Roatan, Honduras,CoCo View Resort
Author: Tim Hulen

Posted by Tim H on July 26, 1999 at 12:11:26:

First time to Roatan and my first trip report.

I just returned form Coco View Resort July 24th and what a great place! But let start from the beginning. I did a lot of research on which destination and which operation/resort to dive with. But did very little research on the airline that flies there. I bet you can see this one coming……

Getting There…….. Well as you could probabley guessed I flew TACA. After all the horror stories I heard on this board about TACA I tried hard to lessen the chance I would be taking flying TACA. I made sure I had an early flight from Houston to be sure that it would be daylight to land in Roatan. I also checked our bags in at each destination, and make sure you check in early when flying TACA, they do over book, I saw it. Well TACA was delayed getting to Houston and we ended of departing from Houston with barely enough time to make it to Roatan before nightfall. In the air TACA said we were going to land in Roatan, but an hour into the fight they decided to divert us to San Pedro Sula. We were met in San Pedro Sula by TACA reps. and very old school bus with flames on the side. TACA put us up in a very nice hotel, gave us dinner and breakfast and brought us back to the airport the following morning. We tried to charge everything to TACA until they put a stop to that, Oh well. Keep this in mind ask if it’s open seating and if it is make sure you are one of the first people in line to board. We flew first class to Roatan because it was open seating and we were one of the first people in line. They actually placed other people on the plan that didn’t come with our original plane so the plane was over booked, go figure! This is another reason to be one of the first persons in line. If you really put up a stink, and do, you could be lucky enough to fly with the pilot or ask to take a stewardess’s seat. It was fun and a good learning experience. We only lost one day of diving and all our luggage arrived with us. Everyone who came on the Sunday direct flight managed to get there on time.

Coco View, the island of Roatan, and the diving………. Not sure where to start with this one. How about accommodations, food, and a little bit on bugs. We stayed in the over the water bungalow. It had ambiance and was a fun place to stay. The sewer problem, I’m not sure I could answer that, every two bungalows have a septic tank and I have to assume that the leach lines are under the sand in the water. I also noticed one drain was not completely connected but wasn’t going to figure got if it was sink and shower or the toilet! The over the water rooms where fun but I would have no problem staying in their beach front rooms with an AC. No need for an AC in the over the water room. The food was great in my opinion and more than I can eat but not gourmet. If you want gourmet I bet that Fantasy Island has it. The bugs where not as bad as I was expecting. The no-see-ums would bite me and leave a measles/chicken pock looking mark on me and that was it. No itching at all for me. Off Skintastic spray worked real good but smelled, it actually has no-see-ums as one of the biting bugs it protects against. The local concoction called Cactus Juice works real well and smells nice but is not waterproof, www.cactusjuicetm.com. The generator was out of commission a couple of times during the week and the back up was damage during hurricane Mitch and has been sent twice to the United States to be fixed, at least that is what we where told. This was not a major problem just a little annoying. Once we arrived at Coco View we where shown to our rooms and fed lunch. Then at around one o’clock we did our orientation and dive, just a short tour around the facility, how things operate and how the dive boats operate. Then a shore dive to the Price Albert Wreck to orientate us to landmarks that could be used to establish a compass setting to find specific land marks. We rested the rest of the day and prepared for our first boat dive. The dive operation is run like clockwork and all the divemasters are friendly and knowledgeable. The Dock Side Dive Center personel are all excellent and Marcus the equipment tech knows his stuff well, he fix a slight free flowing reg., which he did not have the parts for, by flipping the valve seat over and for a really fair price. Dive boats leave twice a day once in the morning and once in the afternoon. You do a new dive site once on each morning and afternoon boat dives with an optional drop off dive on one of the local walls about 100 yard off of Coco View, Newman’s Wall in morning and Coco View Wall in the afternoon. I’ll get back to the beach diving in a minute. All of the dive sites where spectacular in my opinion. Roatan is definitely a macro photography spot. We dove Mary’s Place, a dive site that was closed for some time due to being over dived. Now they scare the hell out of you about your responsibility diving this site and stress the importance and proper buoyancy. I know I fine-tuned my buoyancy all the way till we went to Mart’s Place. Being a California cold water dive in a 6.5mm wet suit buoyancy is total different in warm water, the principle the same though. I dropped 2 lbs. to 10 lbs. and think I could have dove on 7 lbs. but 10 lbs. was comfortable for me. Mary’s Place was interesting but definitely not worth the hype. We missed diving Calvin’s Crack to dive Mary’s Place, I think I would have rather of dove Calvin’s Crack instead. The beach diving is outstanding. Newman’s Wall, which is closer to Fantasy Island, and Coco View Wall, which is right off the Coco View property, both offered a different experience. Newman’s Wall has a more spectacular drop where Coco View Wall has huge overhangs. The Wreck of the Prince Albert lies between to two walls. We saw seahorses on Newman’s Wall, you have to look really close and move really slow to see one and they are ugly little things but interesting. We did a night dive on Coco View Wall. Around the Wreck of the Prince Albert visibility is not the best. The further you go away form the channel, where the wreck is the visibility gets better. I think someone could spend a week at Coco View and only dive their two walls and the wreck. There was a lot to see on the beach dives we did. We also did the dolphin dive at Anthony’s Key Resort. You have to ask my girlfriend if the dive was better than the snorkel, but I know she wanted to go back the next day to do the snorkel. I do know you are not able to take cameras on the snorkel. I also planned on doing the Utila excretion but the girlfriend got sea sick on a rough day so I left it up to her, she decided we shouldn’t go. Can you guess…..They saw and swam with some whale sharks and two huge pods of dolphins. Maybe next time!!!

Things to do while not diving and on your 24 hours time out………. Things to do while not diving and on your 24 hours time out until you fly. Coco View really discourages visitors from venturing out on their own. I think they don’t want to loose out on the money that you would spend at other places. Be aggressive and tell them you are going to do this. I think you can get a boat to and from Coco View almost any time but not sure on how late or how early. We were charged $35 for a taxi to Anthony’s Key Resort. The taxi driver stays at AKR until your done and drives you back. Coco view always offers to call a taxi for you, but you never pay the taxi driver you pay Coco View. I think Coco view is making some money off doing this, but not sure. We decided to a boat across to the Coco View Landing and then walk up to the road and wait for either a taxi or the public bus to drive by. The bus drove by and stopped, we jumped on and asked if it was going to Coxen Hole, just to check. It cost for the both of us less then $3 dollars because I got change back when I gave him $3. Coxen Hole is large and definite a third world town. We explored the city and I got a chance to use my very bad Spanish. I actually bargained for souvenir in Spanish, I know a mahogany box my girlfriend like started at $58 and I ended up getting it for $35. Word of warning watch for pickpockets. I had a 5 year old child trying to open my velcro pocket on my shorts while he was holding on to me and karate kicking his young friend, no harm done, he looked up at me and I shook my head and he stopped. I ended up bartering for a taxi back to Coco View. Started at 50 limps. and was able to get him down to 15 limps all in Spanish. I definitely had a hard time with numbers in Spanish above 20. Don’t be afraid to take a bus or taxi anywhere. It was definitely a fun experience and a good way to see the culture. I think you could take a taxi form Coco View to AKR for $3 a piece and then find a new taxi to come back, keep in mine you need to take your dive gear with you. Taxis are all over. Take a trip to Gio’s Restaurant in French Harbor for the crab and lobster special. Oh baby I mean crab and lobster, also wears an old shirt. We took an island tour through Coco View, Morris the bus driver knows his history, but not sure if some of it has been embellished. Again, I think you could do the same trip by taxi and/or public buses for a ¼ of the price. We also took a trip by Kayak over to Fantasy Island Resort for drinks one night, cost us $8 for a round of drinks for 6 of us. My girlfriend tried the Monkey LaLa, tasted somewhat like a Mudslide. You can definitely tell the Coco View guest from the Fantasy Island guest, they all seemed stuffy and somewhat pompous and you could definitely tell were the Coco view people were sitting, but it was fun. The other nice thing about staying at Coco View is that you eat and dive with the same people and begin to bond and develop (I hope) lasting friendships with complete strangers. Met one couple from Santa Barbara, CA and another form San Francisco, CA great people and my the trip that much more special. I hope to dive with them in Monterey and the Channel Islands in the near future. The return trip home went perfect without any problems.

I’m definitely going back.

I would like to thank everyone on the board and DocVikingo for advice and help.

I’ll repost something once I get my web page updated with my photos just recently started doing U/W photos and just used my first macro lens there.

Get out there and dive.

May all your bubbles be external,

Tim