Bay Islands Aggressor by Greg Dyer

Bay Islands Aggressor, June 1999
Author: Greg Dyer

Great experience once I got there. Diving maybe not quite as good as Belize Aggressor, but still good. Boat, crew, food are tops. Bay Islands diving is good - not the very best - but well worth it. You can dive 5 dives per day on the Aggressor. Aggressor itinerary is flexible and adjusts to conditions. There is good diving from land resorts in the Bay Islands, but a live aboard enables you to do varied sites. It's pretty nice to get up from breakfast and walk 30 feet to your gear and tank (picking up your camera on the way) and then 30 more feet to the dive platform and jump in. When you get out from your second dive, you sit down to lunch. After dinner you jump in for your night dive, Take a hot shower after every dive if you want. Water was warm - at least 82 degrees. Air averaged about the same - maybe 75 at night to 86. Vis about 80 feet. Seas mostly fairly calm. Winds not a problem. Wide variety of critters. Highly recommended.

Getting to the Bay Islands is the problem. Everything (bad) you have heard about TACA is true. I had 5 confirmed flight segments from SFO and got bumped 4 times. I got to SFO 2 hours before departure and the ticket counter was closed and flight already full -- Now that's championship overbooking. Return trip - again got to the airport in Roatan 2 hours early with confirmed reservation and no dice - won't let me on. They give me - after much travail - 4 boarding passes for 4 flight segments to SFO. Guess what? When I get to the gate in San Salvador a few minutes before departure (late because TACA's own connecting flight was late) flight full -- I was denied boarding again -- this time with a BOARDING PASS. TACA personnel lied to me in San Francisco, lied to me in Miami, lied to me on the phone, lied to me in Roatan, lied to me in Tegucigalpa. To this date - 3 months later --TACA has done NOTHING - NADA - NO COMPENSATION. Must be normal for them. Schedule from SFO to Roatan is 9 hours. It took me 40. That's 40 hours folks. That's a lot of time in airports and hotels. Return only took 24 hours. They must really work to get that bad.

Greg Dyer, Mill Valley CA (certified since 1986, AOW since 1994)