Scuba Diving in Roatán, Honduras - March 2020 (4K)

[EvilOtter]

On our March 2020 trip to Roatán, we were joined by our niece who successfully completed her Open Water certification. We also hosted a family of four Open Water divers, who are good friends of ours from back home.

Unfortunately, the diving conditions were not great with extremely high winds, waves and surge. The visibility was the worst that we have ever seen with a lot of particulate in the water and generally poor lighting. Macro conditions were also suboptimal due to the strong surge.

To make matters worse, I lost a full day of diving to food poisoning and then came down with a bad case of Dengue Fever, two weeks after getting home. At least it wasn't Covid-19!

Please also note the special message at the end of this video. Our reefs are currently under threat of overfishing due to the Covid-19 lockdown. The Roatán Marine Park is working closely with local dive shops and the Honduran Navy to step up marine patrols but their resources are limited. If you want to help protect the natural beauty of our reefs, please consider making a donation to the Roatán Marine Park at www.roatanmarinepark.org.

Thanks to Danny and Mia at Barefoot Divers and Rino at Jackson's Dive Centrer for the great dives!

 

[Redfoot]

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

The Macro stuff was incredible- great quality.

 

[EvilOtter]

Thanks very much, Redfoot!

 

[Hoyden]

Can you tell us a little more about your dengue fever? Were there lots of mosquitoes where you were staying? I have been to Roatan many times and haven't worried about dengue, but perhaps I should have.

 

[EvilOtter]

Our condo is on the south side in Brick Bay where we receive strong trade winds out of the SE most days of the year. We are also on the hillside about 300m from the water. The only time we get sand flies is when the winds change direction or when walking on the beach. I have seen mosquitos only a handful of times over the past 5 years and cannot recall ever having been bitten. Then again, I am immune to sand flies and, being Canadian, hardly notice when I get a mosquito bite back home.

In spite of all this, we have friends that live full-time on the island who have had dengue. It is definitely there as well as malaria and chickungyunga. Honestly, we never considered the risk to be all that substantial and have never taken any preventive measures such as vaccines and anti-malaria meds. Now that I have been infected, I have a greater risk of complications (e.g., hemorrhagic fever) if I get it again. As such, I will need to vaccinate before our next trip.

Dengue is not fun. I had about 8 days of cycling fever between 100-104F. It starts with a period of chills then moves into a period of overheating followed by a cooling period. In my case, this cycle happened about twice per day. I had no appetite and could not eat for 6 days. My situation was further complicated by a lobar pneumonia that took out 50% of my lung capacity. This does not appear to be dengue-related although I was likely more susceptible due to being immunosuppressed.

I have been recovering for four days and am still very weak. I am eating normally and am out of bed but I am still having night sweats. I expect that it will be another week and a half before I get closer to normal.