Fantasy Island -Roatan - Big Problems!

[tvictory]

I love the way y'all have hijacked this thread. Good work.

Don,

200 dives and 15,000 posts. Talk about hijacking?

 

[DandyDon]

Don,

200 dives and 15,000 posts. Talk about hijacking?

Please send official set of rules and your qualifications to judge me. thank you

 

[Doc]

I love the way y'all have hijacked this thread. Good work. :fork:

Not really a hi-jack, :fork: , more like keeping it dead on target.

The thread began with the decrying of the lack of fish life on Roatan. Many of us who know better, those of us who have spent the time and acquired the starting blocks of the needed observational skills- many of us disagree.

Remember, most folks cant see anything smaller than a Yellow School Bus sitting in 20' of water on a bright sunny day if the four-ways are flashing.

When we first venture into a strange environment and we first see things we are mosty familiar with: Rocks. As our vision expands, we begin to see fish. They all look alike.

But Oh-boy-look-at-that!!! It's a Lobster. I like Lobsters... with butter! And yesterday I saw... A CRAB! It was as big as a basketball and that lobster musta been 10#. Then we went to the canned Shark dive and guess what we saw?! Was I scared? Naaaaahhhh.

And today again, I saw another rock. (The 4-way flashers on the bus had burned out so I missed the bus) The divemaster fed the fish.

The diving in Roatan is not difficult, there are very few learning curve challenges, even for the newbie. The diving on Roatan (and the Bay Islands) is very advanced, if but only in terms of the skills you must master to fully enjoy the scene.

True, on the North Side, there is a marine reserve area- so one is more likely to see larger more familiar fish along the walls.

On the South side, where the reef is shaddowed from the lashing of storms, it has a chance to provide niche environments for the little critters- a nursery if you will. This is a place you bring a magnifying glass, a flashlight and excellent observational skills combined with practiced buoyancy. No Yellow School Busses, but there are a few (very) shallow wrecks placed for: the unobservant, those looking for a place to practice observational skills, and places for little critters to hide. What a combination!

Now, just because the divers who are chiming-in, in support of this doctrine of "go slow- see more" happen to haunt one particular resort over any other, you can call it what you will- I call it simple statistical math. Look at the resort where the divers who are ongoing posters of SCUBABoard go. Look where the divers go that come back not only with excellent collectuions of macro photos, but fun shots of horseplay.

The inflatable Orca love-doll as pictured in a prior post was stashed on a shore-dive path that will host probably 200 exits every week. It is common at this resort for people to crawl out of the water on their bellies, you don't hear "I ran out of air", instead you'll see people run out of water. The cool stuff is shallow.

Sorry if you believe it was hi-jacking, it's just that the concentrated bulk of those who know the wonders of the macro life congregate at one particular resort. This is not to say that any other resort that serves the South side can't be as valuable, it's just that when you have the DM's and skilled guests working as a team- with many eyes scouring the reef walls- success is that much closer to finding the elusive and unusual critters.

When you can see past that School Bus... then you'll know why pay-as-you-go Dolphin or Shark dives simply can't beat the natural encounter. Log bottom time, that's the key. Practice, practice, take a Peak Performance Buoyancy Class, take the U/W Naturalist Class from a local OWSI, buy a magnifying glass and a flashlight, select an attentive and highly skilled local Dive Master, and then- enjoy the Bay Islands.

It's all in the picking- in oh-so-many ways.

 

[DandyDon]

Nah, I was joking about the hijak...

Sorry if you believe it was hi-jacking, it's just that the concentrated bulk of those who know the wonders of the macro life congregate at one particular resort. This is not to say that any other resort that serves the South side can't be as valuable, it's just that when you have the DM's and skilled guests working as a team- with many eyes scouring the reef walls- success is that much closer to finding the elusive and unusual critters.

I feel that the OP has every right to post a negative opinion, but I like diving Roatan's south side. Super walls, and if one can indeed hover and mosey, great small stuff sitings.

 

[Doc]

Nah, I was joking about the hijak....

Man, :fork:, you gotta make it more obvious for me- I know you know how to find the cool little stuff.

 

[diveprof]

OK, I just got back from Fantasy Island on Roatan this Sunday, May 7th,and I DO NOT recomend that anyone go there!!! The resort itself is great, the people are wonderful, the accomadations and food more than adequate....BUT....the reef on the south side of the island is not protected and there very, very few fish!!!!! The coral is brown because they JUST stopped emptying there septic directly into the water and they have no real laws protecting the reef from overfishing. (They just implemented a lobster season...but that's it.)

Everywhere we went...we looked for fish but didn't find them. On the last couple of dives they took us to places where they feed them, so we saw stuff....but that was it.

Caveat Emptor!!!

I just returned from a week at Fantasy Island and have a different opinion. Granted, fish were not swimming in great schools (with the exceptions of jacks, southern sennet, creole wrasse, chub and atlantic spades ). I have about 2500 dives since 1986 and usually travel to some place in the caribbean at least 1-2 times a year (Cozumel, Bonnaire, Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Caymans, St. Lucia, etc.). Yeah, fish populations are down all over, but Roatan was not bad at all. On one dive (a new mooring called 40 foot wall, my dive partner and I just decided to stay in place on the wall rather than follow the group. On this one dive we saw 7 grouper in the 50+- pound range (some mating stuff going on there), creole wrasse (large streaming school), two large schools of horse eye jacks, school of atlantic spades, two ocean triggerfish, school of chub, couple of barracuda, grunts, etc. As for seahorses, it was like the seahorse of the day, every day. Octopus on several dives, large crabs and Squid too. On the night shore dive from the gazebo, tarpon hunting in the light from the gazebo, lobster, octopus, eels, and guess what - Coco View front porch has a "Thing" ( see the Reef Creature book by Humann and Deloach. Not as big as the one I've seen in St. Lucia but about 2 1/2' long). Oh, did I mention that I snorkeled with an eagle ray within an hour of arrival at the resort (in the area N of the Gazebo in about 6' of water).

 

[highdesert]

I agree with your "no fish" observation. We stayed at Reef House, about 15 miles east of Fantasy, and loved every minute, but in diving that stretch of south shore, I was repeatedly struck by the low numbers of fish except where divers feed them in front of Fantasy/Coco View.

 

[Diver_Jan]

I just returned from a week at Fantasy Island and have a different opinion. Granted, fish were not swimming in great schools (with the exceptions of jacks, southern sennet, creole wrasse, chub and atlantic spades ). I have about 2500 dives since 1986 and usually travel to some place in the caribbean at least 1-2 times a year (Cozumel, Bonnaire, Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Caymans, St. Lucia, etc.). Yeah, fish populations are down all over, but Roatan was not bad at all. On one dive (a new mooring called 40 foot wall, my dive partner and I just decided to stay in place on the wall rather than follow the group. On this one dive we saw 7 grouper in the 50+- pound range (some mating stuff going on there), creole wrasse (large streaming school), two large schools of horse eye jacks, school of atlantic spades, two ocean triggerfish, school of chub, couple of barracuda, grunts, etc. As for seahorses, it was like the seahorse of the day, every day. Octopus on several dives, large crabs and Squid too. On the night shore dive from the gazebo, tarpon hunting in the light from the gazebo, lobster, octopus, eels, and guess what - Coco View front porch has a "Thing" ( see the Reef Creature book by Humann and Deloach. Not as big as the one I've seen in St. Lucia but about 2 1/2' long). Oh, did I mention that I snorkeled with an eagle ray within an hour of arrival at the resort (in the area N of the Gazebo in about 6' of water).

Like you, I too have returned from FIBR. I LOVED it!!! More often than not, we did see schools of fish, big ones too. We had groupers on every dive...Big Bad Daddy's! would have to be blind NOT to see them! LOL I too saw all the sea horses, eels, sea turtle, sting rays, ect, ect, ect, ect. Not to mention the smaller stuff too.

I highly recomend the resort. I did my longest dive from the Gazeebo off the Coco View Wall, Prince Albert Wreck, and Plane Wreckage for a whopping 1 hour and 55 minutes!!!

For my complete report, see my blog: http://mydivinglife.com/DiverJan/