Except for the bugs. Good God, the bugs! No-see-ums abound and munch heartily on tasty flesh.
Coco View is a diving resort, not a resort that has diving. Pretty much everything in the resort is set up to make diving easy. Want to get on the boat? Put a little tag up on your locker, they load your gear. Nitrox tanks were already at my locker and waiting for me to analyze when I got back from diving. Dunk tanks for gear were set up in convenient locations, with separate tanks for cameras. Same thing on the boat, there was a separate dunk tank and table just for cameras. Showers for rinsing and lines for hanging up gear to dry. Two boat dives a day, with an optional drop off on the walls or the wreck on the way back in. Unlimited shore diving, unguided, you can solo dive if you want, nobody cares. I averaged 4 dives a day, sometimes doing 5, a couple of times I only did 3.
The boats had a moon well in the center….a hole with a ladder that you could enter the boat if the seas were rough, the idea being that the center of the boat is moving less than the ladders in the back. We only had one day when there were some waves, but I tried it out that day and it was a lot easier than bouncing around on the end of the boat. There were two side exits and of course the rear exit on the boats, so waiting time to offload was limited. I think we had 12 people on our boat, with at least one dive master, sometimes two.
Two walls in the front yard waiting to be explored from shore or by boat drop off when the boats came back in. The Prince Albert (an artificial reef) was there as well, easily accessible and exploding with life, with a resident moray eel and the biggest grouper I’ve ever seen.
There was a bait ball hanging out next to the Prince Albert all week. It was beautiful! The last morning of diving I went out to visit the ship….something was agitating the ball and the fish were whipping around in formation. It was magical.
What else did we see? An eagle ray, graceful and majestic. I lost count of the moray eels. A couple of toadfish, Pedersen shrimp, banded coral shrimp, angelfish, several unusual crabs, boxfish, lots of sea fans and tube sponges, octos, and several school of squid. The squid were very curious, and would come up to you if you were still. Sharks on the shark dive, but nowhere else. Grouper everywhere, lobsters, spotted eels. And schools of yellow tailed snapper, following you around like puppies. Barracuda, which would also trail you for a while….they weren’t quite as puppy-like. More that I can’t remember now. Vicious damsel fish protecting their patches of algae. There were two resident sea horses hanging out at the safety stop location in the front yard.
Now, I’m spoiled….my only other warm water dive trip has been to Papua New Guinea, and really, nothing compares to that. But, I thought the level of life in Roatan was pretty high, and the colors were very nice.
The resort fed us well. I recommend the waffles, fresh fruit, pastas, beans and rice, and grouper. Avoid the steak, it was unfailingly tough and chewy.
My room was in the older set of rooms, and while it was clean and neat, it was a little worn around the edges. That added to the charm for me, but if I were to return, I’d ask for a different room in the newer group of oceanfront rooms, or one of the over-water cabanas. There was a giant bottle of fresh water in the room. The rooms were air-conditioned, but my a/c was stuck on “freezing” or “unplugged”. I didn’t find that I needed it most of the time, the ceiling fan was enough.
The hammocks were strategically placed around the resort and were quite comfy. The resort has wifi internet access if you bring your laptop, or you can use the computer they have set up in the clubhouse for free. The bartenders were friendly and poured a very stiff drink. The resort has two dogs, Chiquita and Pancho. Pancho loves to play chase me and tug of war, and will ride on the kayak with you if you let him. The resort can also arrange several tours, a boat night dive (very nice, but crowded), a shark dive (worth it once, probably won’t do it again), and a tour of the island on Friday afternoon for shopping and whatnot, since you can’t dive anyway.
All in all, it was a good trip. I would go back, and I would recommend it to anyone. Pack the bug spray and use it liberally, though.
Here's some pics!
http://picasaweb.google.com/PenelopeStJohn/Roatan2007
