scorman
Registered
Vacation first of May, 11 days, West Bay, TGI Paradise
First trip to Roatan and it didn't disappoint. Stayed at Paradise Oceanic near the south end of West Bay beach....we will return!
Used the onsite TGI dive op and prepaid for 12 dive pkg for $327USD tax,fees incl ($27 per tank).
Both here and next door at Infinity Bay shared the dock and dive boat, both being TGI ops but different staff and physical buildings.
Both offer "valet" service and secure scuba storage. Your tanks are setup onboard and carried back to storage afterwards.
Note that many other dive ops launch from shore, incl TGI's Henry Morgan. We were there off season, so large boat rarely had 10 divers and
most of the time only 4.
Never saw the smaller boat they supposedly use when busy. They sometimes return to dock between morning dives, but only run the 2:30 dive
with min 4 divers.
Humorous equip note:I am not a huge person, but the longest weight belt barely fit me ...lesson is that I will pack my own belt.
During high season they will pack in 28 in several groups and I wouldn't want to be there then for these "cattle cars".
There was some bad mouthing of the Mayan Princess dive op by several TGI dms and the way MP treat their dms....we saw their group once with
about 15 at the surface and were told MP use only one dm.
Bananarama only has small boats with blue canopy, similar to Las Rocas.
A few of our dives were timed, but most were not ...remind the dm about the golden rule!
A few observations: When standing on the dock, I have never seen such crystal clear water!
The reef at this end/side of the island was dead calm except for one day of offshore breeze.
On that day they travel around the point to the east side to the cave and pirates cove...decent wall dive but not spectacular nor clear.
Most days when calm on west side, it was white caps on east side, no beaches there ...all ironshore for miles.
Second most spectacular dive was south right off the hotels at Black Rock...wall dive with canyons ending at 15 feet
for your safety stop on the reef.
The best dive was the Hole in the Wall to 130ft....can't be adequately described!!
On all but one tank we saw turtles, but then again on last snorkel from in front of dock out to the wall, we had six turtle sightings.
As far as snorkeling, depths range from 2ft to 40ft in several bands until you reach the outer wall dropoff,
but along the shoreline you can easily go 1/2 mile south of Black Rock to the southernmost point....in all there has to be 100s of acres
of snorkeling reef.
I cannot see why anyone would pay for a snorkeling trip.
They did run night dives from the beach, but we went instead by boat with Las Rocas and ended in the same place for more $... live and learn.
We had our own torches and snorkeled at night several times and saw three octopus and dozens of lobsters scurrying all over the place
...surprisingly few shrimp and no kingcrabs.
Next trip we will negotiate with dive op for unguided daytime shore dives ahead of time...three other major resorts on island include them
free with dive packs ( but I am willing to pay something, not the $22 cost they were listing it for).
We did NOT go on the shark dive nor the wreck dives ...not our thing.
We had many discussions with dive veterans who all made the same observations we made...lots of variety of fish, but very few schools.
Seems that populations are diminishing over the years, and we have noted that in Riviera Maya/Akumal as well.
The only exception seems to be blue tangs, both diving and snorkeling....there by the hundreds.
As far as other noteworthy sightings...right off the beach were a threesome of the largest green parrot fish we have seen.
The biggest had to weight 35lbs+ and had scales the size of silver dollars.
Did I mention that the water temp was 86F and surface was 90F+....sun shined every day except first afternoon we arrived,
when it showered.
Here is a link to my hotel/restaurant review on tripadvisor:
11 days in Paradise - Review of Paradise Oceanic Hotel, West Bay, Honduras - TripAdvisor
here is a link to a photo album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115816...authkey=Gv1sRgCPvztJLr19epqAE&feat=directlink
Stew Corman
First trip to Roatan and it didn't disappoint. Stayed at Paradise Oceanic near the south end of West Bay beach....we will return!
Used the onsite TGI dive op and prepaid for 12 dive pkg for $327USD tax,fees incl ($27 per tank).
Both here and next door at Infinity Bay shared the dock and dive boat, both being TGI ops but different staff and physical buildings.
Both offer "valet" service and secure scuba storage. Your tanks are setup onboard and carried back to storage afterwards.
Note that many other dive ops launch from shore, incl TGI's Henry Morgan. We were there off season, so large boat rarely had 10 divers and
most of the time only 4.
Never saw the smaller boat they supposedly use when busy. They sometimes return to dock between morning dives, but only run the 2:30 dive
with min 4 divers.
Humorous equip note:I am not a huge person, but the longest weight belt barely fit me ...lesson is that I will pack my own belt.
During high season they will pack in 28 in several groups and I wouldn't want to be there then for these "cattle cars".
There was some bad mouthing of the Mayan Princess dive op by several TGI dms and the way MP treat their dms....we saw their group once with
about 15 at the surface and were told MP use only one dm.
Bananarama only has small boats with blue canopy, similar to Las Rocas.
A few of our dives were timed, but most were not ...remind the dm about the golden rule!
A few observations: When standing on the dock, I have never seen such crystal clear water!
The reef at this end/side of the island was dead calm except for one day of offshore breeze.
On that day they travel around the point to the east side to the cave and pirates cove...decent wall dive but not spectacular nor clear.
Most days when calm on west side, it was white caps on east side, no beaches there ...all ironshore for miles.
Second most spectacular dive was south right off the hotels at Black Rock...wall dive with canyons ending at 15 feet
for your safety stop on the reef.
The best dive was the Hole in the Wall to 130ft....can't be adequately described!!
On all but one tank we saw turtles, but then again on last snorkel from in front of dock out to the wall, we had six turtle sightings.
As far as snorkeling, depths range from 2ft to 40ft in several bands until you reach the outer wall dropoff,
but along the shoreline you can easily go 1/2 mile south of Black Rock to the southernmost point....in all there has to be 100s of acres
of snorkeling reef.
I cannot see why anyone would pay for a snorkeling trip.
They did run night dives from the beach, but we went instead by boat with Las Rocas and ended in the same place for more $... live and learn.
We had our own torches and snorkeled at night several times and saw three octopus and dozens of lobsters scurrying all over the place
...surprisingly few shrimp and no kingcrabs.
Next trip we will negotiate with dive op for unguided daytime shore dives ahead of time...three other major resorts on island include them
free with dive packs ( but I am willing to pay something, not the $22 cost they were listing it for).
We did NOT go on the shark dive nor the wreck dives ...not our thing.
We had many discussions with dive veterans who all made the same observations we made...lots of variety of fish, but very few schools.
Seems that populations are diminishing over the years, and we have noted that in Riviera Maya/Akumal as well.
The only exception seems to be blue tangs, both diving and snorkeling....there by the hundreds.
As far as other noteworthy sightings...right off the beach were a threesome of the largest green parrot fish we have seen.
The biggest had to weight 35lbs+ and had scales the size of silver dollars.
Did I mention that the water temp was 86F and surface was 90F+....sun shined every day except first afternoon we arrived,
when it showered.
Here is a link to my hotel/restaurant review on tripadvisor:
11 days in Paradise - Review of Paradise Oceanic Hotel, West Bay, Honduras - TripAdvisor
here is a link to a photo album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115816...authkey=Gv1sRgCPvztJLr19epqAE&feat=directlink
Stew Corman
