Instant Reader Report on Diving
utila dive center/mango inn in
Honduras/utila in
2002/10

by
guy johnson, illinois, usa
Report Number 021019183744673

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 florida,cozumel,bimini,walkers cay,grand cayman,little cayman, cayman brac
bahamas 

actually none, they bent over backwards to let us do whatever we wanted..no
depth or time linit  

[None]  

Overall Rating

well, first the good news.utila dive center and mango inn did all they
could you keep us happy and overall, they did just fine. the cabin was a
two bed affair, with a/c,sat tv, and private bath/shower. room was always
clean..the food served was always prompt,hot and tasty if somewhat basic
.we had to walk a 1/2 mile each morning to the diveshop.breakfast at 630am
and then the diveshop by 730am, pretty easy to do. the dive shop had lots
of scuba-pro gear to use if needed..some abit worn but all serviceable. the
boat had o2,fire extingiser and first-aid kit on board.water was two, one
gallon jugs,luke warm but wet!.air fills were alum 80 and always right at
3000psi.the bad news.. i would have enjoyed a cooler full of ice to chill
my soda, otherwise my only problem on the boat was smokers,even thought it
was posted, smokers often lit up and stayed below decks instead of at the
stern area.ugh!!thats about the only bad stuff.the divemasters and captain
were easy to work with and did what they could to make the diving easy for
all levels of divers.the boat often held up to 23 divers plus 3-4
divemasters which made it more of a "cattleboat." the hard corals
were abit rough but the soft corals were in better shape. we did not see
any whale sharks or mantas but tons of little stuff.saw-6-8 seahorses (some
as long as 8 inches)several turtles and nurse sharks, lots of eels..several
nice schools of various fish, many permitting you to swim among them! when
we dove the 100ft deep wreck of the haliburton we were told to make our
safety stops,how long and at what depths.. we had a group of eight dutch
divers who had no manners on the boat at all, they just took over the boat
with their gear and were often rude..acted as if the boat belonged to them
and to hell with any others...the general crowd of divers in utila were of 
the "grung crowd" ..all were young but very nice. the draw was
the very low cost to dive, stay and eat..the locals were very nice and
friendly.every dive operation we checked out sold their dives at ten dives
for $ 125...very reasonable!we booked through dani at aqua dream travel and
were more than pleased with it all. we paid $399.oo for seven nights,three
dives each day,breakfast and dinner.with airfare we still paid less than
$1300.we changed planes five times each way and spent more time in
terminals than we did flying but it was all well worth it.the honduran
dollar was traded at about 18 to one u.s. dollar. all exchanges of money
were easy and fair,also two banks right on the main street.the diving was
not overly challenging but it was varied. the diving was not spectactular
and life was somewhat basic but overall we had a great time..would i do it
again? absolutely!!!  

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