The view from our room across Half Moon Bay, West End... well across the road from our room, at the bar across the street, aptly named "Sundowners"
In one of the many inspired moments involved during the planning of our year-off extravaganza, I think it was a conversation with Sam Wee at a bar, later confirmed by Mike Debelak that Honduras is "cheap as chips" for diving. Thus, with little further discussion, we made room in our itinerary for a journey to this amazing part of the world.After a fairly eventful journey to Roatán (refer to "Steph vomit" story in preceding blog below), we arrived without incident on the evening of Sunday Jan 20 at "Chillies" - a hostel that we had booked in advance from Antigua. One of the main reasons that we chose Chillies was due to the fact that it was attached to a dive shop with a great reputation for exploring the reef around Roatán, Native Sons.
After arriving at Chillies, we spent the next day relaxing, reading some books and then signing up for the dives that we wanted to do over the next week and a half. After looking at our options, we decided to book in for a Refresher Dive the next day, then the five dives required for our Advanced Ticket, as well as an Enriched Air or "Nitrox" course and exam.SCUBA diving is hopefully going to be a big part of our year off, with diving trips planned for the Red Sea and Thailand. As such, particularly for diving WWII wrecks off the coast of Egypt, we wanted to get our qualifications for diving to the deeper levels where these wrecks are located. The Enriched Air qualification allows the use of higher oxygen blends that allow you to stay deeper longer, thus getting the most out of your dives.
Anyway, enough technical information, Roatán is an absolutely amazing spot. Even though it is the "most expensive spot in Honduras", costs were generally very easy to keep down. The
example that sticks out most in my mind is, of course, the beers. After a day's diving, it was great to relax with a couple of cold "Barenas" (basically Honduran Coronas) at Sundowners, the bar across the street, for roughly US$1.50 each during Happy Hour - 4pm to 7pm everyday!
It's difficult to sum up a week and half's diving when you don't have photos (neither of us have underwater cameras), however we can definitely say that the diving was some of the best that Steph and I have ever done.
To get our advanced dive ticket, we had to do five different types of "Specialty Dives", two mandatory dives being a Navigation and Deep dive, as well as three dives of our choice, for which we chose a Night dive, Wreck dive and Peak Performance Buoyancy (Steph chose that one).
Probably the one that sticks out most in my head was the Night Dive, where we went out in the boat at sunset, around 5:30pm, and dove on Overheat reef, about 10 minutes or so out of Half Moon Bay. We weren't sure how much we were going to see, as there was supposed to be a full moon that night, which can make the viewing of certain underwater life that glows more difficult to see.
Luckily, the moon was obscured by cloud which allowed us to see the "strings of pearls", organisms that appear just after night fall in strings of light, like slowly falling luminescent raindrops over our heads by the hundreds. This was also in addition to the many nocturnal coral lobsters and huge crabs that we saw crawling across the reef by our flashlights. It was a truly amazing experience and, once some of us had overcome their trepidation about diving at nighttime, it is one that I'm sure we'd love to repeat.
The diving was brilliant, we got our new accreditations and we also did some extra fun dives to top off a sensational week and a half. Many thanks to Native Sons and our instructors, Jack and Andrea, as well as the other divemasters, Troy and Peter, that made our diving so enjoyable. We also met some great people who were also diving at Native Sons.
From left to right, includes Michael (cotton farmer from Arkansas), as well as Tim and Alex (brother and sister from NZ).
Roatán wasn't just all about the diving. We also walked the 4kms round the island to West Bay, full of resorts, however also a beautiful beach, with clear water and fine white sand. The walk was nice, however next time we'll take the US$2 water taxi that takes about 5 mins.
We fit in a visit to the Roatán Butterfly Garden, which houses many species of native birds, including toucáns and very friendly parrots as well as an enormous butterfly house.
Luckily, the moon was obscured by cloud which allowed us to see the "strings of pearls", organisms that appear just after night fall in strings of light, like slowly falling luminescent raindrops over our heads by the hundreds. This was also in addition to the many nocturnal coral lobsters and huge crabs that we saw crawling across the reef by our flashlights. It was a truly amazing experience and, once some of us had overcome their trepidation about diving at nighttime, it is one that I'm sure we'd love to repeat.
The diving was brilliant, we got our new accreditations and we also did some extra fun dives to top off a sensational week and a half. Many thanks to Native Sons and our instructors, Jack and Andrea, as well as the other divemasters, Troy and Peter, that made our diving so enjoyable. We also met some great people who were also diving at Native Sons.
From left to right, includes Michael (cotton farmer from Arkansas), as well as Tim and Alex (brother and sister from NZ).
Roatán wasn't just all about the diving. We also walked the 4kms round the island to West Bay, full of resorts, however also a beautiful beach, with clear water and fine white sand. The walk was nice, however next time we'll take the US$2 water taxi that takes about 5 mins.
We fit in a visit to the Roatán Butterfly Garden, which houses many species of native birds, including toucáns and very friendly parrots as well as an enormous butterfly house.
We also made time to head out to Anthony's Key Resort (we stupidly walked for one and a half hours, thinking that it was just around the corner) to see "Los Dolfines" - the dolphins. They have a 4pm show that puts Seaworld to shame...well, almost. It was a lot of fun, Steph got to see dolphins (and wanted to pet them) and best of all, it was FREE!
All in all, Roatán was a sensational spot and one where we would have wanted to stay at longer, however we knew that we couldn't as Carnaval in Rio beckoned. Unfortunately, we were on a fixed schedule that couldn't be changed.
We hope to come back to the Bay Islands again one day, with more time to explore the reef, maybe the other island, Utila, and more room in our packs for cheesy T-shirts and souvenirs!
We hope to come back to the Bay Islands again one day, with more time to explore the reef, maybe the other island, Utila, and more room in our packs for cheesy T-shirts and souvenirs!
