Diving on Roatan

Diving

For Dive and snorkel equipment purchase your best option is Coconut Tree Divers, they have lots of stock just no room to display it!

Where do I start? OK, first things first DIVE SHOPS DON'T JUST COMPETE ON PRICE, there can be huge differences in the SAFETY consciousness of dive shops. So, there is a section on questions you should ask any dive shop -other than, how much? Click here for HOW TO CHOOSE A DIVESHOP.

If you are not a PADI certified diver make sure you have evidence of your certification, NO dive shops in Roatan will take you diving if you cannot prove you have a certification. It is easy to prove a PADI certification as any dive shop can go online and check it on the PADI website. Most other diver training agencies do not offer this service so you need to have your certification card.

I will also say a few things about the different PADI courses, if you are thinking of doing your DIVEMASTER this section will be of particular interest. Click here to read about PADI courses.

I will also a few things about the divesites in Roatan. So click here for ROATAN DIVESITES.

I have a separate page to mention each of the West ends dive shops.

HOW TO CHOOSE A DIVESHOP

All the diveshops in both Utila and Roatan have now agreed not to offer the open water course for less than $200. This collusion may sound like it only favours the dive operators but there is more to it than that. PLEASE BE A RESPONSIBLE TOURIST AND DO NOT DIVE WITH AN OPERATOR WHO IS UNDERCUTTING THIS MINIMUM PRICE. Since this price agreement has come in to effect dive shops have had the resources to and time to focus on protecting the fragile reef. A lot is now being done to police the marine reserves and with luck the gradual decline of the reef will be checked. If prices are too low the dive industry has neither the time nor the funds to put into the environment So if you dive with the cheapest shop you are diving with the people who care least about the environment, these are the guys who are just trying to make a quick dollar out of the reef without a care for the damage they are doing. They are also likely to be cutting corners with the minimum safety requirements detailed below.

First SAFETY. There were NO serious accidents in Roatan in the year I was there. BUT Diving is a dangerous sport. Here is a list of five questions that every dive shop should be able to answer 'YES' to. To date I only know of one shop in the West End that can:

1. Is your air tested for purity every three months? Most responsible dive operators want to be sure that their compressor is working correctly and not filling tanks which lethal gases such as carbon monoxide. It is easy to have your air tested on a quarterly basis and have a certificate to show the test results. ASK TO SEE THE CERTIFICATE.

2. Do you always have a boat captain? Some instructors or divemasters may double as boat driver and dive guide, leaving the boat tied to a mooring buoy. This is fine as long as nothing goes wrong, but what if something does go wrong 300-400 meters from the boat. It could take 10 minutes to swim back in full gear against the wind with a casualty. That 10 minutes could be the difference between life and death. If there is a boat captain on the surface, they will drive to the divers.

3. Do you carry Oxygen on the boat? This is the primary first aid for any diving related injury. Oxygen should be carried by all professional dive operators.

4. Does the boat have a VHF radio in case of emergency

5. Are you tanks visually inspected annually and hydrostatically inspected every five years? This is a basic safety requirement. Tanks should have a stamp on them which says the date that the next Hydro test is due.

There are also non-safety related considerations:

	How many years experience does the instructor/divemaster have?
	How many years on Roatan?
	What is the classroom like - for he open water course you will spend about four hours watching DVDs, do those chairs look comfortable? Is there air conditioning?
	How many trips do you do a day? Some people get a little caught up in the night life, they may not be fit to dive until the afternoon. That means diving with a shop that has two afternoon trips rather than one can let you enjoy both things!
	Another consideration may be a photographer. If you would like to get photos of yourself underwater choose a shop with an in house photographer. They will probably charge about $25 for a CD of pictures.

PADI COURSES

The first course for total beginners is the 'Open Water' course. This involves watching a few hours of DVDs, a couple of hours classroom work including a few quizzes, a couple of hours in shallow water and four boat dives. It is spread over three to four days. Choose a dive school with a comfortable classroom! It focuses on making you a 'SAFE' diver.

The second course is Advanced. If you really enjoy open water then you may as well do advanced - you'll get a good deal for doing the two together, you already know the instructor and the advanced dives are a lot of fun, the last course taught you to be 'SAFE' advanced tries to make you 'GOOD'.

Rescue - Most people either do this because they are very bored or because they want to do their divemaster. It is a great course one of the most fun to do and to teach, but it is where things start to get more serious. There is more academic stuff to do and it takes a degree of physical fitness.

Divemaster - This is a brilliant course in terms of value for money. If you are travelling with no particular deadlines, give some serious thought to becoming a divemaster. Firstly the couple of months it will take will be great fun, but you then have an actual qualification which can get you work in beautiful places all around the world. For $600 you will get about 100 dives, thats cheap!

If you can afford it you will really appreciate having a dive computer, it doesn't have to be a great one as long as it works. Look on ebay or just ask about the cheapest ones in your local dive shop. Something like the Suunto Gecko is perfectly adequate. leisurepro.com is a good cheap dive supplier online in the US. divebooty.co.uk is great those of you lucky enough to be British!

You need to decide how you want to do the divemaster. Many shops in both Utila and Roatan will do the divemaster differently to how it is done in the US and Europe.

Longer Term Apprenticeship - 2-3 months (generally as long as you want it to take)

With this option it is a real apprenticeship, you will be treated more like an employee than a customer, you will be expected to help fill tanks, and do all the same stuff the instructors are doing. Remember Instructors who work on 'dive islands' like Utila and Roatan are REAL dive professionals working in the water 6-7 days a week. They are not weekend warriors who have an office job during the week and work as instructors at the weekend. This means they tend to have stronger opinions on what a divemaster should be capable of - as a result they interpret the Instructor manual differently to less experienced instructors - they will give you a harder, but better course. As a result you will be a very good divemaster that will fit in to any dive shop that offers you a job. You should allow two months minimum. You will also need to be pro-active throughout the course to get the most out of it. You will do at least 100 dives and be more than ready to do the IDC. These dive shops tend to take great pride in the divemasters they teach. Make sure you will get unlimited diving. Smaller shops tend to do it this way.

Fast Divemaster Course (doing the bare minimum)

This option is to go to a shop which is a 'divemaster machine' They do it like any other PADI course, much like it is often done in the US and Europe. These guys do lots of divemaster courses and run you through it in 3-4 weeks. It is more of a business to them and they often take less personal pride in your development. You will often pay more as you are taking more of the instructors time, you will also tend to learn less simply because you are not immersed in diving 24/7 for 2 months! These shops will often only include 40-60 dives in the course and make you pay for any extra you need to do. They are able to do it much faster because they do the bare minimum according to the PADI Divemaster Course Instructor Guide.

Consider doing the academics at home. If time is going to be a problem you can get a lot of work done while you are still at home. Buy the divemaster manual, encyclopaedia of recreational diving , RDP Wheel and diving knowledge workbook. If you do all the knowledge reviews in the divemaster manual and work through the workbook you have just reduced the divemaster course length by about a week!

To sum up - if you want to do the course to become a really good diver and have a lot of fun - do it over two months.

If you want to do the course to get another PADI certification do it with someone who offers it in a 3-6 week course. No-one should offer it to you in less than three weeks.

Another way to look at it is- do you want to be part of the team or just another customer.

As for prices, It costs $600 to do the DM course in Roatan, this tends not to be negotiable, but look at it this way - it is $5/dive! When I was last there it costed $750 in Utila.

The cost of buying groceries in both places is the same - don't let anyone tell you otherwise, of course it is - they are two islands a couple of miles apart!

The cost of renting an apartment is the same, it is just that there are fewer cheap apartments available in Roatan than Utila, so you have to look harder, something a lot of lazy travelers are not prepared to do.

I think you can still find dorm beds in Utila for $3-4 a night, in Roatan the best you will find is $5/night so here it is slightly more expensive.

Beers and other drinks I find 5-10lps more expensive Roatan but they are bigger and stronger! Once the bars know you are a Divemaster trainee they will give you the local price.

Lastly because there are many more rich tourists in Roatan, there are plenty of part time jobs that pay well and you tend to get good tips.

If you are thinking of doing you divemaster make sure you meet the instructors you will be working with before signing up. The course is great if you get on well with your instructors, but not if you don't. Sundowners is a good place to meet a lot of instructors and see which you may want to do your divemaster with.

ROATAN DIVESITES

There are loads of great divesites in Roatan every place can be good or bad it depends on weather, currents, rainfall, time of year - Trust the diveshops, they usually have a reason for choosing the site - remember they want a good dive too. The sites have lots of different names in different shops. My favourites are Pablos Place, Mary's Place, Hole in the Wall, The Aguila (Wreck), West End Wall. Here is a map of them: