diverrick
Contributor
My wife and I decided to go down to Roatan for a bit of a break. We decided to stay and dive with Bay Island Beach Resort. (BIBR)
The flight down was SFO to San Salvador/Roatan. It was right on time all the way down. Arrived around 9 AM and first thing out of the hole we found out that although we had made it on time, and so did our bags, the planned shuttle was not there. After a about a half hour we started asking the about the hold up. Seems that there was some sort of foot race going on,(not the resorts fault) and the road between the airport and BIBR was closed. So we waited... Finally, the van shows up and we arrive at BIBR. We got to our room and got it set up. Nice room, We took the one above the office. Some of the other rooms I saw were nicer, but ours was alone, and closer to all the action.
Went out for a trial dive in front of the dock to get our trim set up as we both had lost some weight. Found out that my wifes cheap BC was a piece of CXXX! We rented her a decent BC. Problem solved.
First dive was next morning. Seas were very rough, white caps, swells. Myself and others were pretty green by the time we had the two dives in. dives were typical of the North side. I won't go into details, but my wife got sick on the first thre dives. We replaced her reg, Problem solved. We dove for 6 days three boat dives a day and two night dives. On the nights we did the night dives it was 4 dives. Really cool shrimp were out at night, and we were lucky to see the bioluminecent shrimp glowing. BIBR had recently lost a dive boat to an unfortunate accident, so they were borrowing one from FI. It was in a constant state of break down for most of the week. (again, not our Dive resorts fault) they finally got it towed into Cocoview, and the FI people came over and fixed the problem while we ate lunch.
Food was good, you could have all you wanted. They said that if you didn't like what was on the menu, you could always order from a list of "always available" food. We chose this resort for that reason, as my wife cannot always eat what is served. Problem is they didn't have most of the stuff available, so my wife had to eat Chicken until she was ready to scream.. The joke was "you could have anything you wanted on the list as long as it was chicken"
We did a bunch of cool dives sites, but I have to say I think the South side dive site tend to have better reefs. (IMHO)
Our favorite divesite was "Hole in the wall", with all the cool swim throughs, and I kinda liked "Bears den". I really liked 'Valley of the Kings" on the South side. The El Aguela Wreck was nice but very crowded, and they DM's feed the fish there, so there were alot of pesky BIG groupers and one eel which was cool for a while, but they do tend to pester you after a while. We had a great bunch of people diving with us. By the end of the week we really felt like a family. We did however have two men stay and dive with us for a few days, and the were very hard on the reef. Pulling themselves along the reef, breaking off coral with thier fins, silting up the bottom Etc. They even did not under stand not wearing gloves, when one of them was asked to take them off. We got a up close visit from an Eagleray, that was really cool. There were other small problems with BIBR but over all I think we would go back. We really liked the staff and the casual layed back-ness of the place. I really like the animals. some people don't like those kind of things, but my Wife and I did.
I did not do the Snorkel trail, but my Wife reports that alot of the markers were missing, and it was hard to find the trail anymore. The trip ended way too soon, and to finish off the trip I got sick on the last night there, so the ride back up to SFO was a very long trip for me. Too bad we didn't know about the boat sinking, as they have two new boats coming in a few weeks, which should remove some of the boat maintenance issues. We could have gone after the new boats arrived.
I logged 20 dives, my Wife got 19. We both got in our AOW, and Nitrox while we were there. I really did feel better after the dive using Nitrox. I felt the Nitrox fee was a bit high,(10.00), I kinda felt that breathing air was paid for in the original price, so they should only charge us for the nitrox part, but they want to charge the full 10.00 even though regular air is already paid for. but as we were taking the class we got a discount this trip. I could live with that. The weather was bad during the first part, so we did not see much sunlight. it improved over the course of the week. Water temps (according to my Dive Computer) was low of 76, and high of 78 Pretty unusual for this time of year, and it was a bit cool out of the water as well. Max depth SW was 120 at "Marys place" We had not brought any cold weather gear, so there were times we were a bit chilled, as I was only using a 2 mil shorty Brr! note to self: bring warmer cothes next time, and new full 3 mil suit. As you might have noticed, the trip was a bit rough around the edges, but over all I would go right back and do it again tommorrow.
The flight down was SFO to San Salvador/Roatan. It was right on time all the way down. Arrived around 9 AM and first thing out of the hole we found out that although we had made it on time, and so did our bags, the planned shuttle was not there. After a about a half hour we started asking the about the hold up. Seems that there was some sort of foot race going on,(not the resorts fault) and the road between the airport and BIBR was closed. So we waited... Finally, the van shows up and we arrive at BIBR. We got to our room and got it set up. Nice room, We took the one above the office. Some of the other rooms I saw were nicer, but ours was alone, and closer to all the action.
Went out for a trial dive in front of the dock to get our trim set up as we both had lost some weight. Found out that my wifes cheap BC was a piece of CXXX! We rented her a decent BC. Problem solved.
First dive was next morning. Seas were very rough, white caps, swells. Myself and others were pretty green by the time we had the two dives in. dives were typical of the North side. I won't go into details, but my wife got sick on the first thre dives. We replaced her reg, Problem solved. We dove for 6 days three boat dives a day and two night dives. On the nights we did the night dives it was 4 dives. Really cool shrimp were out at night, and we were lucky to see the bioluminecent shrimp glowing. BIBR had recently lost a dive boat to an unfortunate accident, so they were borrowing one from FI. It was in a constant state of break down for most of the week. (again, not our Dive resorts fault) they finally got it towed into Cocoview, and the FI people came over and fixed the problem while we ate lunch.
Food was good, you could have all you wanted. They said that if you didn't like what was on the menu, you could always order from a list of "always available" food. We chose this resort for that reason, as my wife cannot always eat what is served. Problem is they didn't have most of the stuff available, so my wife had to eat Chicken until she was ready to scream.. The joke was "you could have anything you wanted on the list as long as it was chicken"
We did a bunch of cool dives sites, but I have to say I think the South side dive site tend to have better reefs. (IMHO)
Our favorite divesite was "Hole in the wall", with all the cool swim throughs, and I kinda liked "Bears den". I really liked 'Valley of the Kings" on the South side. The El Aguela Wreck was nice but very crowded, and they DM's feed the fish there, so there were alot of pesky BIG groupers and one eel which was cool for a while, but they do tend to pester you after a while. We had a great bunch of people diving with us. By the end of the week we really felt like a family. We did however have two men stay and dive with us for a few days, and the were very hard on the reef. Pulling themselves along the reef, breaking off coral with thier fins, silting up the bottom Etc. They even did not under stand not wearing gloves, when one of them was asked to take them off. We got a up close visit from an Eagleray, that was really cool. There were other small problems with BIBR but over all I think we would go back. We really liked the staff and the casual layed back-ness of the place. I really like the animals. some people don't like those kind of things, but my Wife and I did.
I did not do the Snorkel trail, but my Wife reports that alot of the markers were missing, and it was hard to find the trail anymore. The trip ended way too soon, and to finish off the trip I got sick on the last night there, so the ride back up to SFO was a very long trip for me. Too bad we didn't know about the boat sinking, as they have two new boats coming in a few weeks, which should remove some of the boat maintenance issues. We could have gone after the new boats arrived.
I logged 20 dives, my Wife got 19. We both got in our AOW, and Nitrox while we were there. I really did feel better after the dive using Nitrox. I felt the Nitrox fee was a bit high,(10.00), I kinda felt that breathing air was paid for in the original price, so they should only charge us for the nitrox part, but they want to charge the full 10.00 even though regular air is already paid for. but as we were taking the class we got a discount this trip. I could live with that. The weather was bad during the first part, so we did not see much sunlight. it improved over the course of the week. Water temps (according to my Dive Computer) was low of 76, and high of 78 Pretty unusual for this time of year, and it was a bit cool out of the water as well. Max depth SW was 120 at "Marys place" We had not brought any cold weather gear, so there were times we were a bit chilled, as I was only using a 2 mil shorty Brr! note to self: bring warmer cothes next time, and new full 3 mil suit. As you might have noticed, the trip was a bit rough around the edges, but over all I would go right back and do it again tommorrow.
