November 6-13, 2004

On Nov, 6th 2004 at “0” dark thirty, 27 of us began another adventure. This time we were headed for the Coco View Resort in Roatan, Honduras. We had many of the usual crew, welcomed quite a few new people to the group (Randy, Shirley, Joe and Lynne, Denny and Barb) and even had a new member meet us in Roatan from Phoenix, AZ (Hi, Kim).

The departure from Lancaster went smoothly, serving the usual faire of mimosa’s and monkey bread on the bus en route to Baltimore. Let the adventure begin! After several flights (ask Barb about that flight from the mainland to the island!), taxi and boat ride we were welcomed to the beautiful tropical Coco View Resort by their friendly, efficient and wonderful staff. This is definitely the most organized operation we have ever seen. They really took care of us the entire week, in any way that we needed. And a few of us did need some special care! We just can’t say enough about the staff at Coco View.

After checking into our assigned rooms and over the water cabana’s, we began our stay with a thorough briefing from the resort staff. They gave us all the information we needed and made us even more excited about the upcoming events of the week. There was the dive orientation to the shore diving, info about boat diving and those dive sites, specialty dives available, special events happening at the resort during the week, photo shop support, other island activities to sign up for, how about the hot tub, a massage, some kayaking, or a nap in the sun. Everything we could possibly want was right there within a short walk. We didn’t even have to leave the property to shop, the vendors came to the resort with their jewelry, t-shirts, and black coral.

We began our diving with some of the best shore divingwe have seen, warm blue water, gorgeous walls, seahorses, shark suckers, turtles, nurse shark, lots of other marine life and a wreck. And with the lines and markers in the water even the newly certified divers could navigate easily. That was very important because after the morning and afternoon boat dives most people donned another tank with the boat dropping us off for the optional shore diving. Some people just couldn’t get enough of the excellent shore diving, going in for additional early morning shore dives or night dives.

Mother Nature was a little moody that week, lots of clouds with occasional rain showers, and a few downpours. But who cared we were in the water diving and wet most of the time anyway. We did see the sun several days allowing the sunbathers some time to soak up the rays, read and nap. If we weren’t diving, we were eating. And they had the best food spread out for us 3 times a day with our all inclusive package. Nice job Elis, Rebecca and the rest of the kitchen staff. If you were late for a meal, you lost out on the good cookies for dessert, cause some piggy divers wanted seconds. And then again, if you were special, the cook made a key lime pie just for you (thanks Rebecca, Jim’s coming back just for another pie).

The group gathered for a mid week happy hour, with Carol offering up her traditional Goin’ Down Divin’ poem for this trip. She was very surprised with the extra poem written by Kathy that was written and presented just for her. Queen Jane was there to assist with presentations. One of which was Randy receiving his Open Water Certification Card for completion of his open water training dives there at Coco View. With the bar overlooking the water happy hour was actually a party every night at the bar. We had a great time entertaining and being entertained by Michelle, our favorite bar tender, with Reina and Reina (there were two of them) taking over and doing a great job on Michelle’s nights off.

Special moments, Randy’s first training dive (longest training dive Kathy has ever done), Randy’s first dive as a certified diver (shortest first dive Kathy has ever done), Randy’s first dive with Cindy (Okay that’s enough about Randy), Kim dancing on the bar, who’s BCD is that without a reg?, who just got pushed off the pier, flying through the jungle canopy on ropes, doing the limbo after 12 rum punches, puzzles to keep your mind occupied………
Delayed return flight and overnight in Miami, everyone talking like a parrot – DOUG, and the final goodbye saying “SEE YOU ON THE NEXT ADVENTURE”.