Colleen and I just returned from a week of diving with Laguna Beech Resort, on Utila. We really enjoyed the experience.
It takes a bit of puddle jumping to get to this small dive orriented resort. Either you fly into Roatan, or San Pedro Sulla airport on the mainland in Honduras. Then you fly a small connecting flight to Utila, where you are loaded into a shuttle van into town, and on to the resorts service dock, where you hop a small boat across the mouth of the lagoon to the main part of the resort, and the dive docks.
The resort is made up of one main restaurant/bar building and small one or two room cabins, on the lagoon side, each with its own dock, deck and hammock for relaxing. House cleaning sraff is efficient, and every day they surprised us with some animal creation the made from the clean bath towels, and the colorful bedspreads.
The resort uses one to four Newton dive boats with very nice, low wide dive platforms, and wide dive ladders. Well set up, and very knowledgeable, helpful staff.
The week we were there was a particularly busy one for Feb, for them, as one very large, extended family filled one dive boat, and a women's dive group booked another to themselves. This left three couples beside ourselves to one boat. We drew the resort's main captain, Wagner, and the head DM, Adam, which was great for us as they are tops!
The coral of Utila is spectacular. Other than Belize, this was the most healthy coral I have seen. One diver in our group, another SB member, brasington, lives on Palau, and said the coral on Utila is far healthier than where he has been diving!
Surpisingly, another SB member or two were also in our small, tossed together group, ddeyoung, and one other who could not recall their user name, as they are seldom on. After diving with the rest of us, the fourth couple intend to join SB when they return home next week.
There is not as much fish life as I am used to, diving so much on Bonaire, but we saw an eagle ray or two on nearly every dive. The sites closest in to the town itself had fewer fish than those further north and I hear to the south, and along the east side, due to fishing pressure, but I also heard that the founder of the reosort has been elected mayor, and the move is one to change fishing practices, and provide alternate income sources for the population, before it is too late, as it is in so many other places.
I will post a bit more, and a few pics later.
It takes a bit of puddle jumping to get to this small dive orriented resort. Either you fly into Roatan, or San Pedro Sulla airport on the mainland in Honduras. Then you fly a small connecting flight to Utila, where you are loaded into a shuttle van into town, and on to the resorts service dock, where you hop a small boat across the mouth of the lagoon to the main part of the resort, and the dive docks.
The resort is made up of one main restaurant/bar building and small one or two room cabins, on the lagoon side, each with its own dock, deck and hammock for relaxing. House cleaning sraff is efficient, and every day they surprised us with some animal creation the made from the clean bath towels, and the colorful bedspreads.
The resort uses one to four Newton dive boats with very nice, low wide dive platforms, and wide dive ladders. Well set up, and very knowledgeable, helpful staff.
The week we were there was a particularly busy one for Feb, for them, as one very large, extended family filled one dive boat, and a women's dive group booked another to themselves. This left three couples beside ourselves to one boat. We drew the resort's main captain, Wagner, and the head DM, Adam, which was great for us as they are tops!
The coral of Utila is spectacular. Other than Belize, this was the most healthy coral I have seen. One diver in our group, another SB member, brasington, lives on Palau, and said the coral on Utila is far healthier than where he has been diving!
Surpisingly, another SB member or two were also in our small, tossed together group, ddeyoung, and one other who could not recall their user name, as they are seldom on. After diving with the rest of us, the fourth couple intend to join SB when they return home next week.
There is not as much fish life as I am used to, diving so much on Bonaire, but we saw an eagle ray or two on nearly every dive. The sites closest in to the town itself had fewer fish than those further north and I hear to the south, and along the east side, due to fishing pressure, but I also heard that the founder of the reosort has been elected mayor, and the move is one to change fishing practices, and provide alternate income sources for the population, before it is too late, as it is in so many other places.
I will post a bit more, and a few pics later.
)
