September 2000 Roatan Trip Report

Text and images Copyright (C) 2000 David M. Read

All pictures are hyperlinks.  Click on any picture to see a larger version.

Getting There & Back

Getting there was easier than the last time we flew to Roatan, a trip that saw us detoured through El Salvador.  This time, Taca departed Houston more or less on time, and we arrived on Roatan within a few minutes of schedule.  The AKR staff people met us there and positively blazed us through customs.  I handed the AKR person all of my family's passports, customs papers, and return tickets, and they handled the rest.  The only thing I had to do for myself was to grab my luggage off the carousel and move it over to a counter where the AKR people tagged it for delivery to the resort.  I did not have to talk to customs people, endure any sort of search (not even the common "red light / green light" system), or drag bags around the airport.  The AKR staff loaded everything onto a truck and took it to the resort, and later vectored our bags to our cabin.  Wow.

The return trip to the USA was not as painless, but that was hardly the fault of AKR or Taca.  Hurricane Keith was in charge of our travel plans, and he dictated a 3+ hour delay leaving Roatan. Oh well.  Otherwise, the return flight was as easy as the outbound leg.  AKR staff collected our bags in the morning and took them to the airport.  They had already confirmed our flight and paid the departure tax (we had to supply the cash for that, of course), and returned all of our documents & tickets to us.  All we had to do was check our bags in with Taca and wait for an airplane.

The Weather

OK, note to self: do not go to Roatan in any month that ends in "ber."   Last time around it was mid-November, and the rainy season was in full force, with storms costing us several days of diving.  This time around, Hurricane Keith and his associated weather rained on us virtually every day, and the runoff from the storms hammered the visibility in the water.

The Accomodations

The Food

AKR's kitchen is a fantastic operation.  The "usual" kitchen was under renovation, so we ate all of our meals (except two) at the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS), which is where the dolphins live.  Basically, we sat in the same location every meal, looking out over the main dolphin pens.  The dolphins jumped, splashed, and generally cavorted while we ate.  Chairs that looked out over the pen were in high demand.

The food itself was plentiful and excellent.  Breakfasts were a fixed-menu sort of deal, where you could select whatever you liked, from eggs to omelets to french toast.   I highly recommend the french toast, as they use coconut milk instead of dairy milk in the recipe. Yum! Lunches were variable, but included cold cuts, soups, burgers...basically what you'd expect for lunch.  Dinners, on the other hand, were clearly where the cooking staff spent their time. Every night gave us at least two main entrees to pick from, with the ever-present option of "combo."  The choices were so appetizing that I went the combo route more often than not.  Choices included steak, roast pork, grouper (two times at least), snapper, chicken, and BBQ ribs.   Soup was a common side dish, and the soups were, as a rule, outstanding.   Dessert accompanied every dinner, and was always excellent.  The "Tres Leches" cake was my favorite, but the peach flan and key lime pie were tasty as well.

The Dive Operation

AKR's dive operation occupies quite a bit of the waterfront on the channel.  The dock has room for many boats, which is a good thing.  The arrival of the first two Pro 42 boats left the dock a bit crowded, since the dock had to serve the 2 Pro 42s as well as the existing 4 or 5 Pro 48s and two of the older wood boats.  There was also space for smaller craft, including a small outboard boat and a ~35-foot fishing boat.

We did all but one of our dives from a Pro 42, the "Sabrina."  Fast, spacious, and well-designed, it was plenty comfortable for the 11 divers we had on board. It had a small camera table and a small rinse bucket, both of which were insufficient for our group (most of the dives saw 9 camera setups along for the ride!), but in an 'average' group they would probably be OK.  Entry was via giant stride off the back, between the two aluminum ladders, and exit was via those ladders.

Our DM, Ricardo, was quite pleasant, and generally good.  He was not too great at finding stuff to show us, but he also didn't hassle us too much about dive profiles or habits.  My only complaint about the dive op was the scheduling, which I think is driven by ignorance of computer profiles.  A typical first dive was "80 feet for 30 minutes." If you're diving tables, that's a reasonable limit.  However, the reality was that we'd do 90 for 15 and then ascend slowly to the reef top, which was usually at 15 to 20 feet.  I found myself reaching the reef top 30 minutes into the dive with 3 or 4 "green pixels" still to go on y computer, and 1500 PSI left in my tank.  At that point, I'd prefer to spend another 30 or 45 minutes before exiting, but that wasn't the schedule.  Again, Ricardo did not press us too hard to get out early, and frequently he left us to our own devices, but I would rather see the dive op schedule the dives to plan for this sort of dive, rather than leaving the customers and DMs to try to shoehorn everything in to the existing schedule.

AKR only does 1-tank dives as a matter of course, although the extended trips (Barbareta and Cayos Cochinos) run 3 tanks, and the Wednesday picnic at Tapyana Beach goes for 2. Mostly this is OK, although a 2-tank morning would sure make more sense in terms of scheduling and boat movement.

The Diving

After our last trip, I was skeptical about Roatan diving.  But so many of my friends love the place that I was up for giving it another chance.  At this point, I have to say that I "reserve judgement" pending next summer's Big Trip. Visibility was not what I had expected, running 50 to 60 feet on most dives, with a couple as high as 80-90 feet, and one as low as 30 feet. There were various explanations for this, including runoff from the rains, some strange tidal effects, etc., but all I can say is that general vis was poor, and there was quite a bit of particulate crud in the water.

I also had a hard time with photography in Roatan's waters, although many divers wouldn't care about this.  The problem was this: the topography and coral growth, in general, weren't too hot for wide angle work, which is my favorite style these days. There was plenty of coral, and it all looked plenty healthy (with the exception of this strange red algae carpeting small sections of the reef), but big coral formations and/or sponges that reach out into blue water were hard to come by.  I two days worth of diving trying to find cool formations for WA shots, mostly without luck. The bright spot was the presence of hawksbill turtles on a couple of our early dives.  It's hard to take a boring picture of a turtle, IMO!

Oh well, so I switched to macro.  Actually, I would have been forced to switch to macro anyway, as the battery pack for my WA strobe died.  :(  Macro is not my favorite kind of work, though, and I'm not very good at it. I spent the rest of trip hunting for macro subjects...The best part was the presence of arrow blennies, something I knew to be present on Roatan, and a subject I had been looking forward to finding for a while.  Roatan did not disappoint, and I shot plenty of arrow blenny frames.  We also managed to see a seahorse, along with many different crabs: arow crabs, king crabs (also known as spider crabs), neck crabs and cryptic teardrop crabs, too! Lobsters abounded.

Dolphins!

AKR is home to the Roatan Institute of Marine Sciences, or RIMS.  This is good for divers because RIMS is the home to several dolphins, and for a fee, you can dive with the dolphins.  Both my wife and I were afraid it would be a, overpriced, cheesy experience, but we were wrong on both points.

The Dolphin afternoon started with a short meet-and-greet session in the main dolphin pen at RIMS.  We sat on a small floating platform, our legs dangling in the water, while Sandra (the dolphin trainer) gave us a half-hour talk about dolphin anatomy, biology, and behavior.  We rubbed, petted, and kissed the dolphins (Copan, Bonnie, and Chichi), and they did a few dolphin tricks occasionally. Copan, it turns out, is the dolphin who appeared in the recent remake of Flipper!

Then we boarded one of the wood dive boats and went out behind the Key, a total 3-minute ride from the docks.  Gearing up with scuba, we dove down to some giant sand flats in ~50 feet of water, and started to swim around.  After a few minutes, Esteban the dolphin showed up to greet his trainer (Elrod, who was leading the dive).   Esteban swooped in from above, surprised us from behind, and generally played with the group for most of an hour.  I had a tough time photographing him, as he moved so fast that I couldn't easily focus, recompose the shot, and trigger before he was out of the picture.  Oh well.  It was fun anyway.

The normal fee for this experience is $75, but AKR has a 'happy hour' sort of deal with a $15 discount if you do the dive on a Monday.  Then we got a 50% discount because only one dolphin showed up for the dive (they promise 2 dolphins).  I'm not sure another dolphin would have been any more fun than just the one, but it's hard to turn down a 50% discount!  At $30 apiece, the whole experience was a total bargain.  It was easily worth the $75 list price.

Dive Log Excerpts

Dive Log Details

 
Last modified: October 10, 2000

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