Utila Dive Shops with Social Distancing?

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poorstudentdiver

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Location
California
# of dives
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Has anyone been to Utila recently and have recommendations for dive shops which practice social distancing?

I have a fully refundable flight to Roatan in March. I planned on spending most of it in Utila so I looked at a few social media pages of dive shops. The pictures I see are a bit concerning. Very packed boats, no masks, and people hanging out maskless and in close quarters on land.

I accept there are inherent risks to travel right now - but there are some things just outside of my risk tolerance.

Fwiw, I went to Cozumel last July and was happy with their safety standards. I was on small or medium boats and it was rarely difficult to maintain 6 ft of distance from others.

I also welcome recommendations for Roatan dive shops which limit boat capacity. Currently considering Seagrapes since it was recommended by some others on a FB group I'm in. I know Cocoview and AKR are super popular but they are out of my price range.
 
Can't speak to Utila, but we stay in Roatan every year (have a place that's available for rent if you're interested). We like West End, and our place is walking distance to town. Sun Divers is highly recommended, but there are a lot of ops there and quite a few can be recommended by folks here on SB that have experience with them. There's other threads on here too for places to stay/dive in Roatan.

Our place is going to be cheaper than AKR etc. but doesn't include food. We have a full kitchen and a grill, or you can walk into town and eat from either street vendors ($5/meal) all the way up to nicer restaurants at $30/meal. We have 5 kids and we cook or use certain street vendors most of the time, and use the restaurants for one or two meals.

If you don't need a house to rent, there are also apartments available.
 
There are very few visitors on Utila at the moment, most dive boats only have 5-6 people on board and people are definitely serious about covid safety. Can't predict what it will be like in March unless you're planning on coming during Semana Santa (the week starting March 28th), which will probably be a sh*t show and best to be avoided (I don't even go to Utila town during Semana Santa on a normal year).
 
Packed boats? Are you sure the pics aren't pre-covid?
 
Packed boats? Are you sure the pics aren't pre-covid?
Thank you everyone for your replies!

I was also surprised at how busy these dive shops seemed since I was also under the impression that Utila was super quiet right now. Utila Dive Center in particular looks extremely busy.

It's possible that the Stories on Instagram are old pics/videos, but people generally use the Stories function to post current pictures. I'm fairly sure that they were taken after the pandemic hit, since I see 1/20 people wearing masks.
 
Can't speak to Utila, but we stay in Roatan every year (have a place that's available for rent if you're interested). We like West End, and our place is walking distance to town. Sun Divers is highly recommended, but there are a lot of ops there and quite a few can be recommended by folks here on SB that have experience with them. There's other threads on here too for places to stay/dive in Roatan.

Our place is going to be cheaper than AKR etc. but doesn't include food. We have a full kitchen and a grill, or you can walk into town and eat from either street vendors ($5/meal) all the way up to nicer restaurants at $30/meal. We have 5 kids and we cook or use certain street vendors most of the time, and use the restaurants for one or two meals.

If you don't need a house to rent, there are also apartments available.
I’m going to Roatan in April and I would love to hear your recommendations for the street food vendors. Something else we are interested in is to hire a cook/chef to cook for us. There will be 5 of us renting a house in West Bay and we don’t want to spend too much of our time cooking and doing dishes.
 
Let's be honest.

The CDC is urging people not to travel. Those people who are traveling to tropical dive vacations are ignoring that guidance. They don't think the rules apply to them, they don't want to put up with the inconveniences of wearing masks, deferring travel, or anything else. There are 100 excuses we have all heard (and they will be along to post some of them here in a minute).

To me, it seems naive and unrealistic to expect those same people who are ignoring the CDC guidance to start behaving differently once they arrive at their vacation destination. Actually, quite the opposite seems to be what I see in live cam views of various tropical resorts. Find some webcams, look at all the people crowded together and note how few are wearing a mask (or even just pretending to wear the chin-diaper). Keep in mind that plenty of people go to these places specifically so they can get away from the "covid restrictions" they have at home.

People refuse take the pandemic seriously (which is why it continues to be a pandemic). Seems it's just too much to ask of them to wear a mask, stay 6 feet away from others, defer their non-essential travel, etc. If you go, that's who you'll be sharing your space with, so accept it.
 
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