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Honduran Children Dive Site: 'Mary's Place'





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Colors Fish w/ friend
Cucumber Scorpion Fish Lobster hole 3 Lobster Dinner Spotted Morey Crab close up Crab 2004 Honduras Group - AVHQ dive club

Richard Craig and Casey Puffer fish Coco view resort

I wanted to give you a quick reference of our days. An overview.

Monday 5:20am - wake up to sunrise shining through the screened wall. (oh but wait, I didn’t mention the 2:45am divers. We have ‘unlimited’ diving here. You can grab a tank 24/7 and dive. I awoke at 2:45 to see two divers walking up to shore.)

6:30a-8a breakfast. (I had a waffle, OJ, cantaloupe, banana, sausage, English muffin, milk, coffee. Light fare.)

at 8:45 ‘sharp’ the 3 horn burst warns of 15 minutes till the first boat dive. This is followed by 2 bursts @ 10 minutes and 1 burst for 5 minutes. Then… diving.

At 9am the boat takes you 7 minutes down the coast to dive a beautiful wall covered in huuuuge barrel sponges. 45-55 minutes later with all back on board the boat pounds through the surf back to the “front yard” of the resort. Here you get a second tank and dive your way back in to the resort. In the mornings they drop you along the wall in front of Fantasy Island, in the afternoon you are dropped on the wall at Coco View.

11:30-12:30 Lunch. Fish Fingers (grouper) potato salad, rice & beans (black), peanut butter cookie. The lunch reminded me of summer camp as a boy. There are a few choices so you can find something you like but there is no menu to pick from. Certainly no one from our group has pushed away from the table hungry or disappointed.

2pm the afternoon boat leaves for an even better dive site. This followed by the second tank.

About 4:30pm you have made it back to shore, rinsed all your equipment (to remove the salt water) and stored everything in your personal locker. Now you get tomorrows Nitrox tanks and check them for % mix, enter the exact amounts into the detailed log and call it a day.

5:30pm A meeting for ‘proper buoyancy techniques’ needed to be allowed to dive “Marys Place.” (you have to attend to do the dive – one of the best in Roatan)

6:30pm Dinner. Steak, Shrimp, noodles, mushroom gravy, salad, bread, veggies, coconut cake.

8pm back to the room to work on the ‘BLOG.’

10pm lights out and sleep like a log till 5:30am


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well we had our "check out dive" and now im waiting for lunch and maybe... a nap! At 2pm we go out on the boat for the afternoon boat dive. this morning was just to confirm we really can dive. we swam out from shore and went through some watchful diving instructor supervision. he / they, the resort have to confirm we have the skills we say we have. it is bad for business if they have an accident and with the free access we have here someone really could get into trouble if they didnt know what they were doing.

its sunny and warm here. im in the shade with a crisp breeze off the water and 3 ceiling fans in my Cabana to stay cool. i slept under a blanket last night and awoke to the sunrise as one entire wall of our room is screened, open to the ocean.

dinner last night: pork roast, broccoli, rice (with raisins) salad, bread and chocolate cake. breakfast: mango and bananas, toast, omelet, bacon, OJ, coffee or waffles.

well, i'll write more and include some diving photos later - after my nap!

-skip
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WE'RE HERE!

Coco View (a view)

We just finished the American Tradition of Thanksgiving. My mother and father came to visit and share the feast. It was a good time had by all. We ended up with more food in the freezer than in us, so we must have done something wrong? Now, about being thankful, I am thankful for so many things I cant list them all. Health, wealth, great beauty and youth all mixed together – plus a great excitement for living. One of the things I’m thankful for is Scuba. Diving down into the peaceful colorful surroundings exploring the great beauty of the Sea.

to get here I spent quite some time in “packing.” It’s a contest of both the mental and physical -trying to remember everything I need and things I ‘might’ need. After finding all my scuba gear, camera and computer equipment, and oh yes a few clothes… I have to try and squeeze it into my dive bag. If I lay it out and do some very intricate origami I can barely get everything carefully organized into the case and close all the latches.

At the airport the TSA guys unpacks it like he’s a kid on Christmas morning. Everything pulled out and piled across his little table in a jumble. Thumbing through my books like he’s interested in how the plot develops, unscrewing the dive light and inspecting the batteries. No stone left unturned. Then I have to watch as he jams it back in all ‘willy nilly.’ Of course he cant close the lid. So, he moves a few items and jams it harder shoving, twisting and pushing, then slamming.

So much for delicate and careful. Oh well, this stuff isn’t important – unless you have to use it to breathe under water.

Now we fly from Dallas to Miami, then on to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. At which point we switch to a ‘puddle jumper’ plane to fly the 40 miles to Roatan Honduras.

I’m starting out a day behind. Yesterday Craig and Casey flew out early. They couldn’t get on our flight so they flew down on Friday. They stayed at Posado Arco Iris in West End.

We have now met up. WE ARE ALL HERE – SAFE AND SOUND. The resort is great - very beautiful. Look tomorrow for more photos.
THE DIVE CLUB

EMAIL US AT: AVHQdiveclub@skipsphotos.biz

Coco View Dive Resort http://cocoviewresort.com/index.html - center, southern coast. (@ the Wreck of Captain G. )

we are carrying an underwater camera, several land cameras and a laptop to communicate, so check back to see our adventure.

Dive Club History

2000 Cozumel.

2001 Grand Cayman.

2002 Dominican Republic.

2003 Belize.

April 2004 Placencia Village, Belize.