What's the What's - What in Roatan

[MusicManBlue]

That sounds awesome. I'd love to take you up on that - I did want to check out the Prince Albert, and if you have some other backdoor accesses to get into some cool shore stuff, WE'RE IN! Especially if we can do some of these as night dives - is that in the repertoire of any of these sites, or would we be better off sticking to a boat to see the best night stuff? I hear that you can see great creatch in 10' of water at night! Let me know how we can get in touch.

We're definitely going to try to do a boat load of boat dives as well, so it's coming down to logistics. Thanks all

Here's who I'll be checking out for the boat diving, for those who are staying/looking on the north/middle and west end -

• Coconut Tree Divers, Reef Gliders or Native Sons - West End Shops (diversteve)
  
• AKR - Good Dolphin Dive (single dive) (diversteve)
• Barefoot Divers - South Side (diversteve)
  
• Splash Inn - ? (kerrycorcoran)
• West End Divers - West End *-Free gear with 10 dives (dlofting)

But the million dollar question is who will give me the unlimited nitrox fill treatment and let me take their tanks on their boat AND away for shore diving (+minimal gear rental) Anyone have a bead on that?

MusicMan, I'll be happy to take you shore diving while you're here. All I do is shore dive Roatan and have some pretty cool dive sites accessible by shore.

I have exclusive permission to shore dive Mary's Place and I can take you to the El Aguila wreck also being that those are two of the more popular dive sites here. I live on Gibson Bight, which is about a mile West of AKR and a 5 min cab ride away, so we can shore dive Gibson Bight Channel all the way up to AKR by shore.

I can take you just about anywhere else you might want to dive or if you wanted to do any specialty courses while you're here I can take care of you on most of those also. I also have a boat available for hire if you wanted to go somewhere we needed a boat for. If you guys wanted to go on a lionfish hunt and spot lionfish for me, you can keep the lionfish.

I charge $20 per dive plus taxi/busito expenses. I provide the tanks and fills and have one extra Medium BCD, regulator, weights, and a mask/snorkel that is included in the price but you'll need to provide your own booties and fins since I don't have extras.

 

[lthomas132]

We are gonna be 5 minutes from AKR at Sunnyside, Sandy Bay.
We do have a car, so the sky's the limit there!

Great stuff so far... thanks diversteve!!

I would recommend Octopus Dive School on Sandy Bay (Octopus Dive School - Roatan) I did some diving with these folks when they were at West Bay. Talk to Nuria

 

[diversteve]

Barefoot will take you over to dive the Prince Albert - we did it as a 2nd dive after Mary's Place.

I like Doc's idea better - it's easily reachable from Fantasy Island.
Scuba Shore Diving Site Page for: Newman's Wall of Honduras, Roatan, Caribbean - this is the FIBR site:

We could swim along the top of the wreck Prince Albert and see both Coco View and Newman's walls at the same time.

4 years ago - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/bay-islands/343475-roatan-tank-rentals.html

Sueno Del mar, rents and fills tanks and is also the Hydro facility for the Island.

It's on the east side of the West End. http://www.suenodelmar.com/roatan_diving.htm#diveequip

 

[Doc]

..... if we can do some of these as night dives - is that in the repertoire of any of these sites, or would we be better off sticking to a boat to see the best night stuff? I hear that you can see great creatch in 10' of water at night!

But the million dollar question is who will give me the unlimited nitrox fill treatment ....

Boat night dives are handled in a peculiar fashion on Roatan. West End dive ops usually announce them as a once-a-week thing, if enough people sign up. FIBR will take resident guests out on demand, usually in a smallish pram mostly because the distance between the gear locker and Gazebo is a hump.



I would say that the PA Wreck is the single premier night dive on Roatan. I say this because not only is it accessible by shore dive, but mainly because it is shallow, and yes, you're right- that's where those "creatch" are- they like this very specific and unique environment. Other Night Boat Dives occur in moorings set at 45fsw or so, too deep for my night time hunting- the cool stuff is indeed shallow. Statistically, in terms of sheer numbers of night dive splashes, the PA ranks #1 in the number of logged Roatan night dives, far and away. You will usually see 15+ divers each night within Newmans Wall, CocoView Wall and the PA Wreck. The occasional FI "drop off" from the pram usually occurs at Sunset, but regularly a dozen or more CCV divers wade in each and every night, around the 8pm hour. Very popular spot, but it doesn't feel crowded as it provides such a huge area, about .25 mile square overall.

Other divers will extoll other night dive spots, but the thing that the PA Wreck presents is a large structure in what is essentially an open ocean environment, albeit very shallow. She lies in 65-35fsw, topping out at 22' below the surface. She gets a lot of Sunlight, all day long in her protected basin, so she is covered in growth, soft and hard corals. She is a critter magnet, especially at night. I have done maybe 300 night dives on her and never been disappointed. She has an anchor chain that takes you back to CCV, and to go back to FIBR, there are several landmarks that are easily found once understood. This is 180° different than Spooky Channel, a North side Night Dive favorite for many.



Getting nitrox will not cost you a million dollars, but there is always an up-charge, whether included in the price (meaning hidden) or not.

I know this is pure conventional wisdom heresy, but I understand the use of nitrox as historically explained and introduced- as a tool to utilize when needed. For the dive frequency that you are designing your trip around, you're really not going to be getting the kind of total BT that one might be easily doubled at an AI. I'd venture that buying nitrox fills would only be justified if it makes you feel more frisky or appear younger looking. Tec Diving, TriMix and all that aside, I would guess that Kelly Ash would even tell you- the most interesting Roatan stuff between recreational 0-140 feet resides within the first 45 feet from the surface- a zone which most divers ignore as they plummet past.

 

[MusicManBlue]

Wow, awesome info Doc! On the Nitrox point, we're fixing to do 3 - 4 dives a day, plus I suffer from a particularly conservative algorithm on my computer that is not adjustable (other than tricking it by saying you have 22% or 23% nitrox, but I don't do that), and can't really afford a different one at this point.

That said, I do have air only computers that are less conservative, so I guess just comes down to how much drinking we do on the SI. hehe.

Anyway, just for the sake of all the repetitive diving it seemed like the right plan, but my brother is actually not Nitrox certified yet, so if we can dodge that cost for him it would be good too. And I'm sure there will be dives we'll want to do below 105'.
That said, I am also interested in looking younger and friskier.

 

[RTBDiver]

But the million dollar question is who will give me the unlimited nitrox fill treatment and let me take their tanks on their boat AND away for shore diving (+minimal gear rental) ?

That's easy, No one. Primarily because , as mentioned, Nitrox is not beneficial for most who dive Roatan. If you dive the best Roatan has to offer recreational divers you would have to work pretty hard to have any real benefit. I don't even think I used nitrox when cruising around on the liveaboard back in the day

 

[Doc]

.... don't even think I used nitrox when cruising around on the liveaboard back in the day

Tall masted schooners didn't have EAN. You still using that Mark I helmet?

I generally do 27 in a week at Roatan, and I do it on plain old air. I am no longer a candidate for feeling frisky by any definition, and if I stand next to my wife, I really can't look younger. I stay at an overall mathematical average depth of 37' and do bottom times in the 1:20 range. Very occasional blips to 60fsw, but only in response to an excited DM.

The deep stuff that most people do are the two tattered remnants of placed wrecks on the North Side/West End. I believe that their main attraction, besides being the "ooh-ahh it's a wreck" is their proximate access to the greater bulk of divers who visit Roatan. The South has two commonly dived wrecks, both very shallow and quite intact.

If you do hook up with Kelly, I'll bet that he'd be just the guy to take you to the one wreck that nobody ever dives, the misplaced monster that Albert Jackson plopped down just NW of French Key.

 

[KellyAsh]

Thank you for the ton of information Doc! I've never dove the Prince Albert from shore so this one will be a new experience for me. Tell me more about this unvisited wreck NW of French Key (French Key on the South side?)? Sounds kind of like the PA?

And, Jeff I can take care of your brother's Enriched Air cert if your brother wants to get that one knocked out while he's here.

 

[Doc]

There are three wrecks in that immediate area. CocoView placed the Prince Albert in 1984, it is quite overgrown. The sketch will lay out where it is, FIBR can show you the way. Because of FIBR's dredging of their beach, they have silted out their shore dive until you follow the aircraft cable u/w to the DC3, then the PA Wreck.







Lots more at Prince Albert Wreck Of Roatan Photos by Doc_Adelman | Photobucket

The other wreck CCV placed is the Mr Bud, a shrimper about 6 minutes from CCV or FI by dive boat. She lies intact in 65fsw just to the SW of French Key.





FIBR placed the DC3 Aircraft, kind of in the wrong place, so it's in tatters now, but still identifiable as a plane. It is shown on my sketch. but she's about 50' West on the prow of the PA Wreck.





FI also placed a really large, just where I said, NW off of French key, within eyesight of the marker buoys for the other two wrecks. The downside to this dive is that it is always occluded with silt in the water column. I dove it twice and have absolutely no clue as to its description- viz was that bad. It was, however, lousy with Octopuppies.

Not much to see, but there are the bones of a wooden hull ship about 100' West of the FIBR boat channel out front.

And in the category of nothing left to see, the Caribbean's first liveaboard, the Isla Mia came to the rocks just South of the previously described wreck.

 

[Carl_F]

For night shore dives, after doing Spooky Channel as a shore dive or boat dive, it makes a good shore night dive, too. There are plenty of landmarks to aid in the navigation during the surface swim. Only issue I had was that there were some minor hydroids in the sea grass on the way.