The Short:
Travel: A lot of extra work for such a short jump from Roatan.
Resort: Nice and clean with very nice staff.
Food: Okay
Diving: Not as good as Roatan
The Long:
We have been home from Dunbar Rock for a few weeks now and I think my mind has distilled the week from a fog of memories.
Before I go on I should quantify my expectations based on experience. Our first warm, clear water dive vacation, 14 years ago, was to Cocoview on Roatan’s south shore. My wife vowed to never return to California’s cold, surge and murk. So, a life of modest dive travel has kept us cash poor but memory rich.
We have seen the Philippines, Cayman, Bonaire….but we keep going back to Coco. It is the easiest, most refined, efficient and effective dive resort we have stayed at. We do these trips because we love to dive and that is what we want to do. As diving and ease of diving is priority for My wife and I, please temper the below with that in mind.
Getting there was surprisingly easy and amazingly inefficient. Once we touched down in Roatan we had a 15 minute flight and a 15 minute boat ride to the resort/rock. It took 4 hours to complete. In total, in and outbound, we spent 7 hours in the Roatan airport. Glad the airport is not the way it used to be!
When booking you will receive a set of bag tags that identify your bags and must be attached so the staff can identify them in customs and retrieve them for the flight to Guanaja. But once in Roatan we were told to take our bags out through customs. It sounds like half the guests had their bags picked up and half were told to carry them out. First world problems, turns out we had plenty of time.
The bags and guest would require two round trips on the little turbo-prop commuter. After arriving at noon and waiting for the next group to come in at 2:00 someone decided, why don’t we fly the first group over now………… Genius.
We arrive in Guanaja what seems like moments later. Get to the boat with half our bags. Then we respond to a roll call, at which point we are asked to point out our bag so the crew can marked them for the rooms. The same bags that have the id tags we were instructed to install and fillout prior to travel. I really don’t know what these tags are for.
Again, first world issues. Not that big a deal but just inefficient compared to other outfits we have stayed with.
Once on the Rock things got better. The rooms are nice. As advertised. Beds were comfortable. Rooms are clean. The stairs are swept and not slippery. Oh, did I mention the stairs? 47 from dock to our door. Nice workout after a dive but some of our group where bionic. Nursing new knees and hips was visibly challenging (not that this crew would let). In hind sight, looking the photos, well, duh. But the steps are obviously not a key advertising point.
The food was okay. The fact they can get anything to the rock is amazing. The logistics are crazy. They do good with what they get and they take pride in it. That said, one day wife showed up to lunch a bit late and got one little piece of chicken. They had no more.
The staff was exceptional. All local born and proud of their island. Very friendly and helpful.
The bar is cheap and the pool was pretty nice (they are basically one in the same). Looked a bit gaudy in the picture but it’s nice and cool and the view is great. Always remember your not in the states when they had you a glass bottle in the pool.
Daily laundry service was not expected but knowing about it ahead of time you can get by with a remarkably small wardrobe.
The GM is a salesman.
The dive op was good. Gear was setup every morning and done well. Tanks were full.
The boat was a classic Caribbean style dive boat. And this was an issue.
The group we dove with has been together many years (20+). They have been around the world, a few times. These were seasoned pros. They knew each other and worked well together. If it has been a random group it would have been messy. 20 divers on this boat meant every square inch was full. Navigating to the (rather small) water cooler from the stern was like human Tetris. If this had been strangers I could see tension developing. This is the standard, I know, but again, there are better, easier options.
Day one, the engine would not start after a dive. Either the Ignition switch or a safety switch was out. Leading to opening the engine hatch and arching across the broken bit to crank the engine. This was addressed and fixed, I would assume, some days after we got home? As mentioned, logistics are an issue, but boat spares seem appropriate inventory. Other than that it was reliable 5 and maybe 2/3’s cylinder engine.
The weather was a challenge. I had planned on daily morning dives. The wind was 20-35knots for the first 5 days. The surge was pointless. Even on the last day, when it was calm, the surge seemed to pitch up and around the rock. Something about the floor profile and its location lend this place to magnified sloshing. It would appear that Glass-calm conditions would be required for a leisurely morning macro dive.
The house reef though, is in good health and the juvenile fish life is great. Unlike the entire rest of the island. Though the winds conspired to drive us mostly to the north side of the island we were able to sample some south reefs as well. And here is another hindsight moment. Roatan has been “protected” since we started going. We have seen substantial growth in fish, in size and number. Guanaja has two protected zones for two years now, and it shows. There is a stark lack of fish life. Little to no Snapper, Grouper, Barracuda, jacks, Angels…anything. The macro shooting was okay. Some cool little stuff, but no fish.
The reefs themselves are rather healthy, more so on the little bit of south side diving. But some of the “fun” dives around and through canyons were completely coated in Algae. A Green/Brown wasteland.
On a big plus we had a couple of Nurse Sharks follow us like puppies. If was very entertaining and I will never forget the experience I had with one follow me for 20 minutes. Most likely thinking my camera was spear, I can only assume it was looking for a lionfishkabob.
All in all it was a really good trip with some really fun new friends to dive with. We enjoyed our stay but wont return. Too much extra effort for lesser diving.
We are back to Coco in August. It will be interesting diving these two locations so close to each other, as the brain tends to grasp only what it wants.
Some Pics:
Dunbar Rock 2017
Travel: A lot of extra work for such a short jump from Roatan.
Resort: Nice and clean with very nice staff.
Food: Okay
Diving: Not as good as Roatan
The Long:
We have been home from Dunbar Rock for a few weeks now and I think my mind has distilled the week from a fog of memories.
Before I go on I should quantify my expectations based on experience. Our first warm, clear water dive vacation, 14 years ago, was to Cocoview on Roatan’s south shore. My wife vowed to never return to California’s cold, surge and murk. So, a life of modest dive travel has kept us cash poor but memory rich.
We have seen the Philippines, Cayman, Bonaire….but we keep going back to Coco. It is the easiest, most refined, efficient and effective dive resort we have stayed at. We do these trips because we love to dive and that is what we want to do. As diving and ease of diving is priority for My wife and I, please temper the below with that in mind.
Getting there was surprisingly easy and amazingly inefficient. Once we touched down in Roatan we had a 15 minute flight and a 15 minute boat ride to the resort/rock. It took 4 hours to complete. In total, in and outbound, we spent 7 hours in the Roatan airport. Glad the airport is not the way it used to be!
When booking you will receive a set of bag tags that identify your bags and must be attached so the staff can identify them in customs and retrieve them for the flight to Guanaja. But once in Roatan we were told to take our bags out through customs. It sounds like half the guests had their bags picked up and half were told to carry them out. First world problems, turns out we had plenty of time.
The bags and guest would require two round trips on the little turbo-prop commuter. After arriving at noon and waiting for the next group to come in at 2:00 someone decided, why don’t we fly the first group over now………… Genius.
We arrive in Guanaja what seems like moments later. Get to the boat with half our bags. Then we respond to a roll call, at which point we are asked to point out our bag so the crew can marked them for the rooms. The same bags that have the id tags we were instructed to install and fillout prior to travel. I really don’t know what these tags are for.
Again, first world issues. Not that big a deal but just inefficient compared to other outfits we have stayed with.
Once on the Rock things got better. The rooms are nice. As advertised. Beds were comfortable. Rooms are clean. The stairs are swept and not slippery. Oh, did I mention the stairs? 47 from dock to our door. Nice workout after a dive but some of our group where bionic. Nursing new knees and hips was visibly challenging (not that this crew would let). In hind sight, looking the photos, well, duh. But the steps are obviously not a key advertising point.
The food was okay. The fact they can get anything to the rock is amazing. The logistics are crazy. They do good with what they get and they take pride in it. That said, one day wife showed up to lunch a bit late and got one little piece of chicken. They had no more.
The staff was exceptional. All local born and proud of their island. Very friendly and helpful.
The bar is cheap and the pool was pretty nice (they are basically one in the same). Looked a bit gaudy in the picture but it’s nice and cool and the view is great. Always remember your not in the states when they had you a glass bottle in the pool.
Daily laundry service was not expected but knowing about it ahead of time you can get by with a remarkably small wardrobe.
The GM is a salesman.
The dive op was good. Gear was setup every morning and done well. Tanks were full.
The boat was a classic Caribbean style dive boat. And this was an issue.
The group we dove with has been together many years (20+). They have been around the world, a few times. These were seasoned pros. They knew each other and worked well together. If it has been a random group it would have been messy. 20 divers on this boat meant every square inch was full. Navigating to the (rather small) water cooler from the stern was like human Tetris. If this had been strangers I could see tension developing. This is the standard, I know, but again, there are better, easier options.
Day one, the engine would not start after a dive. Either the Ignition switch or a safety switch was out. Leading to opening the engine hatch and arching across the broken bit to crank the engine. This was addressed and fixed, I would assume, some days after we got home? As mentioned, logistics are an issue, but boat spares seem appropriate inventory. Other than that it was reliable 5 and maybe 2/3’s cylinder engine.
The weather was a challenge. I had planned on daily morning dives. The wind was 20-35knots for the first 5 days. The surge was pointless. Even on the last day, when it was calm, the surge seemed to pitch up and around the rock. Something about the floor profile and its location lend this place to magnified sloshing. It would appear that Glass-calm conditions would be required for a leisurely morning macro dive.
The house reef though, is in good health and the juvenile fish life is great. Unlike the entire rest of the island. Though the winds conspired to drive us mostly to the north side of the island we were able to sample some south reefs as well. And here is another hindsight moment. Roatan has been “protected” since we started going. We have seen substantial growth in fish, in size and number. Guanaja has two protected zones for two years now, and it shows. There is a stark lack of fish life. Little to no Snapper, Grouper, Barracuda, jacks, Angels…anything. The macro shooting was okay. Some cool little stuff, but no fish.
The reefs themselves are rather healthy, more so on the little bit of south side diving. But some of the “fun” dives around and through canyons were completely coated in Algae. A Green/Brown wasteland.
On a big plus we had a couple of Nurse Sharks follow us like puppies. If was very entertaining and I will never forget the experience I had with one follow me for 20 minutes. Most likely thinking my camera was spear, I can only assume it was looking for a lionfishkabob.
All in all it was a really good trip with some really fun new friends to dive with. We enjoyed our stay but wont return. Too much extra effort for lesser diving.
We are back to Coco in August. It will be interesting diving these two locations so close to each other, as the brain tends to grasp only what it wants.
Some Pics:
Dunbar Rock 2017
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