Following the Dream

Christian June 3rd, 2008

 The Bay Islands, Honduras

We arrived into Roatan Airport nice and early on Saturday the 24th.  It was very hot when we left the airport.  After haggling for a good taxi price, we were on our way to the hostel/hotel that we had reservations at.  They did not have our room ready, but said it would be ready in 15 mins, which was great.  So in the meantime we took a walk down the main road in the West End.  It is a sand road with restaurants, sovienir shops, and dive shops lining it.  When we were back to the hotel, they led us to the room.  It was super nice, complete with a kitchen and private bathroom.  We even got to meet the local resident monkeys that they have on site.  After dropping our bags and taking a quick break, we headed out to Coconut Tree Divers.  Over email we had set up a refresher dive and a fun dive for Sunday.  At the shop we met a couple of people and set up our advanced class for Monday as well.  It seems like a great place to dive with.  We spent the rest of the afternoon walking the street and finding some groceries.  We made a late lunch in our room and then headed out for the advertised happy hour at Sundowners.

We ended up staying at happy hour for way to long.  After a bunch of drinks, including a Monkey Lala (Extra Stong frozen drink) we stumbled down the sandy road to a little shack that was serving up Baleadas (Honduran style soft tacos).  Maybe it was the tacos, maybe it was the Monkey LaLa, but Casey was in for a long night worshipping the porcelain gods.  Needless to say we felt terrible for the maid the next day.  We could not even walk in the bathroom without gagging on the smell of vomit.

We were off to our refresher course on Scuba diving with Marco.  It went very well, we remembered way more than we had though.  It was taught in shallow water, so we did not really see anything.  After the lesson we had a few hours to relax.  We enjoyed the beach right out front of the hotel and swam around for a bit in the crystal clear waters. 

It was nice.  Of course I got stung by a jellyfish right in my armpit.  I am a target for jellyfish it seems.  We made our way back to the dive shop (a whole 1.5 min walk) and got geared up for our fun dive.  It was a good one to get started on, we stayed at around 60 feet and saw tons of coral.  After the dive, we headed back to the hotel, relaxed on the beach for a while longer and then made some dinner before passing out super early.

The next day we were excited to start our Advanced Open Water class.  The first dive of the class was the deep dive.  We were a bit worried about it since we were going all the way down to 120 feet.  Marco briefed us on the dive and told us that we would be doing a number puzzle at 120 feet and then have to do it at the surface to compare our results.  Nitrogen Narcosis happens at 100ft and below and is supposed to affect the thinking of some people (almost like alcohol).  We went down to 122 feet and did the puzzle, it was hard to do since we were on a sandy bottom that was on a decline and we felt like we were slipping.  In the Caribbean waters, it did not seem that different from 60 feet due to the clarity of the water.  At the surface, I learned that I had the fastest time at depth.  We then completed the puzzle on the boat, and we all did the puzzle a bit faster.  It was crazy.  The next dive of the day was the Peak Buoyancy Performance dive.  On that dive, we practiced our buoyancy underwater.  We swam through hoops and hovered midwater.  It was not that “fun”, but it was a good thing to practice.  We relaxed for the rest of the day and made some dinner.

The next day we were informed that our instructor changed to Jose.  We quickly noticed that he was the “Don Juan” of the instructors, talking it up with one of the girls in our class.  He was very nice, as were the rest of the people at the shop.  He has been diving for 15 years and teaching for 10, so we felt very comfortable with him.  Our first dive of the second day was to a wreck.  It was at 110 feet deep.  It was very cool descending to it, with tons of huge Groupers circling around us.  When we got to the bottom we saw a bunch of eels coming out of the sand.  We did a couple of swim throughs, going through different holes in the ship.  It was in one piece when it was sank, but was ripped into three main pieces by the last hurricane.  It was cool to explore it.  After the wreck, I was running low on air so I surfaced first, while the rest of the group finished up.  Next we headed out to another spot where we worked on our underwater navigation.  We learned to use a compass to navigate underwater and find our way back.  Towards the end of the dive we even ran into a 5 foot nurse shark.  It was pretty cool to see.

After the dive was over we had a break of a couple hours to relax before the final dive of the advanced program, the night dive.  We enjoyed some more beach and ate some food before heading back to the shop. 

Jose briefed us on the dive and we got all of the equipment ready before heading out, since it would be dark.  Plunging into the dark sea was a little bit scary at first.  Once we started descending we turned on the lights that they gave us (pretty much a waterproof flashlight and not much else).  The water had a creepy feeling to it.  You could see what your light was shining on and not too much else.  Along the dive, we saw a couple of lobsters, eels, and crabs.  We swam through underwater channels which was very cool.  After the channels, we stopped at a sandy patch and turned our lights off.  It was super dark just sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor.  After a few moments, we started seeing nature’s underwater light show.  The phosphorescents started lighting up in front of us.  There were string of pearls that kind of hung in the water and looked like stars lighting up the water around us.  It was very cool.  After the light show, we surfaced to see a dark sky filled with stars.  There was no moon, so all of the stars really stood out.  After the night dive we headed back to the room for a movie and some popcorn.  We are now officially advanced open water divers.

The next two days were spent relaxing on the beach and in the room.  It rained on and off.  We were supposed to dive, but neither of us was feeling 100% so we postponed it for the next day.  On the second day, we started feeling a bit better and took out the sea kayak into the bay.  It was fun and nice to get some exercise.  After taking the sea kayak in, we stayed at the beach for a bit.  Of course another jellyfish stung me.  The time it was my belly button who was the victim of the sting.  I don’t understand why they have to sting me in obscure places.  That night we went out for happy hour again and then went to eat out at the Argentinean steak house at our hotel.  It was expensive ($12-$15 a plate), but so good.  They gave huge portions and we had enough for dinner the next night.  We made our way upstairs to pass out for the night with full stomachs.

Our last full day on the island, we went to the dive shop to try and sign up for a dive.  Unfortunately the waves were too big and they had canceled the boat for the afternoon.  But luckily they arranged something special for Casey and I.  There was an open water student that needed to finish up 2 skills before leaving the next day, so they agreed to take us to the other side of the island to do a shore dive.  We took the dive shops SUV to the other side and geared up.  It was crazy going in from the beach.  The waves were 2-3 feet high and made it tough to put flippers on and whatnot.  Once we got under, the open water student completed his skills he needed to pass and we were on with our dive.  It was a pretty neat dive.  We swam along coral and then got to a wall.  Here it dropped off to below 200 feet.  We stayed at 60 feet and swam along the wall.  We saw some very cool fish along the way, along with really cool coral.  It was a great ending dive.

We had a few farewell beers at the shop and one more at Sundowners before heading to the room to pack for our 5:30 departure the next day.   All in all, Roatan was terrific.  It was an amazing time.  The place we stayed at was fantastic and the people there were great.  It is such a pretty island, we will definitely return one day.

• Honduras
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