We go off diving between 5 and 7 extended trips (five to fourteen day) per year. We chaperone families who want to go diving. We manage the dive process and the local dive Sherpas. All over the world. We go for free.
Sometimes, my wife doesn't want to go, even though it would be "
free" to go to Maldives, Red Sea, Indonesia, all that holy grail type stuff.
Each and every year, she calls up
CoCoView of Roatan and plunks down
the full price and schedules an annual 1 or 2 week trip to "home away from home". This will be our 35th (?) trip. Not uncommon, there are an incredible number of repeat/return visitors.
The ease of diving, the lack of noise and distraction, the proximity of the house reef and placed wreck, the simple access for night diving, the intense concentration of macro/micro...right there, the character and design of the perfect boats, the gear storage areas, the long term staff, the clockwork simplicity of the airport transfer... It's just easy. Bing-bang-boom, 27 dives in a week, even I can hobble through that in my dodderage.
The only place I have ever found to compare?
Hotel Atlantis in the Philippines (Sabang, near Puerto Galera). Been there bunches. Same deal, simple dive process, easy to stay wet for 7 days straight.
In reference to the omnipresent whining comments about "
the Caribbean sucks", I just look at this as rambunctious, spirited, and more than a bit inexperienced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect There are many wonders remaining, some hide in plain sight before the unknowing.
My brain fogs when I hear a diver complaining "
that's the same dive site we did Monday". You really think you saw everything there, Skippy?
Some Caribbean treasures are located in places that are
not advertised in SCUBA magazines "advertorials" or are just too hard to get to- for someone bent on using frequent flier miles and needing terrestrial diversions (Casinos, Bars, Beach Massages). If it were easy to return to the Caribbean's islets of Los Roques, Cisne, NE Grenada, and a few other rocks, I would do it tomorrow. But then again, if it were easy, they'd build a Club Dread (and a Senor Frog's) there and that would be the new bestest ever place for diving, so says
TwitAdvisa.
THIS is SCUBABoard.
We go for the diving.