphinariums and dolphin killing go hand to hand.
Back in the dive shop, everybody was talking about our luck, especially the DM that had been working there for 2 years but this never happened to him before. Well, the return to the cruise ship was right in time as the taxi came as agreed to pick us up and reached the cruise terminal with time to buy a few souvenirs. I am so happy that I ended my dive vacation with such a highlight! Now, I only want to come back to Roatan and stay at least for a week of diving there.
Happy New Year 2011 to all of you and hoping it brings lots of good dives to all of us! (for me it brings at least San Andres, Colombia in a couple weeks, and Galapagos liveaboard in July :blinking
Peter
