We Have Moved

The blog is still alive, but we have moved to The Coconut Tree Telegraph

coconuttreedivers.blogspot.com - come and follow us over there!

Slow Season: what is the collective noun for crabs anyway?

Apologies about the blog hiatus!  Although the season has slowed down considerably, our crew is down to the bare skeleton (which has left me with little time to spare).  In the instructor pool, we are currently down to 2 bodies: myself (that's Rags), and Kiwi (returning from 2008) currently filling in for Marco.   who is in the process of completing his Tec course with Monty (more on that soon!).  Interested in Tec diving?  Contact Monty!

The latest Instructor Development Course also started on Saturday.  As always, Will is taking the lead on the instruction and is being assisted by IDC Staff Instructor Tati Pereira-Hughes who is taking time out from her regular job at Anthony's Key Resort.  All the best to Sigita, Riccardo, Abner and Digby!

Current Weather: Scorching heat, and moderate (understatement!) humidity with some night rain/thunderstorms.  Not a whisper of wind...

Recent Sightings: Spotted Eagle Ray @ Lighthouse, Southern Stingrays @ Tabyana's, a colony of Neck Crabs @ Fish Den (any suggestions on the group noun for live non-eating crabs are welcome!)

A more comprehensive update to follow shortly!

Divemaster Trainees from around the world

Left to right: Digby (New Zealand), Abner (Honduras), Anastiina (Finland), Matt (England), Sigita (Lithuania), Riccardo (Italy)

Here are our current divemaster trainees.  Quite the international crew! (Coconut Tree Divers has, after all, always worked to foster good international relations...).  At this point, Riccardo and Sigita will be the next two to graduate to Divemaster.  Many of our graduates have gone on to work in various places in the world, and some have continued on to become Open Water Scuba Instructors doing their IDC with Will.  

If you have done your divermaster internship or IDC with us and would like to be added to our website (look at the "our graduates" section to find yourself), drop us an email with your photo.

As we haven't been so busy, we're taking the opportunity to work with the DMTs (divemaster trainees, for those of you not familiar with the underwater slang) on meeting some of their  course requirements so that when we are busier, they can focus on the practical aspects of becoming a competent divemaster.  Here they are working on their Search and Recovery scenario.

Marco and the DMTs...hope they find the tank (practising for the sunken treasure!)

And finally, providing the entertainment at beer o'clock (as if the EXTRA cold beer isn't enough) - we have our very own master juggler (we'll make a divemaster of him yet!)....

Riccardo and his 5 balls!!

Recent Sightings: 2 fighting Hawksbill Turtles @ Half Moon Bay Wall; 2 Green Morays, Spotted Moray, Sharptail Eel, juvenile Southern Stingray and Caribbean Reef Squid @ Half Moon Bay (Lagoon); Silversides in their thousands (still there!) @ Blue Channel

Dive Site of the Moment: Half Moon Bay Wall - because the black gorgonians on the wall and the soft coral gardens at 40-50 ft are simply awesome.

Another beautiful September day

Can you spot Captain Fred?

September is often a great month here on Roatan.  The diving conditions are good,  the weather is nice and warm on the whole (with some occasional night rain!), and it's not so busy.  It's actually an ideal time to take a vacation, especially if you're looking to get away from the summer vacation crowds.

As this was an exceptionally quiet Sunday morning, the entire shop went out diving in Half Moon Bay with mesh bags and garbage bags for an underwater beach cleanup.  It's often the case that the bay can get quite dirty after the fishing tournament, but having said that, we found relatively little trash.  Hats off to the clean-up crew who were dismantling the stalls and stages and cleaning up the trash first thing in the morning on the following day!

The day after the tournament: nice cleanup!!

This week, we also said goodbye to the Aussie group - have a safe trip home everyone!

Team Australia!

Dive Site of the Moment: Blue Channel, for the THOUSANDS of silversides and a number of green moray eels.

Recent Sightings: Silversides @ Blue Channel, 2 Shortfin Pipefish (possibly mating!) @ Lighthouse, Mother and Baby Spotted Eagle Rays @ The Wife

The blog is back!!

The blog is back!

The first few weeks of September have seen us to be unexpectedly busy (two boats every morning!), with the arrival of a number of previous customers including the Kearney family from California and Will and Vicky from Houston.  In that week we ran our first specialty trip to Cayos Cochinos on Wish U Were Here - lots of macro life!  This last week has seen a 20-strong group from Australia brought by Jay Chubb, a former divemaster intern.  Part of that group included the band 8 Foot Felix, who played on the main stage at the XII Roatan International Fishing Tournament, held around Honduran Independence day every year.

As you can see, the street can get pretty crowded (and this is only lunch time!).

This month also saw the graduation and departure of divemaster graduates Bob Millage (left) and Ken Petry (right).  Congratulations guys, and hope to see you here again soon!!

New Instructors!

Congrats to Laura and Austin for successfully becoming PADI Open Water Scuba Diving Instructors! They worked very hard to make it happen and celebrated in style at Will's IDC BBQ on Friday night. Look out world...here they come!

Tropical Storm Harvey...

It has been a very interesting few days with Tropical

Storm Harvey making a visit to the Bay Islands.

Although it looked as though Harvey might be serious at one point, he turned out to be pretty tame
(thank goodness). We closed the shop for a day and now it's back to business! It's more beautiful
around here than ever!

The days preceeding Harvey were pretty spectacular for diving. We saw everything from Eagle Rays to Nurse Sharks! Turtles seemed to come out in pairs on every dive and Green Morays were found on almost every outing! Pure heaven!

Some new diving friends just managed to leave the island before the storm hit, including Max and Laura who were traveling around Central America from England. These two friends met in Columbia last year and have been exploring for the past five weeks.

Max decided to do his advanced course and Laura aced her open water AND advanced. Natasha couldn't stop commenting on her incredible air consumption.
One particular advanced dive saw a depth of 100 ft for 82 minutes at West End Wall.
Laura still came up with 1,000 PSI!

Now THAT'S hard to beat!