Utila dive operators advice

[HJ]

Hi all,

I was in Utila 3 years ago and dove with Alton's. While it was generally good, there were a couple of things I wasn't happy with so want to see if anyone had better experience elsewhere:

1. bottom time: I was told I can dive my air but that wasn't the case since they need to be back for afternoon tour so often I was told to come up after 45 mins. Which is ok but I wonder if there's any shop where I can really dive according to my air consumption which is around 1 hour.

2. DMs: Beto is very good (and hopefully he's still there) but some of the newly trained ones could be a bit poor. I was also not happy being grouped with newly qualified AOW divers as they consumed air much faster. Half the time I had a DM to myself since I was diving Nitrox, half the time I was grouped with others. Being pretty experienced with around 300 dives I just need a DM who guides and lets me do my thing. This time I will have a buddy whereas last time I was on my own so hopefully that will help.

We are planning to stay at the Lighthouse hotel so Alton's is very convenient, but would be interested from hearing from other divers.

We plan to be there for April so fingers crossed for whale sharks as well!

Thanks.

 

[Stout]

As far as I can tell, reading Altons Facebook page, Beto is still there. Personally, I found him pretty good except he was a little school marmish for my tastes, preferring to keep the group tightly together and moving on schedule so when I found something interesting to look at there was some concern as to what happened to me when I tended to fall behind. I prefer to dive with Fede ( he was around three years ago, has since moved on ) as he was a lot more in tune with diving with experienced divers who want to look at stuff. I agree on the newly trained DMs A couple of times I felt like strangling a couple of them for doing things like offering to limit the dive to 30 minutes because one of the divers was complaining about being cold. I'm still going to talk to Altons, interview the DMs, so to speak before I make my decision.

BICD is also on the list because last time I talked to them they said they MAY put me on their resort boat and I gather that meant diving with the all inclusive crowd who are, hopefully, used to not being herded.

I think I may be too old for Utila Watersports, but I'll go over there for a coffee and see what they have to say.

With out a doubt, the best outfit I've been with is Coral View. After they figure out ( on the first dive ) that you know what you're doing they tend to leave you the heck alone and trust that you'll tell them things like reaching half a tank and don't constantly perform air checks. Very small groups as in, I was the only diver a couple of times and they went out with just me on board because I'm some sort of "weirdo" who lives the south and east sides and doesn't give mush of a rip about the north side ( I've been to Utila 7 times ) so they didn't need to spend a fortune on fuel to keep me happy. The DMs even went back to the boat and left me to putter around in 20fsw because I just looooooove those south side shallows and let me dive until I felt guilty about taking too long to get back to the boat.

Even the temporary DMs they brought in were top notch, so much that I actually asked Sarah, the shop manager at the time, how she managed to find DMs like that and her response was...."it's not easy" As it turns out her husband would vet them as temp DMs at Laguna Beach Resort and pass on the names of the ones he thought would be a good fit. They're under new management so I'm hesitant to say anything more than go talk to them and when I do, I'm going to ask them if they're still the same shop they used to be. They've got a brand new website, which is horrible and their Facebook page is pretty dead but they're still number one on my list of places to check out.

UDC has a stellar reputation and their divers seemed happy but I haven't been diving with them. Gunter's looked OK but I hate their boat and after I ended up diving with another shop, the manager wouldn't speak to me anymore. Parrots ? I'm too old, same with Underwater Vision and Captain Morgan's.

Nobody seems to know anything about Paradise Divers.

I think that's all of them. Deep Blue Divers is gone although their website is still up.

 

[laurenceh]

i agree, coral view divers is a good choice, less of that cattle boat feel you might experience at alton or udc. the only problem is that they are at the complete opposite end of town, so you'll need a bike for the 10-15 minute ride. if you contact them ahead of time, perhaps they'd consider picking you up from the lighthouse?

 

[Stout]

Coral View used to offer a free pick up and drop off service as part of their diver services but I'm not seeing any mention of it on their website.

 

[BreeAbyss]

Coralview is great! I would use them again. We stayed right beside them in a townhouse condo so literally took less than a minute to get there. We rented a golf cart for the trip so only took a couple minutes to get to downtown for dinner etc .

 

[HJ]

Thank you for your feedback! I will talk to Coral View and find out whether they will pick us up. Can't wait for April!

 

[Stout]

Damn, this is the second time I've had to eat crow on this forum...but here goes

I have to rescind all recommendations I've made for Coral View as a shop to dive with, it's not the same shop it used to be and, other than that, I don't want to talk about it right now.

I signed on with Alton's today, the told me everything I wanted to hear within two minutes of my walking into their office. The key to getting what I want, diving the south shore shallows appears to be the afternoon boats.

 

[Stout]

I just did a couple of dives with Beto, just him and me and there was none of that dive school vibe at all. Beto carries a magnifying glass now and is good at spotting the small stuff. The first dive, on the sand patch at Little Bight can only be described as stupendous( in all caps, big red font and several exclamation points behind it ) and it's exactly the kind of thing I"m looking for, The second dive was a reef dive, pretty typical really but at a nice slow pace and then we saw.....The Thing,

Close Encounter with The Thing | X-Ray Mag

Think I'll stick around Alton's for a while.

 

[CajunDiva]

Now you got me! What exactly is "The Thing"??? I saw something like that on the south shore of Roatan and nobody could tell me what it was...

 

[Stout]

That's why I liked to the article, it seems nobody knows what it is. I'm wondering why someone hasn't grabbed one for study as I was asking around today and several island divemasters have reported seeing it. They say it's rare mostly seen on night dives and very light sensitive let we saw it during the day, in the shade of an overhang on the south side and it was moving from one crevice to another where it disappeared completely. was moving very quickly

I can't say how long it was as I didn't see all of it but it was about an inch across. I saw it's "feet" but failed to notice it's gills and it was moving very fast. That's what everybody's calling it, the thing and if I kept a logbook that's what would be written down in it.

Pot of Utila has been closed for two days now, I'm freezing and wearing a gortex jacket and socks. Had turn on the hot water in my apartment and I'm looking at that air conditioning unit like it's some kind of cruel joke. I just sacrificed a thousand ants and two cockroaches to the sun gods, hope it works.