CoCoView, Roatan
May 31 - June 7, 2003

The resort has changed a little, some due to Mitch, and some improvements. The gazebo is now square and has three hammocks. The bar comes out a little more. There's a hot tub, internet cafe, and workout room. I enjoyed the gazebo and the bar. I was too relaxed to want to try the others.

This time we were in the deluxe bungalows instead of the cabanas. A bit more room, a lot more breeze, a private porch with a hammock to watch the eagle rays and the barracuda, a mini-refrigerator, a "Hampton Air Circulator" to supplement the ceiling fans, and it's closer to the bar. They're also in duplexes instead of quads, which gives a bit more isolation from the other guests. We think we're going to book into the bungalows every trip from now on.

Returning guests got to skip the orientation briefing and dive and were assigned to the teal boat (EZ-Diver III). We could have gone on a boat dive the first morning. But decided to do a shore dive to see how things had changed and to check out some new gear. Deanne finally bought a BC that really fit and is weight integrated, and she had her new toy, a Sea and Sea DX3000 housed digital camera and strobe.

The diving was pretty close to perfect. Visibility was usually about 80 feet, water temperature was a constant 82 degrees F and the surface temperature got up to almost 90 degrees F. Seas were mostly calm during the days so we always used the rear ladders. The boat night dive was a bit more rough. All of our boat rides were under 25 minutes.

Deanne really got into shooting underwater digital. The ability to see some of the results immediately helps a lot in deciding whether to shoot with a differnt composition or with different lighting. It's not as easy as on land as the screen colors get harder to see at depth and under light conditions. The little cross that turns from red to green when the shot is in focus is colorless at 65 feet, and on the night dives, unless there is a strong light on the subject, the screen just stays dark -- and it requires more than the 4 C-cell light we had banded to her strobe to activate the screen.