Valor 1/22-1/29 western review Part IV (Roatan)

Sorry this has taken so long! got caught up at work!!!!!!!!!!

Continued –

Valor 1/22-1/29 western review part I:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=289441

Valor 1/22-1/29 western review Part II

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=289476

Valor 1/22-1/29 Western review Part III

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=289866

Roatan

***Diving w/Subway Water Sports

***Kayaking & Lunch w/Subway Water Sports

***Dolphin Encounter

Diving: Subway Water Sports

US$ 65 per person for two dives including bus transport from and to the cruise ship dock. That also includes tanks and weights.

Nitrox is $ 5 extra per tank. Equipment rental is US$ 35 for the day.

Prices are cash or travelers checks. If paying by credit card add 17% tax.

Where to start…..Ok I have a lot to say about this particular Dive!!! We have named is “adventure diving in Roatan” Let’s just say this was our “problem” port. The carnival Valor docks in Roatan and lucky for us tired cruisers it doesn’t reach port till 11am ship time (11am eastern standard time) It is 10am Central time in Roatan when you dock.

This gave us time to eat something, collect our drying scuba gear off our balcony, and load up the sherpas to hop off the ship. Well the disembarkation in Roatan was not so smooth!!! There were HUGE lines that backed up the forward staircases!!! Here are the 5 of us with HUGE Dive bags and trying to maneuver our way through the crowd with out hitting anyone…..once again should have smiled at Augie and gotten off with him! Of course unbeknownst to us – Augie was behind us!

Anyway when we finally made it out on to the pier with the rest of our ship we made our way across the street where Patrick was meting us divers and the Kayaking group. This was the most efficient part of our day. Anyway Patrick gathered up us divers and kayakers and placed us all on different vans and sent us on our merry way.

Sadly, our day in roatan was awful weather! It was POURING for the most part and cloudy the rest of the time. Anyway we 6 divers and then 3 other divers who were joining us Plus 4 guys going fishing made our way to Subway Water Sports resort. This was for the most part uneventful. We arrived to the resort and had to take a boat over a canal to the shop. The 3 divers that joined us needed to rent some gear….and we all needed to fill out the paper work.

Subway water sport started out fine – checked our C-cards, wanted to know when our last dive was etc. They divvied out gear for the people who needed it and then it was back on to the boat and out to the site in the pouring rain. We all quickly donned our wetsuits since it was cold and then we were good to go.

1st Dive – Mary’s Place – Aborted.

Ok so we motored up to Mary’s place the famed crevasse dive in Roatan. I can tell you I was SO EXCITED to dive this spot!! But I should have known when we had trouble catching the mooring line that we were in for some rough seas. *sigh* But let me back up a bit. As you already know our group sets up our own gear – ok so we go about doing this, and low and behold we start finding hissing tanks. This in itself was not alarming until we found 3 hissing tanks and 1 tank leaking from the neck!!! The tanks we found that were usable were under filled – for me who doesn’t use “as much” air and Meg who re-filles her tank as she dives whom this wasn’t a huge deal. But for some of the other divers who like to have a full tank to max bottom time they were not happy!. Well we get all our gear set up and we realize yet another issue….

One of the women who joined us, had to rent a BCD – no problems Subway Water Sports provided her with a BCD. However it did not come with a power inflator hose – OK not a problem she’ll have it on her Reg, NOPE. So really this could be seen from either side. Either you think the BCD should come with it or the Reg should (she brought her own Reg set up) anyway there wasn’t a hose and we didn’t discover this till we were motoring away from the shop. Now what I had a problem with is neither the Captain nor the DM could help this woman out! First they have no tools on the boat – personally I think this is poor planning/set up. But not only did they not have any tools they didn’t have any spare parts or gear. Thankfully our group had both extra hoses and tools! So Meg lent the woman a hose and Geoff set it up on her Reg for her. The diver in question was very appreciative! But I didn’t think it should have been our job to help her out – NOT THAT we minded, we didn’t, just I feel Subway water sports should better stock their boats or more properly check out a persons set up if they rent partial gear….

Ok so finally we are ready to dump into the ocean blue at Mary’s Place The DM does a briefing, and then she is first over the side – then Augie, and another gentleman who joined us then me and Meg. The plan was to all meet at the front of the boat and make a group descent. I should have known there was a problem when the DM started falling behind the boat! Anyway Meg and Myself didn’t notice how big of a problem there was till we were in the water! I should also let you know that both myself and Meg are life gaurds and I was a nationally competitive swimmer. Upon entering the water we realized there was a very strong current!!!

The three people in before us were rapidly putting distance between themselves and the boat. I promptly put my back to the current and started kicking – then yelled to the captain about the current and that he needed to toss a line! The people still on board didn’t realize what was really happening – at first they though both Meg and I were having problems breathing – which we were but only because we were working so hard we were winded. Regardless I got back to the boat and Meg was right behind me. We were the only ones able to swim back to the boat. Once the Captain realized how much trouble we were having he tossed in a line and caught the DM and one Gentleman. Augie was beyond the line at that point but told the DM he was fine and to come get him with the boat once she got everyone else settled.

Worse was Meg and I were on the other side of the boat than the ladder and had to hand over hand make our way around. Our problem came when we go to the engines – I yelled to the captain to walk the live over the engines but he was busy with something else – so my Husband did this for us. Once we all got back on board we went to pick up Augie, who by this point was worried he had ruined the dive – as he didn’t realize we had aborted due to current!!

Once on board – as you can imagine I was pretty nervous not to mention tired after a hard swim. Lets just say that was a bad set up for the next dive try. It’s never good to be nervous! Anyway we motored to another site, did a current check, and found that it was fine. This is when we realize there was yet another problem…..*sigh* it turns out that all the weights were miss-marked or not marked at all. Neither the DM nor the Captain was able to correctly identify the weights. SO what ended up happening was both Meg and I were under weighted. Also one other diver had a problem with this. In we go – we both start swimming for the bottom, only to find that even after 15 feet we were having problems. Augie and and the gang were helping us out – trying to make sure the BCDs were empty etc. but to no avail neither of us could stay down.

Both Meg and I aborted the 2nd Dive – between the weights, and the first attempt we weren’t really willing to try as hard as another time maybe – and yes we probably both had more air in our lungs due to both nerves and the swim work out. But with out the correct weights we were just too buoyant! Back on to the boat we went. *big sigh* Anyway we then re-set up our gear on different tanks (for both the 1st and ht e2nd try we had the original tank) and found evn more hissing tanks. Really at this point I was rattled and wasn’t sure I was going to get back in the water.

The rest of the group completed what they thought was a good dive – in fact Roatan had more sea life that any of the other ports we dove (Grand Cayman, Costa Maya) too bad it was over cast but that wasn’t Subway’s fault!

OK once the gang was back on the boat we did a short surface interval – In fact I think that the DM and the Captain were too loose about this. Seemed they were more concerned about making sure to get our 2nd dive than safety – anyway I clocked the surface interval and for most it should have been ok. So I bet you can guess what happens next….the gang starts setting up their gear and low and behold there are not enough tanks that AREN’T hissing to go around. Ok – Ken and Geoff are like, well do you have any spare O rings? Cause we can change them…..Nope no spare O rings….and no O ring puller. Well once again our gang has both the parts and tool s so Ken gets busy changing out O rings. Bu tin the end we still ended up a tank short 

On a happy note both Meg and I were able to add a few lbs (we used all the weights on the boat!!) and were able to complete the next dive. Honestly the only reason I went back in was a combination of getting back on the horse and being mildly nauseous in the boat *laugh* I had no problems on the 2nd dive – got my weight correct because I had no buoyancy issues nor did I need to add air to my BCD so I wasn’t negative. According to the weights I had on like 15lbs – but I think it was more like 12lbs which is what I normally carry with a full 3mm and in salt.

The actual diving was FANTASTIC! I was so happy I made the effort to get back in! the sponges were huge!!!! There were gorgonian sponges I could practically fit in! we saw a jaw fish and hamlets and sea cucumbers, plus a grouper or two. This was one of the best dive of the ports!!! Just gorgeous, the sun came out for a brief second or two so things lit up – fabulous! But the diving was not enough to make me forget the equipment issues we had.

Overall I wouldn’t Dive with Subway Water Sports again – they just didn’t seem to have their act together for us. With that said – I am sure this HAS NOT been the experience of everyone – in fact I have read many positive reviews of this operation. This has been my only negative experience with recommended dive operators. I am Hoping this was a localize deal and we just had the unfortunate timing to be present for a slip up.

Roatan – Kayaking - Poetru

Kayaking & Snorkeling Tour in Roatan:

Next Stop was to Roatan. Here we went kayaking and snorkeling. It ended up POURING that day, but we were still able to go. We went on a long drive up to the resort they were starting from and got to see a lot of the countryside in the process…including the dump :o| Once we got there we were given a place to put our belongings, though for the security freaks it was only out of the way not locked up anywhere, and then out into the rain we went. We had our “how to kayak”, which was just a short demonstration from our guide on how to hold the paddles and how to turn. There were mainly one-person kayaks, but also a few doubles.

It was a lot of fun but more like bumper kayaks in the beginning as everyone was trying to figure out how to steer properly. Then we were off and it started raining so hard that one of the girls in our group lost a contact! We all suggest people wear hats! It definitely helped us be able to see since it was raining so hard. The kayaking was a lot of fun even though it was pouring out. We got to kayak in the ocean, though it was pretty calm, especially considering that it was in the middle of a storm! Most likely it is very easy sailing during warm sunny weather.

Since it was storming for us though we had one person tip overboard before we got to the snorkel spot. She ended up losing her snorkel mask and fins in her tip. She did manage to find the fins, but not the mask. If we were to go again I would definitely make sure that everyone in my group had secured their snorkel gear to the kayak before starting out! Not only does it suck b/c she was unable to snorkel when we stopped, but she also had to pay to replace the mask that she lost.

After our group member got all situated again we all tied our kayaks up and our guide dropped anchor. From there it was a blessing to get in the nice warm water! Unfortunately though, the water was really rough from the storm we were in and so the snorkeling wasn’t the greatest. I did get to see a few fish, a starfish and a bunch of coral. The main problem was that the waves were whipping us around and so one minute you’d be close to the reef trying to see things, then the tide would pull you into it and a wave would crash onto you pushing you down on the coral :o\ hmm not so good. I think it would have been cool to snorkel the reef when we could actually go over it and look around it and not worry about hurting ourselves or the coral! So instead we were more or less just swimming around and trying to find things to see.

After snorkeling was over it was back into the boats and that was just a funny sight to see!! lol Most of us got back into our boats no problem, but not everyone. This is something I’d suggest having the guides explain to you during the “how to” demonstration! Many in our group had no idea how to get back in their kayaks and though our guides demonstrated by actually doing so, if you weren’t close by it was difficult to see. It of course resulted in a bunch of people trying to get back in the boat and over-compensating and flipping over the other side! Lol

So back to the resort we go….completely dripping wet! Everyone was able to shower and rinse off the salt water under their public shower heads. Then it was funny watching everyone wring out all their clothing. Next we sat down and had some good food: fried chicken, black bean soup, or fried fish and potato salad as our sides. Very good food! Figures that by the time we are leaving that the rain starts to let up and more or less stopped! Back to the cruise ship we go and we had a little extra time, so people all were able to shop.

Overall even though it was pouring, everyone had a ton of fun on this trip! The kayaking part was the best. The snorkeling portion wasn’t as good b/c of the difficulties we struggled with, but everyone still enjoyed swimming around and seeing what they could. Lastly everyone was happy that they had plenty of time to get back and do a little shopping too :o)

Roatan – Dolphin encounter - small blurb from my mom!

The dolphins were great. Expensive of course. We were able to get in the water with 8 people - 1 trainer - and 1 dolphin. The trainer tells you all about their dolphin and you get to touch and even get a kiss. They have a photographer take pictures of you (don't want to miss any opportunity to make $$) and you have many opportunities to take pictres on your own. The experience isn't too long so you have plenty of time to do another activity. It helps of course if the weather cooperates.

Hopefully the rest will come quickly!!!! sorry again!