2009 Roatan Honduras

Waking up at 2 am to catch a 6:30 am flight out of Denver International Airport, gave me a chance to reflect on just how early that is. Out on the Ranch even the coyotes are in bed at that time. This will be our first dive trip of 2009. We are going with our neighbors Mr. & Mrs. Smith to Roatan Honduras. They are young and exciting and always ready for adventure. This could be the mistake of their lives! Once thru security screen we had little wait for our plane to Houston. The trip from there was totally non eventful except having clouds at 37000 feet because of tropical depression Ida. Ida had passed thru Roatan the night before. They had a week of rain before we arrived. Thank the mountains for us not being able to take the snow down with us. Once in Roatan we breezed through customs and caught our bus to the resort. We know we have have a welcome cocktail waiting for us, so no dawdling there. This will be our 5th trip to Anthony's key Resort in Roatan Honduras. The resort is located on the north central part of the island. One of the reason for so many trips here is the convenience of the dive sites from the resort. You do not have to spend a lot of time on the boat traveling to and from the dive sites. We go thru orientation and then take a little skiff out to the key. This little cabana on the key will be home for 7 nights. As we soon discover after being gone from AKR for 8 years they have installed a pool and bar on the key. Now the only reason we have to leave the key is for food and the dive boats. Our cabana is on the very north side of the key, the Caribbean reaches our deck steps.  We can snorkel in the ocean just off our secluded deck. The crash of the waves on the steps can be heard all night. The next morning comes early after a night of restless sleep as you adjust to the sounds of the ocean and dream about the days activities. The morning dives will start off the back of the boat for a check out dive. Things like checking weights and buoyancy control are what this little dive is designed for. Then we head out to the big water and and the first real dive of the year. Rupert the boat captain is a familiar face, one of the few old timers still left at the resort. We head out to the open water to do our first dive of the year. I watch all the people putting there gear together it reminds me of my first open water dive in Mexico many years ago. Every one is very excited and a bit apprehensive of what they will see once below the water. Your first open water dive is like your first love you never forget. Even when you have 100's of dives the first dive of the season always causes a knot in your stomach. Once the first dive is over life is good. You know you have not lost the touch and you also know what draws you back year after year. The thrill of diving can be different for each person. With the dives sites being so close to the resort we go back into the dock after every dive to replace the empty tanks with full ones. We do 2 dives in the am then off to our room to take a warm shower then up to the restaurant for lunch. Breakfast is a buffet and lunch you order off the menu with usually 2 or 3 choices. When lunch is over you head back to your room to get your wet suit that you have rinsed in the shower and head back to the boat. All this back and forth is done by taking a small boat out to the key and back. By the end of the week you have had lots of time in the saddle (skiff). There are about 140 to 150 people at the resort at 1 time. Most of the people our from the USA, places like AZ, CA, CO, NY, FL, PA, TX seem to pop up a lot. Many of the people brought their young kids with them and their grand moms to watch them. Once we get our 3 dives in for the day it is off to a hot shower and happy hour in the bar. It just does not get any better than that. As I noticed on Lewis's t shirt dive, eat, dive eat, dive drink, dive dive, dive shore dive, dive eat. The second full day of diving involves a wreck dive setting on the bottom at 110 feet called the Aquilla. When you are doing a deep dive like that you always do it first thing in the morning, and each successive dive is to shallower depths. Roatan has about 25 named dives sites around the island. They also do an optional shark dive on Monday am. They have other activities like horse back riding, zip line, picnic to Maya Key (a recreation of Maya ruins with live animals) and night party with crab races on the key. They do a good job of trying to keep their guests occupied!  The rain and wind came in early this am so today's dives involved a bus to the other side of the island while the boats where ferried over. In today's case it was the calm side of the island. We go horse back riding at 4 pm this evening along the north beach up thru the village where the young kids are playing soccer. We ride in the water so as not to interfere with their game. We stop to take a picture of us on our horses. I attempt to get close to Mary's horse and I see it raising it's leg. I am assuming it is going to scratch it's stomach but it is about to let lose on me. The guide had warned me about one of the horses kicking but did not say anything about Mary's horse. I start to raise my foot but it kicks my horses stirrup and breaks the stirrup while my foot is in it. We change the stirrup and head back to the resort. By the time we get back to our room my foot is starting to swell. I take a quick shower and start icing it down. By that point I am not able to walk on it. Just as the rest of the group were about to leave for dinner without me the resort hostess and the Doctor show up. The Dr. checks over my foot, determines that it's not broken, puts some cream on it and wraps it. I will be good to dive the next day. We are up early the next day to take the bus to the other side of the island to go on our last 2 dives of the trip. This trip we see about the most different kinds of fish we have seen so far. We saw a big crab, 2 lobster, a few small spotted eels, a moray eel and a trumpet fish. We are taking the boat back to the resort which means a 45 minute boat ride on rough seas. The last night on the island brings local dancers to the bar for our enjoyment. After a good-bye drink and dinner, it's back to the room


Last updated on 11-14-2009 .

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