http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/icons/icon_biggrin.gif Well, after 6 months of reading posts, our group finally went and returned from CCV in Roatan. I owe many of you thanks for providing great information, but a very special thank you to Doc Adelman. Not only did he provide information by replies, posts, pms and emails, he came to our group's pre-trip party (he lives in the Chicago area like us) and showed pics and told stories until we were ready to leave that minutes. Thanks, Doc!!!
OK, here goes. First, I destroyed my camera on day 2 so I only have three pics it share that were saved. Sorry, but one should never open the underwater casing in air conditioning then head outside in hot weather an hour later...condensation killed the camera.
Hope the 3 are actually attached above this line, toadfish, smooth juvenile trunk fish, and my favorite coral configuration.
Let's begin:
Flight, uneventful...good thing. Arrival, as warm and friendly as you could ask (Cora at the airport was a peach). None of us were repeat guests and the whole week we felt like we were family...part of that is we're a bit outgoing and huggy. Check in was a breeze and we were doing our orientation dive an hour later. Marcos took us out and afterwards we all agreed it was pretty rough out there. Mitch, co-manager, and Doc R. both told me that they will be rethinking Saturday "rush" orientation dives in that type of conditions.
Marcos was a great leader, but I understand their concern as the seas and current were tough.
Accommodations: My wife and I were in a Cabana and loved it. Great to see the water under the porch floor and watch fish swim under our room. Clean, well maintained, and very comfortable.
Food: Fair. Be specific if you have dietary issues. They do try to please. However, my wife is a vegetarian and I mentioned that she did eat eggs and that rice and beans were good, so she received, in addition to the served food, two hard boiled eggs and rice and beans each night. I should have said pasta as well. She could eat from the salad bar and some other items, so no harm no foul. Food is OK, but no memories remain.
Staff: Up and down the line, very nice and helpful. Mitch and Debbie (managers) walked around the first night and talked to every table. We spent more time during the week just chatting with them and they were great. And, Debbie is a Harlan Coben fan, so she's the best. Debbie, I know you read these, don't forget to try Robert Crais.
Diving: Nice walls, interesting wreck, very interesting small stuff. Each drop off dive really did feel different as we always found new things on the wall and on the wreck, plus I did a lot of playing in the sand at the "strobe line..in 30 feet or so of water. Try "swimming" all the way to the shore as opposed to getting up at the platform and walking in. Fish would zoom out of the grass and across my face all the way in. Watched a barracuda just hang there 5 feet from the shore in 2-3 feet of water. I just laid in the sand and watched him/her. We learned to go slow (Doc's advice) and really see things. Shark dive was nice as they let you swim with them before feeding, but not my cup of tea as it is a bit of a "manufactured" thing. I'll look for shark encounters elsewhere. We lost 3 night dives to rough sea (Mitch and Marcos said no dice), but did 4 and 5 on the nights we could night dive. We also did one dawn dive...very nice.
Highlights: 3 large spotted eagle rays swam past us in formation, 40 Foot Point dive site where fish were cleaning themselves on our DM's fins along with big groupers and large school of creole wrasse, plus sea horse and pipefish. Large octopus crawling up the wreck on a night dive, 5-6 sea horses during the week, Pederson cleaning shrimp dancing in anticipation of their next customer (used the magnifying glass Doc recommended and loved the show), 2 Southern sting rays, a conch-crab convention under the wing of the plane wreck...10 large conches walking around in a 10 foot area. All in all great small stuff and a few very neat large things thrown in.
Dive Operation: Amazing: You are assigned a boat for the week and your gear can be stowed in a "garage-type" area where you get a place to hang things (BC and reg) and two cubbies for putting mask, defog, wrist computer, etc. Wetsuit and booties are outside. Your area is 10 paces at most to the boat. Your equipment is set up on the boat when you arrive , unless you hadn't yet analyzed your nitrox. I asked to set it up myself and Jorge, the boat captain, said he wanted to do it and I could redo it if I wanted. Analyzer hangs in the middle of the room for all to use and record easily. The ease of moving from arrival to your storage area to being fully equipped on the boat rivals a live-aboad. Just a very well thought through set up. No one had equipment taken even if we left it on the center bench, like I did with my wrist computer. We never locked our cabana door either, but that's for each his/her own to decide.
Eddie, our DM, and Jorge did everything we could have asked and we felt like they were part of our group. We had other divers on the boat not from our group and we just made CoCo View 3 one big group, Eddie and Jorge included. I have never seen anyone move so slowly thought the water as Eddie. He gets everyone to stop and smell the roses and he finds tons of stuff. They were both great and we were in wonderful hands...even when the boat broke down and Jorge opened the engine and fixed it in 10 minutes or less.
SPECIAL SHOUT OUT: Patty, Dockside Diver Shop manager, owner?, and Andrea, a volunteer medical person, are a true blessing. With their ear exam and "magic drops" (a steriod), they saved a number of dive trips. To have trained medical personnel available is just such a treat and their goals is to cure you and get you back in the water as soon as practical. I approached Andrea while she was eating lunch a the bar and asked if I could see her sometime. She got up (I told her to finish her lunch but she said she wanted to get cracking on me right away) and took me to the dive shop, looked in my ear, told me what she thought, put the drops in my ear and gave me stronger decongestant. This was two days into the trip and I didn't miss a dive the whole week. I've never been to a dive resort with medical personnel, disguised as regular people, who could treat ear issues at the speed of sound.
Many other small stories of how nice the trip was for our group, but, I think the intent of this post is clear. For diving ease, family feel, relaxing dive trip, and nice folks to chat with, can't beat CCV.
Rob
OK, here goes. First, I destroyed my camera on day 2 so I only have three pics it share that were saved. Sorry, but one should never open the underwater casing in air conditioning then head outside in hot weather an hour later...condensation killed the camera.
Hope the 3 are actually attached above this line, toadfish, smooth juvenile trunk fish, and my favorite coral configuration.
Let's begin:
Flight, uneventful...good thing. Arrival, as warm and friendly as you could ask (Cora at the airport was a peach). None of us were repeat guests and the whole week we felt like we were family...part of that is we're a bit outgoing and huggy. Check in was a breeze and we were doing our orientation dive an hour later. Marcos took us out and afterwards we all agreed it was pretty rough out there. Mitch, co-manager, and Doc R. both told me that they will be rethinking Saturday "rush" orientation dives in that type of conditions.
Marcos was a great leader, but I understand their concern as the seas and current were tough.
Accommodations: My wife and I were in a Cabana and loved it. Great to see the water under the porch floor and watch fish swim under our room. Clean, well maintained, and very comfortable.
Food: Fair. Be specific if you have dietary issues. They do try to please. However, my wife is a vegetarian and I mentioned that she did eat eggs and that rice and beans were good, so she received, in addition to the served food, two hard boiled eggs and rice and beans each night. I should have said pasta as well. She could eat from the salad bar and some other items, so no harm no foul. Food is OK, but no memories remain.
Staff: Up and down the line, very nice and helpful. Mitch and Debbie (managers) walked around the first night and talked to every table. We spent more time during the week just chatting with them and they were great. And, Debbie is a Harlan Coben fan, so she's the best. Debbie, I know you read these, don't forget to try Robert Crais.
Diving: Nice walls, interesting wreck, very interesting small stuff. Each drop off dive really did feel different as we always found new things on the wall and on the wreck, plus I did a lot of playing in the sand at the "strobe line..in 30 feet or so of water. Try "swimming" all the way to the shore as opposed to getting up at the platform and walking in. Fish would zoom out of the grass and across my face all the way in. Watched a barracuda just hang there 5 feet from the shore in 2-3 feet of water. I just laid in the sand and watched him/her. We learned to go slow (Doc's advice) and really see things. Shark dive was nice as they let you swim with them before feeding, but not my cup of tea as it is a bit of a "manufactured" thing. I'll look for shark encounters elsewhere. We lost 3 night dives to rough sea (Mitch and Marcos said no dice), but did 4 and 5 on the nights we could night dive. We also did one dawn dive...very nice.
Highlights: 3 large spotted eagle rays swam past us in formation, 40 Foot Point dive site where fish were cleaning themselves on our DM's fins along with big groupers and large school of creole wrasse, plus sea horse and pipefish. Large octopus crawling up the wreck on a night dive, 5-6 sea horses during the week, Pederson cleaning shrimp dancing in anticipation of their next customer (used the magnifying glass Doc recommended and loved the show), 2 Southern sting rays, a conch-crab convention under the wing of the plane wreck...10 large conches walking around in a 10 foot area. All in all great small stuff and a few very neat large things thrown in.
Dive Operation: Amazing: You are assigned a boat for the week and your gear can be stowed in a "garage-type" area where you get a place to hang things (BC and reg) and two cubbies for putting mask, defog, wrist computer, etc. Wetsuit and booties are outside. Your area is 10 paces at most to the boat. Your equipment is set up on the boat when you arrive , unless you hadn't yet analyzed your nitrox. I asked to set it up myself and Jorge, the boat captain, said he wanted to do it and I could redo it if I wanted. Analyzer hangs in the middle of the room for all to use and record easily. The ease of moving from arrival to your storage area to being fully equipped on the boat rivals a live-aboad. Just a very well thought through set up. No one had equipment taken even if we left it on the center bench, like I did with my wrist computer. We never locked our cabana door either, but that's for each his/her own to decide.
Eddie, our DM, and Jorge did everything we could have asked and we felt like they were part of our group. We had other divers on the boat not from our group and we just made CoCo View 3 one big group, Eddie and Jorge included. I have never seen anyone move so slowly thought the water as Eddie. He gets everyone to stop and smell the roses and he finds tons of stuff. They were both great and we were in wonderful hands...even when the boat broke down and Jorge opened the engine and fixed it in 10 minutes or less.
SPECIAL SHOUT OUT: Patty, Dockside Diver Shop manager, owner?, and Andrea, a volunteer medical person, are a true blessing. With their ear exam and "magic drops" (a steriod), they saved a number of dive trips. To have trained medical personnel available is just such a treat and their goals is to cure you and get you back in the water as soon as practical. I approached Andrea while she was eating lunch a the bar and asked if I could see her sometime. She got up (I told her to finish her lunch but she said she wanted to get cracking on me right away) and took me to the dive shop, looked in my ear, told me what she thought, put the drops in my ear and gave me stronger decongestant. This was two days into the trip and I didn't miss a dive the whole week. I've never been to a dive resort with medical personnel, disguised as regular people, who could treat ear issues at the speed of sound.
Many other small stories of how nice the trip was for our group, but, I think the intent of this post is clear. For diving ease, family feel, relaxing dive trip, and nice folks to chat with, can't beat CCV.
Rob
on that: 
