Dive Review of Bananarama in
Honduras/Roatan

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Bananarama, Dec, 2005, by Jim Schoeneck, CA, USA . Report 2759.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Have been to Roatan before and had beautiful dive conditions. This was not one of those time. My group of 12 divers was on island for 1 day, coming off of a cruise ship. We had chartered one of the Bananarama boats. Since conditions seemed to be poor up top and I could not get him on the phone, I went off the ship in a pouring rain to meet owner Ron Smith to see if we would be diving that day, which I assumed we would not be. Ron said that we would be going out and that conditions in the water should be fine. I went back, got the group and we piled into vans to go to the shop for paperwork, weights and tanks. Everything went smoothly at the shop (nice open air facility steps from the beach). We then drove to the boat, loaded the gear and took off. As we reached the dive site, conditions looked OK, with 2-4 foot chop and some surface current. The first of our divers got in and had to pull themselves to the front of the boat to go down the anchor line. No line was in the water for divers that did not immediately get to the boat. One of our divers started to drift and could not swim back against the surface current. That diver's buddy released from the boat and drifted back to keep the pair together. Shortly after the 2 divers dropped under the water and tried to come back just off the reef about 35 feet down. Current there was just as strong and the pair came up farther from the boat rather than closer. The crew did not handle the situation well at all. They were not willing to make the call to abort the dive, seemingly because they were concern that Ron would be upset. I finally made the call to abort and the captain for that day told me he'd only been working there a few days and implored me to tell Ron that it was my decision to abort, not his. Keeping his job was more important than the safety of the divers. Our pair in the water were picked up by another boat and had a very rough tow back to us, but finally arrived safe. We had the boat return to dock and drop us back at the ship. I contacted Ron and told him what happened. After pushing pretty hard, he finally agreed to give us a PARTIAL refund of 40%... Overall, one of the worst days of attempted diving I've ever had. Most importantly, Ron should have made the call that morning not to go, but he didn't. He and his captain put divers in danger to keep the charter rather than either cancelling or aborting. I've never felt my safety was second to anything else on a dive boat until this experience with Bananarama. There are many fine dive operations on Roatan, this is not one of them.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	Caribbean, Hawaii, California, Mexico
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	rainy, cloudy	Seas	choppy, currents
Water Temp	79-0°F / 26--18°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	20-30 Ft/ 6-9 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	told we could dive to 45 minutes, no depth discussed
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Bananarama in Honduras/Roatan

Bananarama, Dec, 2005,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Bananarama in
Honduras/Roatan