This page contains reviews of dive destinations I have visited over the last eight years since my original certification. I've never had a really bad dive trip but some have been more outstanding than others so the weightings should be weighted towards the positive. The ratings also appear in six classes--lodging, food, people, cost, dive operations and actual dive quality. As always, these ratings consist of highly subjective opinions, YMMV. Ratings range from 1 to 5 stars.
Cozumel, Mexico
Ah, Cozumel, my first and most often visited island paradise. Cozumel has varied over the years in cost...right now it seems sort of expensive but it's still great for Texas residents. Rumor has it that direct flights will soon emanate from Austin...yahoo. Anyway, Cozumel has it all, really nice people, range of cost on accomodations, large number of dive operators to choose from and a very nice town. I have stayed at Villa Del Ray, Villa Blanca, Fiesta Inn, Fiesta Reef Americana, Plazas las Glorias and probably some others. Other people have highly recommended Galapago Inn, a diver targetted operation. The residents of Cozumel have always treated me well. I'm sure many people have their own stories and you too can collect yours....just wander back off the main square a few blocks and check things out. Dive operations range from sort of shaky to very nice indeed. It does pay not to get into too much of a hurry and sometimes arranging your diving with a known, trusted individual can assure one of a more personal service. For novice divers, though, I believe the bigger, slower boat approach to be more appropriate. I've dived through Argonauts del Caribe, Scuba Shack, Dive Paradise and some others I can't remember at the moment. Food can be great....for a treat check out El Moro, the Moor as in Arabic, not a place to tie up your boat. Also, check out Las Tortugas and El Abuelo Gerardo...across from one another on the street by the downtown Catholic church. And, of course, the diving....I have never dived in a place that had the variety and abundance of coral reefs that Cozumel has while offering extremely good visibility. It's a combination that will guarantee that I return to Cozumel once or twice a year for the rest of my divin' daze...
Update. Now that a second cruise ship pier has been finished and a third one started and a fourth one planned, I think Cozumel's days as a premier dive destination with few crowds and an undiscovered charm are over. For me the fact that a Hard Rock Cafe AND a Planet Hollywood are on Cozumel indicates an end to an era. The diving still is great, but the crowds... oy vey. That said, people from Texas will still probably to score on less crowded trips during the low season for a long four day weekend on the relatively cheap.
Category Rating
Lodging ** to ****
Food ** to *****
People *****
Cost to Benefit *** to *****
Dive Operations ** to *****
Dive Quality *** to *****
Grand Cayman
I've talked to a lot of people who love Grand Cayman. A number of the Funseekers went down there for a trip in 92 or 93 and it was a lot of fun....but....there were some glitches. We stayed at the CocoPlum condominiums and that part was great. It was quiet, right by the water and there was fresh coconut there. The food was expensive in a word. The people...some were OK, but far too often I got the impression that people wanted only one's money but not one's presence. One guy you'll want to meet is Ivan, the guy that runs Hell. Ask when you get there, anybody will know what you're talking about....:^). I've gotten the same feedback from some other people I've talked to. OTOH, there were people there that were wonderfully friendly. The whole trip was pretty pricey....did I mention it was expensive? The dive operation we had was the worst dive operation I've ever dived with. They were inefficient, arrogant, rude and the divemasters wanted us to use extremely short surface intervals, even if we were diving the tables and had dived pretty deep for the first dive of the day. I will not name the dive operation and I will not extrapolate their behaviour to other operations on the island. But the quality of the dives....excellent. We saw all sorts of wonderful marine life and coral and I saw my first spotted eagle rays there. Further, the Stingray City experience was really a hoot. I would go back but I'd rather make my own arrangements with a small operation based on recommendations from people I trust.
Category Rating
Lodging ****
Food ** to ***
People * to ****
Cost to Benefit ** to ***
Dive Operations * see text
Dive Quality *** to *****
Ambergris Caye, Belize, C.A.
Oh what a good time was had by all. Belize, formerly British Honduras, has enjoyed a relatively undiscovered reputation for awhile though that rapidly changes as a function of time. Ambergris Caye, which actually looks like a little spur off the southern reaches of the Yucatan peninsula, is the main destination with Caye Caulker being a secondary, and more relaxed destination. Other options exist including liveaboards. Belize has a long barrier reef along its coast which is where you will do most of your diving. Worth the extra dinero is the trip out to the Blue Hole and the two wall dives that come afterwards. Lodging can be as fancy or plain as you wish with the cheapest options on Caye Caulker. We stayed in the Mayan Princess which is a very nice hotel made up of individually owned condominiums. The food was pretty unmemorable. The people of San Pedro, and Caye Caulker were really nice. Our dive operation, Amigos del Mar, was IMHO the best dive operation I have ever dealt with. The Paz brothers own the operation and will do anything to make your experience wonderful. The diving ranged from sort of yuky in terms of visibility to wonderful out on the wall dives that followed the Blue Hole dive. But, Belize is swarming with spotted eagle rays.....and turtles too. The dive at the Blue Hole involves a 3 1/2 hour boat ride on the way out. The actual Blue Hole dive is short and strange....you haul ass down to 135 feet for five minutes and look at the stalagtites, and in our case a spotted drum. Then you surface with very conservative safety stops. Just snorkelling on the surface is really a hoot. But after your BH dive, you do two wall dives that will just stun you. I believe that one is called Half Moon Caye and the other is Silver something(pardon the Alzheimer's attack). On the first of the two wall dives we had a French angel fish that swam up to us as we entered the water and followed us for the whole dive, doing that surley french thing with the fish lip expression....you know what I mean.
Category Rating
Lodging ****
Food **
People *****
Cost to Benefit ****
Dive Operations *****
Dive Quality ** to *****
Roatan Island, Honduras
Roatan Island, Honduras, Thanksgiving Week, 1995....this is Walter Crankcase and You Were There....well, at least some of the Funseekers were there. This was a package deal at the Cocoview dive resort. Roatan is the most developed of the three Bay Islands of Honduras, the other two being Guanaja and Utila. Cocoview is an all-inclusive resort and we bought a package which included airfare from Houston. The only expenses you have on top of the package include your bar tab and souviniers. The lodging is diver-funky. Really pretty nice compared to some places I've stayed but spartan/functional. Other than diving, you can arrange whitewater rafting trips or visits to the Mayan ruins at Copan. But mostly, people go to Roatan to dive and it looks like the current cost to benefit leader in the Caribbean at the moment. Roatan is wall dives and no current. The algorithm at Cocoview is that in the morning you hop on the boat and go to a dive site. You do your first dive then on the way in you can optionally drop off at one of the two walls in front of the resort. The afternoon is the same deal. At night, you just get a tank and swim out to the wreck of a freighter or a DC-3 or to one of the two walls to the east or west of the channel where the wrecks lie. The people who own and work at Cocoview impressed the hell out of me. I'm definitely going back for an annual trip at Turkey day. The food was very good and hearty and plentiful. The cost at Cocoview is currently $775 for a seven-night package. You might be able to shave a few bucks off of that but it's definitely well worth the bucks as it is. The dives have a range of visibility but there's always something interesting to see. There's a spot on the north side of the island where people have seen whale sharks. We saw all the usual stuff plus a couple of seahorses and a rather large nurse shark doing what nurse sharks seem to do a lot of---sleeping.
Category Rating
Lodging ***
Food ****
People *****
Cost to Benefit *****
Dive Operations ****
Dive Quality ** to ****
Blackbird Caye, Turneffe Atoll, Belize, C.A.
Christmas week, 1996, a trip to go down in the old logbook as unique. The flight down on TACA was about three hours late. Of course every person in the Houston area that was from Belize or other Central American countries wanted to travel at the same time and every one of them had at least ten large boxes of junk to take down. Yikes...luckily everybody in our group got on. Upon our arrival, we took a cab to the Radisson Fort George, a really nice hotel for an overnight stay. The next day we walked across the swing bridge into Belize City and bought some postcards, t-shirts and the like before heading out to take a boat to Blackbird Caye. This was where the whole thing turned a bit ugly. We hung around the dock for a good, long while and finally boarded a relatively tiny boat. It was storming a bit by this time and the boat in question had 25 people, divegear for thirteen divers and provisions for several days. The boat did not have a radio, lifejackets or any other safety features. It turns out that we made the crossing under small craft warnings. It was extremely tense, and everybody got soaked to the bone with salt water. We nearly capsized more than once and it was only the skill of our captain, Kirk, that saved our asses. Bad omen. It turns out that Blackbird Caye resort had changed ownership within the last few months. Unfortunately, nobody who signed up for this trip was told that much of what appeared in the brochure was no longer true. There was not a large boat made especially for diving. The resort no longer hosted dolphin research. When we finally arrived soaked and cold, the resort did not have a record of our reservations. Luckily, there was plenty of room at the inn at that point. The boat we crossed over in was an open topped boat that looked like a fishing boat shell. It turned out to be our dive boat as well. It was totally inadequate for the number of people that used it, especially later in the week when another big load of people came in. Luckily, the group that came over with us had a great sense of humor. When the second group of people came over, and co-incidentally, the owner came on the island for an overnight stay, I got kicked out of my room and got to sleep in the office overnight. The local manager of the place was pretty much useless. We made suggestions on how to handle the number of divers in shifts, he agreed, and then backed out of the deal. He talked to the owner about me having to sleep in the office, agreed to comp my small bar tab and to give me some sort of cash settlement for the inconvenience which sort of never got mentioned again. Another member of our group paid extra to complete her certification and it was delayed four days by the manager until she got certified on the last day there. Thus, she missed a lot more dive opportunities. All that said, our boat captain, Kirk, and our divemaster, Charles, and others who worked there including Jackie, Jennifer and Antonio(Tony) were great folks and as much victims of mismanagement as the guests. The food was not great, but the problem was that the quantity was a bit small for the number of guests. And, the actual dives ranged from OK to great. We got to see a manta ray up close and personal as well as a number of spotted eagle rays and nurse sharks. So, if one were to ask for a recommendation, I'd say skip Blackbird Caye, but investigate some other resorts on Turneffe Atoll and make sure that you have current information on them before committing.
Category Rating
Lodging **
Food **
People ****
Cost to Benefit **
Dive Operations *
Dive Quality ** to *****
Anse Chastenet, Saint Lucia,
West Indies
The resort, Anse Chastenet, lies on the leeward side of Saint Lucia about a third of the way up from the southern tip of the island. Just getting there was really a hoot. I landed at Vieux Fort, on the southern tip of Saint Lucia and was met, along with two couples, by a small eurovan/taxi. We took off on a paved road that deteriorated the further we went. Saint Lucia has a very mountainous topology and though I found the ride entertaining as we listened to Rasta music, apparantly the two couples in the back were terrified. Upon our arrival, we were installed into our rooms and had dinner. The rooms at Anse Chastenet each amount to unique designs. I was in a room that shared a common porch/balcony up in the trees with two other rooms. There were no phones, no TV and no air conditioning but that part was, for me, very appealing.
Category Rating
Lodging ****
Food ****
People *****
Cost to Benefit ****
Dive Operations *****
Dive Quality *** to *****
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