SCUBA DIVING

We have been trying to scuba dive at least one port per cruise since Sakari took an interest to this several years ago. 

The last time we were here we went scuba diving. However, the weather did not cooperate with us and we were unable to dive at West Bay like we had hoped. I had really wanted to go out to Mandy's Eel Garden, but with the weather, we had to go over to the other side, where it was calm, and dive at Flowers Bay (which was fabulous!).

Once again, I contacted the dive company in hopes that we would finally get to dive West Bay and Mandy's Eel Garden. I knew out of all the ports we would be going to, Roatan was the place to dive. Then I got bad news...the dive shop we used last time was booked with a bunch of people that were staying at a hotel on the island that day. I started searching for someone else and although the dive company I decided to go with was more expensive (both for the dive and the transportation), their communication and all the time they took to answer my hundreds to questions was just great customer service and I felt so comfortable with them. They did say they don't normally cater to cruise ship people, but obviously was not going to turn anyone down either. They normally didn't include any transportation to and from the ships, but would arrange it for me because that was just something that was very important to me to have included. They ended up charging us $25 pp for round trip (which was more than any other place quoted us) but I guess it was worth it to know that we had someone waiting for us. The cost of the dive was $125 pp PLUS tax, which I didn't realize until after the dive. Some of the other companies quoted a price and said that it included taxes. So, I was caught off guard when we went to pay for the dive and it was more than what I had brought.

Our driver met us right outside the port and we walked a bit to get to his van and then we were off to West Bay. It's about a 20 minute drive there. We passed Flowers Bay, where we dove last time because of the bad weather.

We arrived at the dive station and checked in with our instructor. The thing I like about NCL is that their dock (Coxenhole) is closer to West Bay than Carnival's Mahogany Bay and therefore, you get there quicker.

She knew our history of diving and said she would make it a "quick" class. She legally had to go over everything of course, but she did it quickly as a review and we took our test. I was getting a good vibe from her, which I feel is important when diving and feeling confident.

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We geared up with our equipment and was ready to roll....or dive...or sink....or something entertaining.

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Ok, I gave in...sticking out the tongue is the "in" thing to do I guess. I wasn't fighting her anymore about it so I joined in.

Mandy's Eel Garden on West Bay would be our dive destination. It was located right in front of the dive site.

"A great site for photography"

"Swim thru channels"

"Garden Eels retreat into their holes in unison as you approach"

"When snorkeling or surfacing from a dive always remember to be aware of the glass bottom boat that often passes directly overhead"

Now one thing I did want to mention is that during my conversation with the dive site, prior to coming here, I was told "We are a 5 star PADI dive center that specializes in small group, concierge diving (meaning we carry, set up, wash and store your gear for you) all you have to do is dive." However, we ended up having to carry our own gear. I'm not sure if the other instructors were out on a dive with regular scuba divers, but our instructor seemed to be the only one around other than someone working at the front desk. I honestly didn't mind that we had to do this...as long as there are no steps involved because I simply can not get up and down steps with the added weight on my back. I've tried before. It's brutal for me. They had a ramp to use and we walked right down to the beach and into the water where we started our skills. I will say that she did offer to do it if we felt that we couldn't or didn't want to do it, but we said we were good. So, at least she offered. It would have just taken up a lot of our time.

Since we were the only 3 in our group, our skills check off went fast and it was time to head out. I was super excited and once again NOT NERVOUS OR ANXIOUS! I'm finally getting the hang of this and enjoying diving so much now. I think this will make 3 or 4 dives for me that I didn't have any anxiety at all and it went so smoothly. 

Now I handed Sakari one of the camera's and I took the other. She started taking pictures immediately.

Then all of a sudden....nothing! Absolutely nothing! The camera stopped working. We have no idea why. The battery was good and we hadn't had problems out of this "older model" camera that we've had for several years until now.

I told her to turn it off and back on. She got a few more pictures. Then off we went again. She was playing in my bubbles in one of her pictures. LOL

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A couple more times she gave me that "look" and pointed at the camera. I turned it off and back on and she continued. Then that was the end of it. It wouldn't turn back on anymore. Darnit. I just shrugged my shoulders and she would just have to go without unless she was able to get it to work again later. I felt so bad because she likes to take pictures when we are diving.

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So here are the pictures she was able to get.

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So now comes the abundance amount of pictures I took. Mind you, this is just a fraction of what I got that day, but it's still a lot. I'm just a picture freak...especially when it comes to being in the ocean.

When we first started, I completely forgot to put my camera on the under water mode and ended up with the green pictures...so forgive me. The setting I "usually" use is the underwater motion setting. That way if something is moving, it won't blur on me.

I also decided to take my fisheye lens with me on this dive. Although I forgot to put the camera on the underwater mode, I did remember that when the fisheye is on, I needed to adjust my settings in the camera to lighten the pictures because it makes them darker and the blues brighter as well. I love the way the pictures usually turn out with the color and feel that when I don't have the lens on, the colors aren't as "bright".

But, I have found that when you go underwater, you always get this bubble in the lens where the lens meets the camera and you have to shake the camera around to get it out. Otherwise you end up with pictures like this...

Now the reefs at West Bay are pretty shallow in areas when you start out so we were told to "snorkel" on the top but yet under water with our regulator.

It didn't take long before I discovered I was on the wrong setting and corrected it.

Sakari was trying to equalize her ears.

While she was getting the hang of that, I was taking pictures of the cute little puffer fish you see all the time.

Sakari is pretty good and knowing how far to go down and when trying to equalize her ears when to come back up and try again slowly. It takes her awhile in the beginning, but she will finally get it. We hung out on the bottom while our instructor stayed with her until she was able to finally equalize before going on.

Then we were able to go on...

Then we heard this very loud noise. We looked up and seen a boat coming toward us...oh my. The instructor went over to grab Sakari and make sure she was out of the way. At this point she had managed to equalize her ears, but had came up some during the swim and needed to get back down out of the way. It was somewhat scary for me to watch that. I know we were down far enough, but it seemed like the boat was right on top of us and it was a little crazy looking and sounding.

Hubby was doing good and I'm so grateful we have found the perfect pair of goggles that allows him to dive with us without having ear issues since he don't have ear drums. He has absolutely no problems with these goggles with the ear covers and he enjoys himself so much now with no worries of water getting into his ears or ear infections.

We had made it down 20 feet so far and all was good

Then I noticed a sandy bed...and in that sandy bed was garden eels.....eeek! However, we didn't stop and our instructor didn't stop to point anything out so I assumed that since we were moving on that this wasn't exactly the eel garden, but merely just some garden eels in this area.

We had made it down to 35 feet now.

I absolutely love the purple sponges. They are some of my favorite...along with the blue and red. They are just so pretty.

Then we made it to the actual eel garden and wow there were a lot! It was so fun to watch them come out of the hole and slowly go down as we crossed over them. I think garden eels are just so cute. We had one in our tank for a short period of time....until it decided to jump in the back of the tank and got caught up in the motor. 😞

If any of you read my last review from a couple of months ago, we did a scuba in Barbados and the hubby and Sakari came across some garden eels and I totally missed it (even though I managed to capture some pictures of them, I had no idea they were in the pictures). I have been on a mission since then to see them for myself.

Now while I was taking pictures of them, my camera started acting funny. It started flashing that it was "too deep" and I was like what the heck! It had never done that before. So, I looked at my pressure gauge and noticed this...

I was down 50 feet!!! Oops!!! Yikes!! So it was time to come up some since we are only supposed to go down 40 feet when you are a DSD.

Sakari and Sam were even further down than I was. She was trying like crazy to get her camera to work.

Our instructor wrote something on her writing board saying that there were more on up that wasn't as deep as this area.

So we kept going up...and they were just everywhere.

A video of them...they are just so cute. You can also hear the boat going by us overhead as well. It was just back and forth all day. I managed to complete my mission of seeing the garden eels! I was so happy!

We were finally holding steady at 40 feet now and my camera was back to normal. I guess I now know that it will not want to function properly after 50 feet. It does say good to 50' on the camera and I guess it means exactly 50'.

Now I will say that I felt like there really weren't a lot of fish during our dive. I'm not sure why. I mean if I was a fish, this would be my paradise to live in. There were a lot of damsels and little fish and every once in awhile you'd see a parrot fish or something, but not many bigger fish like I expected.

Then I ran across a trumpet fish and got overly excited to see something different than just the coral and damsels.

Sakari was still desperately trying to get her camera to work.

Then we heard the boat passing over us again.

Finally a school of fish!!!!

There we go...now we're talking. That's what I like to see. Now I feel like I'm swimming in an aquarium!!!

This area has a lot of neat channels in it and they look so cool.

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Then all of a sudden I noticed our instructor went in one and out of site. I look down and see the hubby down there about to follow her and do the same. Sakari and I were several feet above that (as you can tell from the next photo) and knew if we wanted to follow, we would need to go down deeper to go in.

I wasn't sure what Sakari wanted to do. So I waited. As much as I wanted to go into the channel, I wasn't about to leave her or if she decided she wasn't going to do it then I would go over the channel at the top with her so that she wouldn't feel bad for not being able to do it. But, I seen her equalizing her ears over and over as she dropped down. I knew she was going for it. (After the dive she said there was no way she wasn't going to do that and was so excited about it).

As we made it down, I caught the end of the hubby...and then in went Sakari.

It was pretty cool and we both high fived each other when we made it out. I wanted to turn around and do it again but the hubby and the instructor had moved on. LOL

Here's a short video...sorry about the way it turned out. I was so excited about this that I wasn't paying attention to the direction I had the camera.

So on we went...

Then we found the cutest little pipe fish

Then the hubby spotted a sideways flounder. They are always so cool to look at.

We were heading back and only at around 15 feet now.

Huge fish alert...

It was way bigger than what it appeared in the photo/video

We were following a lot of channels at this point, just none that were enclosed like a tunnel

We had to come up to the top to go over some of the shallow coral reefs...and then back down again.

Sakari spotted something that she liked and waited for me to catch up and show me.  At first I thought they were some Christmas tree worms (the bright neon orange things under the rock). But then as I got closer, I noticed they weren't.

Then we spotted another trumpet fish and a huge lobster

And then our dive was over. We came up and swam back to our dive site at the beach. It was a great dive. According to my watch and pictures, we were diving for 1 hour and 10 minutes from the first picture I took when we headed out after skills to to last before I came up and inflated my bcd before the swim back to shore. That was a great and long dive and I was so happy about it!

After diving, we decided to walk next door to the resort (Grand Roatan Resort) for some lunch and hang out on the beach for awhile before heading back to port.

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FINAL THOUGHTS ON WEST BAY DIVERS

We had an amazing experience with West Bay Divers. Our instructor, Eva, was amazing, kind, informative, and a great instructor pointing things out and with communication under the water. She showed us just what we wanted to see and we were able to do something we've never done before...go through an enclosed channel. So neat!

Even though this place was a little more expensive than the other places we had checked out ahead of time, it was worth it. They also offered a second dive for only $60 each if we wanted to. However, I didn't want to press our time limit there in Roatan and we were hungry.

This place also had excellent communication from start to end. They answered all of my (many) questions, usually within minutes of sending an email. They made me feel at ease and confident that I would have a good time.

I also wanted to say that after the dive and we had been home for 2+ weeks, I received a text from the dive shop thanking me for choosing them and they were glad to have us dive with them. This would be the first time any dive vendor has ever followed up with us like that. This is definitely a 5-star dive operation!

When we return to Roatan next time, we will definitely use them again!

Highly recommend this place and shop.