Roatan, Honduras – The Reef House Resort

Saturday 18 July 2009

 

Catie, Greg, Richard, Samma, & Terri arrive at the airport on the island of Roatan, Honduras three weeks into the “coup”.  We see nothing out of the ordinary – lines to go through customs :(  We clear customs and start gathering bags... 1 missing bag, with all of Samma's dive gear :(  report it to the Delta people, and hope for the best.  Mike and an airport porter help us as we all load into the van headed to the resort and along the way Mike asks “So how many of yall want to dive this afternoon?”  Everyone just kinda looks around and then a chorus of ‘me's’is the response.

 

We get to the resort and drop our bags in our rooms and enjoy a wonderful lunch. Then grab our gear and head to the boat.  Mike sets Samma up with a complete set of gear from mask (head) to fins (toes), and out we go.  It is a very short boat ride out to the dive site and we are at the site prior to leaving the dock it seems.  It is literally just outside the channel and to the west.

 

Dive one: Church Wall West – nice easy 'checkout' dive.  Mike leads us down through a sand channel and out to the wall.  We head west along the wall and work our way back up on top of the wall and back to the boat. -- this turns out to be the pattern going forward.  We saw Eyed Flounder, plenty of bright little fishes and tons of healthy soft corals, sponges and hard corals.   

 

After the dive, we return to the resort and relax on the deck over-looking the tide pool with the ocean beyond.  There is an 'honor' bar where you have an index card to mark what you take.  $1 for a soda (real Coke, made with sugar rather than corn syrup, Fresca or Sprite), $2 for a beer (local brews), and $3 for a mixed drink (various alcohols and mixers).

 

After supper we log our dives and one by one drift off to bed.  Mike had asked if there were any early risers and gave Richard a key to the “community room” to start the coffee in the morning.

 

Sunday 19 July 2009

 

Breakfast is served at 8AM the next morning and the dive boat leaves at 9AM.

 

Dive two: Casa Blanca Wall – another easy dive where we hooked a mooring ball and met the DM Davit in his office (the sand under the boat).  We did a group dive where we follow the DM along the wall up over the wall and back above the wall and to the boat.  The corals are abundant but fish life is sparse with no apex predators seen.  Davit did scare us up a Lettuce Sea Slug :)

 

Dive three: Calvin's Crack – we start the dive looking for a frog fish that Davit sees in the area a lot.  No joy :(  Samma has ear issues and aborts the dive to sun on the boat.  We head down through the crack and out onto the wall.  This location is used by all the dive services, and you can tell the difference.  When he found a filefish, I mimicked filing my nails and he started laughing.  (He used the same signal later on the trip).  Still, the area is lovely and Davit lets me stay down and hang near the boat while he & everyone else boards.  It is relaxing to just float around looking for small critters.  During the dive Richard tried to drown the DM through laughter. 

 

Back to the resort for another wonderful lunch followed by a siesta before our afternoon dive.

 

Dive four: Coco Wall – there is not a mooring ball at this site which is the first one that we haven't had one on (Mike says the resort maintains most of the moorings on this part of the island), but rather than anchor, the boat will 'drift' (under power) above us during the dive.  We got to see two, count them, two seahorses on this dive!  Most of us had never seen a seahorse in the wild and this was incredible!  The first one was yellow, wrapped around some finger coral in a location hard to capture with the camera, but the second one, rust-brown with white banding was much easier to shoot.

 

Big pretty green moray eels, huge and tiny crabs and lobsters everywhere!  After the dive we headed back to the resort and relaxed on the deck over the tide pool again and enjoyed the bar, the scenery, sharing pictures, stories and the friends. 

Monday 20 July 2009

 

It poured rain in the morning; so far no sunrises.  We gathered in the community room and waited out the storm while waiting for breakfast.  Breakfast was served at 8AM and was wonderful!

 

Dive five: Port Royal Gorge – Nice wall dive.  First thing we see when we get into the water is a 4 foot nurse shark.  The corals are prettier the farther east we go.  Richard spotted a scorpionfish.  There was a large grouper out off the wall.  As we were about to drop the mooring a squid squad was spotted, and Samma was the only person to grab mask and jump in to see them.

 

Dive six: Gorgonia Alley – Fun site.  There was a wall, and this part was covered with tons of gorgonia fans.  The corals are definitely better to the east.  There were a lot of arrow blennies off the wall – fun to watch but hard to photograph. Nice green eel found by Davit.  Samma and Richard stayed down a little longer and spotted a free swimming green moray.  We naturally had to chase it with our cameras in video mode, and when it stopped, switched to camera mode to get additional shots.

 

Back to the resort for lunch and relaxation before our afternoon dive.

 

Dive seven: Tortuga Wall – There was plenty to see including 3 different varieties of moray eel: green, spotted, & golden. The visibility was not the greatest, and when Samma stopped to photo a green eel, Davit continued to the boat with Greg & Terri, so Catie, Samma & Richard slowly made our way towards the boat and Davit appeared out of the gloom, returning to us.  Just before we got back on the boat, Davit located a Lettuce Sea Slug (small one).

 

We returned to the resort to relax and await supper and took this time to enjoy the honor bar and view our pictures.  Terri & Samma got some great pictures, Richard did ok.

 

After dinner, we logged our dives and enjoyed the night sky.  The views would be incredible if we had a nice scope down here.  The skies are incredible!  While Terri & Greg talked with Hugh (the neighbor who eats with us everyday), Catie checked out the tide pool with a light and her camera (so there were lightning flashes under the water), and Samma & I walked to the end of the pier to look for bio-luminescent critters (her) and to enjoy the stars (me).

 

We slowly drifted off to bed at our own paces to catch some shut eye before starting it all over again :)

 

Tuesday 21 July 2009

 

It rained again this morning, earlier than yesterday, while most everyone was still in bed.  We had another wonderful breakfast before heading out to dive this morning.

 

Dive eight:  Keyhole Wall – This is the first time we see another dive boat so far this trip!  And there are two of them farther to the west than we are.  Nice site with plenty of life.  We headed toward the wall, and dropped down through a slot/canyon out onto the wall at about 80'.  We saw black coral, plenty of soft, hard corals, and quite a few fishes.  There was a black grouper cruising off the wall that was pretty cool.

 

Dive nine: Alcoholic Dog Wall – Another very pretty wall dive – Davit says this site is so perfect because the other operators don't come here.  The difference in the keyhole swim-thru vs this one is astonishing.  Plenty of gorgonia, pillar corals (polyps out during the day) that stood up off the top of the wall.  Terri got to see the Lettuce Sea Slug on this dive, but her camera was in the wrong mode to photograph it :(

 

Back to the resort to relax for the afternoon, since we planned for a night dive today, there would be no afternoon dive from the boat.  So after lunch we had planned for a shore dive.

 

Dive ten: Reef House Wall – Shore entry is from a concrete pier.  You then swim to the southeast to the wall, or in our case a sand shoot that takes you down to 100' before reaching the edge of the wall.  It is a nice dive, and we are talking about trying it as a night dive :)    

 

Due to the night dive, we had an early supper (5:30 rather than 7PM), but they held the dessert until after the dive (pineapple upside down cake). 

 

Dive eleven: Reef House Wall – They motored us out and around the cay to a buoy at the edge of the wall on the opposite side from where we had dove earlier in the day.  The amount of life out was incredible.  There were brittle starfish everywhere you looked.  There were quite a lot of spiny lobsters, and to quote a couple of our members, “there were so many you got bored seeing them.”  The shrimp, many varieties, were out in abundance too.  We saw several crabs, and Samma gets the “spot o' the dive” with the octopus.

 

When we returned to the resort, Mike was waiting with hot coffee, and the dessert.  We polished that off while examining our pictures from the day and logging our dives.  Terri showed us the video of her trip to the Bahamas last summer aboard the Nekton Pilot.  Looked like a really fun trip.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

 

Another incredible morning in paradise.  It rained again this morning, and the winds have picked up, so the seas are not as calm as they have been.  The mainland did appear in the distance today, clear enough to see the mountains about 26 miles away.

 

Dive twelve: Paradise wall – Nice easy dive with great corals.  Richard blew a seal on this dive, and he and Samma returned to the boat early.  Catie, Greg, Terri and Davit circled back and enjoyed a leisurely swim back.  There was a fish in the cleaner station, plenty of eels, and in general a nice amount of fish and corals.

 

Choco, the boat captain, repaired Richard's gear before everyone returned to the boat.  They had forgotten the water for the boat, so we returned to the dock between dives to get the water bottle.

 

Dive thirteen: Too Tall, Too Small – just east of the inlet for the resort was a nice wall.  There were a lot of interesting things to see.  The highlight of the dive was a pipefish.  It was amazing to see it :)  There were lobsters, crabs, and fish oh my, in abundance. 

 

Back to the resort for lunch and a siesta.  Greg had a headache, and decided to relax rather than dive the afternoon dive.

 

Dive fourteen: Two Hungry Sisters – Davit explains the name is because there are two women that always seem to be eating on the deck of a house on the shore here.  This was a nice site, Davit whistled up a nudibranch [actually a Leopard Flatworm] none of us had seen before – looked like a monarch butterfly. There was plenty to see including plenty more lobsters, crabs & eels: oh my!

 

More relaxing followed the dive, then sharing of photos, eating a fabulous meal and more relaxing.  After dinner, Mike turned off the outside lights so we could see the stars, but the storm on the mainland had cloud cover over most of the sky.  We did stroll to the end of the pier looking for bio-luminescence, but didn't see much :(  Before heading to bed, we check the tide pool, and spotted 3 octopuses.  Two of them were very small.

 

Thursday 23 July 2009

 

It is windy again this morning, but still an awesome site!  After breakfast we headed to the boat for the longest boat ride so far.  We head to a site right off shore from Fantasy Island and Coco View Resorts.

 

Dive fifteen: Fish Soup – There are tons of fish on this site.  Davit carried a plastic bottle stuffed with bread to feed the fish.  The chub were always close by to swoop in when the bread came out.  There was a black grouper in the 40 lb range with a remora hitchhiker that joined us, and several yellow finned groupers joined also.  We did see lobsters, crabs, and eels again this dive.  There was a fire worm spotted, and another red & white SeaHorse!  This site showed more damage than other sites, more likely because the 2 resorts here both dive this site, from what we are lead to believe, daily.  Whenever I see damaged reefs from heavily visited sites, I wish every diver spent more time working on their buoyancy. 

 

Dive sixteen: Church Wall – This was the first time all week we had doubled up on a site.  We dove a different part of the wall from the first dive, so still a 'new' site to us.  Davit was hoping to show us seahorses, but 'only' managed to whistle up a pipefish ;)  The corals are nice, the fish are abundant, and the diving great.  One of the highlights of this dive for Richard was it was his 700^th dive.  Before the dive, Davit & Choco spotted a pilot whale in the near distance.  At the end of the dive Samma found a scorpinfish right below the boat.

 

Back to the resort just in time for lunch, a quick siesta, and then back to the boat for the afternoon dive.

 

Dive seventeen: Lighthouse Wall – This was a short boat ride, just outside the west side of the inlet where the resort is. We got to see a free swimming green moray eel at the beginning of the dive.  We also spotted 2 turtles during the dive, and Terri managed to chase one down for a photo op.  Lots of lobsters, a really big crab, and eels a plenty.  Fish and coral life nice. 

Back at the resort for some relaxing, reading, drinking, eating, and logging of our dives.  Everyone seemed tired and started drifting off to bed at 8PM.

Friday 24 July 2009

Another windy morning in paradise.  We had another awesome breakfast before heading out for our last 2 dives.

 

Dive Eighteen: Kitty Wall – Once again another nice wall dive.  Saw a large black grouper, lobsters, crabs, and eels ;)  Wouldn't be a dive here without them.  Tried for our first group shot, and missed Greg & Catie.  We saw a Fantasy Island and Coco View boat and it looked like they there both moored to the same ball.  Can't believe how many people those resorts have on board, and then to double up and put on the same site.

 

Dive Nineteen: Lucy Pointe – Last dive of the trip :(  We made the most of it and burned up all we could of our air.  The dives ranged from 72 to 80 minutes.  Nice pretty seascapes, tons of coral and fishes.  Below the boat was a squad of squid.  Catie harassed a starfish, and we have photo proof of it :) We tried again for a group shot, this time we missed Terri :(   

 

After the dive, back to the resort for another fabulous lunch, then clean up and head for town for tourist junk.  The carving place was closed as was most of the tourist trappy places, as there are no cruise lines ships in port.  We probably spent more money as a group than most people on the island make in a month...

 

After dinner of steak and lobster, we logged our dives and retired to the deck over the tide pool for a drink and to look at the stars/listen to the waves for one last evening.  Samma got the flashlight and walked the tide pool looking for stuff.  She spotted several octopuses and even got close enough for one to wrap her finger as it retreated into his crack.  It was a cute little feller.

Saturday 25 July 2009

Our last morning in paradise.  Very windy and thunder this morning.  We start packing, enjoy our last meal, finish packing the dive gear and head for the aeroporto to fly back to reality.  During a week of diving as the only people at the resort, we have gone from social acquaintances to friends.  Everyone enjoyed the trip, the diving, and the comradeary.  Mike and the staff made this an excellent week in paradise.  It rained, and the water was rough, so it made leaving a little easier.

Samma and I decided to get a popoki (cat) when we returned from Hawaii.  We have been looking and yesterday found and returned home with Champ.  Neither of us liked the name, so we each came up with 2 names, and 1 of Samma's names ended up asthe winner -- Kona.

Here are some shots of him:

My brick from Centinial Olympic Park.

Our wedding was 1 week ago today on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Today is our next to last day in paradise,  My lovely wife is still sleeping.  We have done so many incredible things over the last week, but the wedding with 21 family and friends here in Hawaii on the beach at sunset is most definitely the highlight of the trip.  Will have to post some pictures and better discription of the trip when I have more time in front of a keyboard.

Bags are packed, and I'm ready to go.  Our flight is tomorrow morning!  Hawaii here we come!  Seems like we are going to be the last ones there.  Our parents, my brother & his kids, Lisa and her family are all already in Hawaii!

This time tomorrow, we will be in Hawaii!  72 hours from now, we will be gathering on the beach for the wedding!

But not for very much longer, I've got to keep control...

Can count the days on one hand now!