Attack of the Sand Fleas----Honduras!

Dale, Laurie, Chris, and I left Houston headed to Roatan, Honduras just after Tropical Storm Alex has passed nearby. We landed in a light rain, with cloudy skies...but were greeted by the reps for CoCo View Dive Resort. We checked in to our over the water bungalow after a brief van ride and a short boat ride. Our room was nice with all the basics with a balcony overlooking the water, this is where we saw spotted eagle rays several mornings swimming by. After our required orientation and check out dive we were ready to board our dive boat CoCo I with dive master, Mark. The resort attracts a lot of hard core divers....with two walls and a wreck dive just offshore. The morning dives were a boat dive and then what they called a drop off dive...meaning they dropped you off on the one of the two walls and you made your own way back to the resort. The visibility wasn't the greatest, the water was warm with almost no current. I managed to get in 13 dives during out stay.

We enjoyed the new resort managers, fellow Texans Deb and Mitch...and met folks from all over. We also booked a flight in a seaplane and enjoyed meeting Bob and Clay, our pilot. The plane was an Air Cam, with an open cockpit, great for photography and sightseeing. Honduras was beautiful from the air!
The highlight of our trip was a Shark Dive we booked....the dive was great with lots of sharks, but the boat ride was HELL! Winds and rough seas made the boat trip miserable for all, with several people getting sick. The sharks, all pregnant female Caribbean reef sharks cruised among the divers, passing very close by. The highlight was a demonstration of a feeding frenzy with the dive master opened a bucket with some fish in it.....that was totally awesome! The dive ended and getting back on the rolling, pitching boat was another adventure.
Dale enjoyed lots of hammock time, reading and sleeping....while we were diving. The food was served buffet style and was about average....with only the Conch Stew being horrible! Dale loved their brewed ice tea which was available all day and of course we looked forward to "Happy Hour" every day!
The resort was nice, very safe....but a swimming pool for relaxing would have been nice. Dale and I did snorkel one day and the shallow reef was beautiful, with lots of huge sea fans.
The WORST thing about the whole trip were the nasty, tiny Sand Fleas that attacked us. We all received bites, but I won the prize for the most....despite many measures to prevent them. Boy do they itch!!! I arrived back in Texas looking like I had a disease!!
The flight home was easy, and we arrived back home safe and sound.....covered with lots of flea bites.