It took quite a while for me to convince Dr. Bob,a shy quiet retiring ex marine hillbilly dentist in the distant mountains of California by day, who by night is the Insane Director of the CEDU, and on weekends a world famous rebreather diver, to join me on Roatan Island in Honduras for a week in August of 2002. Dr. Bob finally decided to bite the bullet (hopefully not breaking any teeth), join my daughter Janie and me, and to bring his lovely wife Jane along. Actually, I do not think he could have escaped the country without her, but this is my story. He can tell his own lies and I am sure he will.

I met Dr. Bob via the Internet through a mutual interest in building and diving rebreathers so you know just how crazy the both of us are. Bob was a bit nervous when I sent him the health warnings on Honduras....I got an e-mail asking..."Ok just what shots do I need to have?" What a trooper..... I had him on the line and wasn't going to let him off the hook. What fun...I answered a million questions using half the Internet bandwidth. More questions when we met for the first time in Escondido for the sub races a week before the Central American trip. We even got a chance to dive our rebreathers together in the 69 degree semi tropical waters at La Jolla. If his website is not a hoot, his e-mails a gas, in person he is even more of an interesting and fun character. He lives life completely and with great energy. It is a damned good thing that we live a continent apart because we feed on each other energy. Being connected via the Internet is bad enough...

Janie and I met with Dr. Bob and his Jane at the rotating restaurant at the top of the hotel in Houston on the Friday night before our scheduled Saturday afternoon departure. Did I say scheduled? Unfortunately TACA has become as unreliable as Sasha used to be. We did not get off until late in the afternoon and flew to San Pedro Sula instead of Roatan. The TACA excuse this time was that there were no lights on Roatan. I know that is a lie. The real reason was that management had screwed up the schedules and the flight crew was over on their hours. This was similar to my first trip to CoCo View in the winter of '91. They put us up in the same hotel as '91, the Copan. Our luggage stayed with the plane.

Since I know these characters, I had all the necessary stuff with me in my roll on. I knew that in spite of the delay, there would be plenty of good diving ahead. Bob was not so sure at this point but kept his humor. Janie, my daughter was a little upset as some of her necessary stuff was in the hole of the aircraft at the airport. The quaint natives called us "touristo classico" as they saw a rag tag exhausted mob of underdressed North Americans who looked like the refugees from Dunkirk (with one exception as I was wearing one of my beautiful one of a kind tropical shirts)checking in at the desk. I never considered being a tourist an insult...hell, I would never want to live in that country as much as I love to visit and dive there. I have the passport and cash to get out as long as a revolution does not shut down the airport.

By now it was near midnight.

Morning came earlier than usual as we gathered in the lobby for the next part of our adventure. Service, if you use the word in a flexible sense, at the restaurant was a bit slow but we did manage to get some coffee from some kindly people at the next table...We never saw a waiter except in the back. I amused myself by looking at the pottery on loan from the excavated ruins at Copan. Quite a nice collection.

Almost all of the bleary eyed travelers were in the same clothes as yesterday and it was apparent that most had their deodorant in their other luggage. We were on another adventure...adventure being defined as hardship, misery, discomfort, frustration, trials, and tribulations that you have survived without the benefit of water you can drink from a tap, food you can eat without a worry, and a working remote to watch good old American TV stations. Diving in good locations by definition is usually an adventure as these are the places where all the coral is gone from an endless supply of divers with dragging second stages and pressure gauges who lay on the reef or grab it with gloves. Many of our fellow travelers would have great stories to tell when they got home about not having a remote...especially at CoCo View.

They put us on busses and sent us back to the airport. We still had more ahead of us as we stopped in La Ceba. This was typical fare under Sasha the old airline and is becoming typical for TACA. After the last stop, we headed for Roatan, landed without incident, and were in the care of the CoCo View crew who sped us through immigration and customs and on the bus for a bumpy ride down the island to our home for the week. A few minutes delay at the dock and a quick boat trip to CoCo View.

Upon arrival in Roatan I reflected on the travel and decided that....the plane was great.....the pilots found the island and landed safely.....the flight attendents did all they could....but the operations manager should be keel hauled at 30,000 feet, confined to the bow sprint of the plane for two days on the runway at Roatan.....and then sent to the UN crimes against humanity court. But I digress...

I was getting excited as I always do when I start smelling the iodine odor of salt water. Most of the rest of the crowd were just happy to see their luggage and longed for some clean clothes. I was ready for diving. I was back at Scuba Camp as Bob would call it all week.

I quickly made arrangements for my oxygen tank on the dock for my and Bobs rebreathers while he and Jane rubbernecked, taking in the caged Parrots, the immaculate fleet of dive boats, the beautiful water, and their room on stilts where the tiny waves splashed beneath their feet. Yep Scuba Camp it was.

While Bob & Jane headed for the orientation program and checkout dive, I stopped by to see all my old friends at the resort. I got my weights and headed for my room to start unpacking cameras and other goodies as well as get the air conditioner started in my room. I was ready to get into the water.

Apparently Bob slipped through the checkout dive without having to take a quick refresher course (he is an Instructor) while I was out on the first of two afternoon boat dives. At dinner I heard the immortal words "too cool" for the first of many times that week. To say the least he had fun being able to dive as much as he wanted in the easy way CoCo View makes it happen.

I had one of my goals to make 6 one hour or more dives in one day. (I was 60 that month) A second goal was to check out my highly modified RGU rebreather to a depths greater than 60 feet. The third goal was to have a ball diving the waters of Roatan for the umpteenth time. At the photos will show, I met all but the 6 dive goal...I guess 5 hours of diving a day may be my limit as I grow older but not wiser. I just seemed to run out of time each day.

My daughter Janie wanted to do the dolphin encounter and possibly go over to Utilla for a whale shark dive. She did the dolphins but the boat was not going to Utilla that week.

As always, part of the charm of CoCo View is the other guests. This was a bumper crop. Another part of the charm of CoCo View is the ready and willing staff who make your visit a great experience.

It is November as I write this and I have already scheduled another trip to CoCo View for the first week in February and am back from DEMA where I hung around at the CoCo View booth. As usual the place is completely booked the week Tony and I are going although they are not running the half price specials of other dive resorts on Roatan.....wonder what that means. We are also on a different airline...we shall see.

The big question as we arrived in Roatan was....

Would these two immense egos survive a week together?

All pictures on this site are copyright either Tom Rose, Craig Olesen, Jane, or Dr. Bob. Non commercial rights to my pictures is free but requires a request. Most of the images are available in high resolution for commercial use. Just contact me. Credit is given for other photographers, if you want to use their stuff, talk to them. For example Craig has his own page on this site as he sent me a CD of his shots.

Enough talk, lets go cyberdiving...

Janie & I get in our first dive as the newcomers go through orientation and their open water checkout.	We are joined by a friendly Anglefish.
I love this place.	As does my daughter the fish.
Looking out the empty portholes is great fun.
Janie and I explore the Prince Albert...	from bow to stern.
Dr. Bob photo... The top of the wreck is in about 35 feet of water. Water clarity on the Prince Albert is usually determined by the tidal flow and the amount of recent rain.
	Above we find Christmas Tree worms and Sponges on some coral. On the left Phillip is lead to the ship by the divemaster.
Jane photo documents Bob diving deep with his rebreather.	Bob and Jane pose near the bow.

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