One day port call in Roatan, want to go diving

[Daryl Morse]

I will be in roatan for one day on december 20th. I'd like to go diving. Can anyone recommend a dive operator and/or dive site?

 

[diversteve]

Barefoot Divers and Mary's Place. They have a cruise program. Good operation, one of the better known dives on Roatan. It's also just off their property. BF is also the closest dive operator from the cruise port. Cruise Ship Shore Excursions, Roatan 5 Star PADI Dive Shop

Anthony's Key is the cruise operator but they shuttle you to what is IMO an average site on the north side.

 

[Tool Belt]

Mary's Place ROCKS!

 

[Doc]

As far as the dive site, it really depends upon what you want to see.

Mary's Place is an interesting dive, not far East from the cruise ship port- it is a deep (75') fairly narrow (8-12') chasm (not overhead environment) that has a 90° bend about half-way through. There is one very tight swim-under, or you can elect to rise over it. Most divers do not recognize any life inside of it, most people churn through it a bit fast, and most such day-dives are rather short in duration because of the "standing-in-line" time at the 70fsw entrance. It does present the diver with a spectacular geographic visual.

Or.... If you want to see something unique in the Caribbean, your ship will also be docking right next to something very unusual, a zone along Roatan's South shore that extends East from the Mahogany Bay Cruise Ship Dock down to CCV/FI. It is a very shallow, always Sunlit wall that is a superb hunting ground for many small and colorful Caribbean Reef Fish and Creatures. There is nothing else like it in the Caribbean, it is a macro paradise.

Depends upon what you want, and maybe what you haven't yet seen.

 

[Daryl Morse]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

We ended up diving with Barefoot Divers and Andrea was our DM. We had a great time. We dove Mary's Place, which is a very nice site.

I highly recommend Barefoot Divers. They are very professional. Their facility is very nice. The equipment was in very good condition. The boat was large and in very good condition. The captain was polite and very competent. Andrea is an excellent DM and she was particularly helpful with my kids.

The only thing I would suggest is to arrange your own transportation to their shop. The driver they arranged gouged us. We were charged $20 per person (i.e., $80), which for a such a short ride is robbery.

 

[Laurie S.]

That's the standard taxi rate on Roatan for that trip. That's why I liked going with Subway Watersports, which we did in December and January. They are the same price as Barefoot and they provide the transportation. They treated us well and we had great dives with them.

 

[habitforming]

I may as well piggyback onto this thread - I'll be in Roatan in a few weeks also on a port of call. Wife & I would like to do some diving. I notice that Enomis, the highest rated dive OP on tripadvisor, isn't mentioned much here. Is there any reason for that?

It looks like there are several good ones to choose from, so I guess at this point I just flip a coin Can't wait to get wet again

 

[Doc]

I notice that Enomis, the highest rated dive OP on tripadvisor, isn't mentioned much here. Is there any reason for that?

If your question is specifically about why an operation appears on Trip Advisor and not here? Trip Advisor is an interesting source for a wide perspective of users. This place, SCUBABoard, is populated by divers and for divers. Therein lies the distinction. I suggest that you never rely upon Trip Advisor for anything other than general travel advice. Their website makes multiple references to TA, so likely they are encouraging guests to post there. I agree, the reports were universally gushing, proclaiming it "the best on Roatan". As much as I've looked around Roatan's dive ops, even I can't formulate such a definitive opinion on that subject.

Lee, the owner of the shop, migrated from Isla Margaritte (VZ) after doing his IDC in Utila. His presence on SCUBABoard was not extensive, and his last sign-in here was January 2011. Likely reason? Most cruise ship visitors simply never make it to SCUBABoard, certainly not when compared to the volume that visit Trip Advisor.

That said, Enomis is a well located dive op that will afford you other diversions between dives. I put a great deal of stock in what a dive op is willing to show in their pictures. Take a look at Photos - ENOMIS DIVERS There seems to be a lack of dive boat imagery (they rent a 27' open "panga" when needed), but the land based infrastructure is well documented. These are fairly recent images according to the post dates, but always be careful about reading too much into that. They offer absolutely no information in regards to specific costs, there is an odd reference to how much their car service may or may not cost, and but a fleeting reference to "offering three dives a day". Not sure what you can really do on a cruise ship visit- although this seems to be their main corporate focus in their three Caribbean locations.

...so I guess at this point I just flip a coin :d

Coin flipping in Honduras can be problematic. The smallest paper note they have, 1 Lempira, is worth 5¢ in US Dollars. So if you are in search of a Honduran coin, you'll be scrounging for something worth 1/4 of 5¢ at the largest. For my flipping, I prefer the Honduran penny (upper left in image), which is worth 1/100th of 5¢ ($0.0005 US).

Welcome to Roatan. Please post a report HERE on :sblogo: when you get home!

I may as well piggyback onto this thread - I'll be in Roatan in a few weeks also on a port of call.

Now, it can be seen that you post any number of questions here on SB.... It's time for a little pay back this go-round... you really do owe us a trip report. Share some relevant and viable information on your choice of Dive Op.

 

[enomisdivemaster]

This is Lee, one of the owners of Enomis Divers, and I would just like to clear up a few issues about our dive operation that Roatanman was a little unclear or just wrong about in this post of his. First he stated that Scuba Board is populated by divers and for divers and that fact is indeed true. But to say that you should never rely on Trip Advisor for anything other than trip advice is absolutely wrong, because the comments left on trip advisor about the the service that dive shops on Roatan provide and the quality of that service are also made by divers for the general knowledge of other divers wanting to visit Roatan. A lot of the dive shops on Roatan have gushing comments, and the comments left about Enomis Divers are the opinions of our customers.

Roatanman further said that I migrated from Margarita Island, Venezuela after taking my IDC on Utila, giving the impression that I am relatively new to the dive business. Well, I became a scuba instructor in 1978, and crossed over to PADI about 3 years ago. I have been in the dive business since that time, I have over 5000 dives, and at the age of 64 I am still an active IDC Staff Instructor teaching and diving 3 to 4 days a week, although I have had to hire 2 instructors recently to take some of the load off my shoulders. True, I have not made too many posts on this board, but that is because I am very busy trying to run 3 dive centers far away from each other, and don't have much time to spend making endless posts on scuba forums. It is not because I think most cruise ship customers never make it to Scuba Board as Roatanman alleges.

Then, Roatanman alludes that we have a lack of dive boat imagery. Take a look at the websites of our dive operations. You will find lots of pictures of our dive boats on Margarita Island. We own a 32 foot Island Hopper, and a 29 foot Mako to take our divers out diving. And on our dive center on the Ola Esmeralda cruise ship, we have a 12 passenger dive boat which is transported inside the cruise ship so our divers can dive at places where there are no harbors. Here on Roatan, we do rent a 24 foot and a 27 foot or so Panga at the present time, because we have not decided yet on whether to buy another 32 foot island Hopper custom made dive boat for our dive center here on Roatan, or to just buy a local panga. And our boat captains/owners make lots of money while we are deciding this issue and renting their boats.

We, as some other dive shops on Roatan, do not list prices on our websites, because of the bad habit of some dive shops here to try to undercut their competion. But if you go to our cruise ship webpage, you will see prices clearly stated for our dives. Roatanman said that there is an odd reference to how much our car service may or may not cost. Our taxi drivers charge $20 round trip per person, but for groups of 5 or more the price can be negotiated. That is not vague or odd in my opinion. We generally do 3 dives a day, 9 am, 11 am, and 2 pm, although we are flexible in that regard. We find that we can do 2 dives with our cruise ship customers with no problems and that we can get them back to their ship with time to spare. Roatanman insinuates that cruise ship visitors seems to be our main corporate focus. He is wrong once again. Our main focus is to provide our diving customers with high quality service and equipment, have small dive groups and classes sizes for more intimate and individual instruction. We do not believe in cattle boat dives. We would rather put 6 divers on 2 boats each, then 12 on one boat. We have a good diver base of returning customers who vacation here on Roatan and who willl not dive with anyone else but us. Our dive shop on Margarita Island has no cruise ship customers at all, since cruise ships do not visit that island. And our dive center on the cruise ship Ola Esmeralda, handles mostly divers living in South American countries. Well thats it, just wanted to set the record straight. Lee, Enomis Divers Roatan

 

[Doc]

Happy that you're back and active on SCUBABoard. (sorry about all the alluding, impressions, allegations and insinuating in post #8)

Okay, so beyond the $35 that you do charge for a single dive, which would be of interest to your only occasional cruise-ship visitor, what's the cost for dive packages, and for multiple dives~ the thing you do a lot of?

Yes, I see the pix of the boats on your other island locations, but I'm not going to Margarita Venezuala. That's for drinking. Divers go to Los Roques, right next door. Still- adding some good and detailed pix of the Roatan boats would be very useful and informative so that guests could make an informed decision. It's pretty basic and that would promote your product.

Do your customers find that an 09:00 departure, figuring 1/2 hour out, a 1:00 hour bottom time and a 1/2 hour to get back and tie up... how does the guest make that 11:00 boat? Or do your boats feature two-tank dives. (cost?) Or what is the bottom time limited to?

Do your boats feature one-tank dives, or are they set up as two tank dives?

Habitforming's coin may have already been flipped, but :sblogo: is the place to establish who you are to divers, not just tourists who dive. Take time out of your schedule to be here, not just wait for lurker friends to tell you to check back in after a year's absence. I think you read way too much into what I posted and I'm glad you filled in a couple of details, but I will have to disagree on Trip Advisor. In terms of detailed SCUBA information from writers with a broad experience base, it's perceived as an easily manipulated joke in the dive industry.