It’s time to break out your underwater cameras: the Roatan Marine Park is holding its Third Annual Marine Photography Contest!

Winning images will be printed in the 2011 Roatan Marine Park Calendar in order to showcase the natural beauty of Roatan’s coral reefs and highlight threats to their future survival.

Entries accepted for six categories:

• macro
• reef inhabitants
• black and white
• divers
• reefs at risk
• invertebrates

Deadline for submission:
31 July 2010

Details:

• All images must be from Roatan
• Images should be in .jpg format. Please include your full name, entry category, where image was taken, and a title
• Photos may be under or above water, but must maintain a marine context
• 1st and 2nd place in each category will be featured in the calendar with small images for runners-up
• Submission of images constitutes your permission for the Roatan Marine Park (RMP) to use these images free of charge for the 2011 RMP Calendar and other RMP publications. All images will be credited to their owners when used.

For more details of the competition, visit www.roatanmarinepark.com.

Email images to: info@roatanmarinepark.net

Luca Pagliaro, an Italian native, has disappeared in Roatan, Honduras last week, probably on 16th March 2010, with Mauriliuo Mirabella, owner of a diveshop who has also disappeared. Everybody who has useful news about him please contact me and my mother without hesitation.

Please let me know also when is the last time you have seen him. Thanks.

Licia and Francesca

liciapagliaro@hotmail.com
francesca.vcr@libero.it

The goal of TiR is to promote tourism and support local businesses on the Caribbean island of Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras through online marketing. TiR aims to be Roatan’s premier information service for travel, living, and island news. The site combines a clean modern design, advanced web technologies, and the power of Google Maps to present the beauty of Roatan to the outside world as never before seen.

The Story of TiR

Steve was sick of computer programming.

After wrapping up his Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Steve sold most of his belongings, packed his bags, and moved to the small Caribbean island of Roatan to teach scuba diving, drink rum, and live the beach bum lifestyle. He fell in love with the island’s jaw-dropping coral reef, friendly locals, sweeping white sand beaches, and laid-back attitude. His original plan to stay for three months was postponed… and postponed again… and again… until a year and a half of living the good life had passed by.

Steve returned to the so-called ‘real world’ to program professionally for a video game company in North Carolina. The job was good, the pay was fine, but something was missing. Staring at the photo of scuba divers on Roatan’s reef adorning the background of his computer, he knew he had to go back.

Meanwhile, a few websites Steve had made for Roatan businesses were starting to generate real results. A crazy little idea crept into his head: he could make a genuine impact on local businesses by driving tourism to the island through online marketing. Once again, he sold his stuff, packed his bags, and returned to the island he loved.

Real Time Development On Island Time

Upon returning, Steve began researching how he could make the biggest impact on the local market. Being relatively undeveloped, the island presented some unique challenges. As roads did not have names, local businesses did not have mailing addresses. There was hardly any news media on the island. Internet access was limited and quite slow by first-world standards.

Steve wanted a website that would do more than just act as a business directory. He saw a website that would show visitors exactly where everything was located on Roatan. He believed that media transparency was essential to promoting good business practices in the developing world. He envisioned a site architecture that would offset the slow internet speeds by incrementally streaming data in such a way that the website would never have to be reloaded. He dreamed of a website that would be sleek, modern, and beautiful—a place where local businesses would be proud to appear.

Steve was as naïve as he was ambitious. He thought the website would take six months to build. Unreliable electricity, crashed computers, political turmoil and personal hardships perpetually delayed the project. Progress was steady but aggravatingly slow. He poured his heart, soul, and personal finances into the project, bankrupting himself in the process.

The Dream Becomes Reality

Two years later, Steve finally published the first live version of TiR.

TiR remains the project of which Steve is the most proud. The website is proof that hard work, determination, and a fair bit of insanity can unite to create something incredible. Steve continues to refine TiR to fit the ever-changing needs of local businesses with emerging web technologies, allowing business owners to reach their online customers.

Steve hopes you enjoy the unique experience of TiR almost as much as you enjoy your stay on Roatan. If you find this website useful, please consider making a donation through PayPal; every buck goes a long way towards keeping the dream alive.

Changes are coming. I’m currently working on an updated layout and structure for the site along with a bevy of new content. The updates will be slowly rolled out over the next two months, but for now here’s a sneak peak at what is under development:

• More Scuba. Dive site reviews, professional tips to improve your diving, fish facts, industry news, and more.
• More Geek. Web design advice, code samples, Photoshop tricks, and general geek talk.
• More Interaction. Improved blog discussion, more pictures and videos, and better maps.
• More Rum. Rum reviews, drink mixing guides, and rum-based recipes.
• More Roatan. How to get there, where to stay, what to do, and how to make the most of your trip.
• More Tales. True stories past and present of my life as a scuba diving instructor.

As 2010 approaches, keep your eyes on TheScubaGeek.com to catch these new updates as they are unveiled!

Click here to explore a map of the Utila’s dive sites!

Now you can explore the dive sites around Utila too!

During my last vacation to Roatan’s sister island, I took the time to document the island’s dive sites in the TIREngine database. The result? A beautiful, Google Maps-powered interactive map. Zoom in on high resolution satellite imagery of the dive sites surrounding Utila. Click on any site to learn more information, or use the drop-down box above the pull up a full dive site description.

Thanks to Alton’s Dive Center in Utila for helping me name and locate the dive sites!

To other Utila dive shops and instructors: am I missing some dive sites? Do you have more information about a particular site? Want your dive shop logo added to my map? Please contact me! ]]> http://www.thescubageek.com/webdesign/utila-dive-site-map/feed/ 0 http://www.thescubageek.com/stories/im-leaving-tomorrow/ http://www.thescubageek.com/stories/im-leaving-tomorrow/#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:57:00 +0000 thescubageek http://www.thescubageek.com/?p=312 » read more «]]> …is apparently also a lie on Utila.

I arrived on Roatan’s sister island via Captain Verne’s catamaran ($100 round trip Half Moon Bay, Roatan to Utila Town, Utila) on Tuesday. The plan? Hang out for a two nights, do a little skin diving, and return to the “real world” of Roatan on Thursday.

Yeah, so about that plan…

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m once again telling the lie, “Seriously guys, I’m leaving tomorrow.” This time, though, I mean it. Honestly.

When I get back to Roatan’s blazing fast internet (think year-2000 speeds, as opposed to Utila’s 1994 speeds), expect deliciously debaucherous updates about my time here. I didn’t think an island could be more ridiculously bizarre than Roatan, but this flat, fun, fecal-smelling atoll has proven me wrong.

I’m leaving tomorrow. Seriously.

You can read more about the massive quake here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090528/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_earthquake

I would love to breathlessly recount the terror of being awoken at 2:30 in the morning by the cacophony of howling dogs and buckling earth, but unfortunately for my readers (but fortunately for me) I am in the States at this time attending my little sister’s wedding. I have no stories to share. Thankfully, word is that no one in West End was seriously hurt and properties damages were minimal. Business and life continues as usual in our sleepy little diving town.

Earthquakes are not unusual for the island; I’ve experienced a handful of minor shakes over the last four-plus years, but nothing even remotely the magnitude of a 7.1. Given that Roatan sits atop the Bonacca Ridge, a deep sea mountain range created by the collision of the Caribbean and Central America tectonic plates, it’s not surprising that the earth gives the occasional rumble.

Please keep the Honduran families on the mainland in your thoughts and prayers. These people, already living in impoverished conditions, have very few means with which to rebuild their shanty homes. As much as people in the US love to bitch and moan about FEMA’s inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, they have no idea what it’s like to live in a country where the government has almost no means to provide care to its citizens when disaster strikes— and certainly no idea what it is like to endure a disaster when the rest of the world hardly takes notice.

Well this is pretty crazy…

The thought floats to the surface of my consciousness as my bubbles cascade against the gnarled ceiling just inches above my head, slipping through invisible porous slivers in the ironshore and cascading through a impossibly interwoven stream of eons-old coral fossils to escape, unnoticed, on the surface twenty feet above my head.

Twenty vertical feet, I remind myself.

I am wedged forty feet inside a tiny fissure in the fore reef at Hole in the Wall dive site near West End, Roatan, Honduras. An ominous hallway of unexplored darkness looms before me, beckoning me to shed my dive light deeper into the cave. The last inklings of Caribbean sunlight illuminate my hands as I loop my line around an outcropping on the prickly cave wall—in the event that silt from the cave floor obscures my sight, this tie-off may be all that helps me escape from a subterranean drowning.

I draw a slow circle around the next chamber in the cave, memorizing the contours of the craggy walls. I inspect the intermittent puffs of silt tumbling as my bubbles strike the ceiling. I extend a finger into the cave floor. Slime. The organic ooze of congealed decomposition. A chamber of things long deceased. This chamber sees very little tidal movement. Visibility could be an issue on the way out.

Pretty damn crazy.

The tie-off is secure. My elbows push against the walls, gently propelling my forward in the room. I sweep the light to the right. The floor slopes slightly into an impenetrable taper in the wall. Hovering motionless as to not perturb the glob of decay on the floor, I slowly sweep my light across the room.

What is that?

Swollen, slippery, and prickly, a fully exposed Deer Cowery inches along the rocky edifice. A flash of fluorescent red. A copper lobster retreats tail-first into a crevice, startled by the sudden intrusion of illumination in its impenetrable abode. Eyes glow in the darkness.

To the left, the cave slopes slightly upward and into another room. I pull my fins behind me head, give a subtle flick of the ankle, and glide forward. My line pulls taught. Eighty-five feet inside. It’s the end of the line for both my reel and the cave, as my light discloses no further penetrable passageways. The silt is bad in here. Time to turn.

And what is THAT?!

It’s motionless. Hovering, just inches from my light, is an alien. No, wait, it’s a fish. But what the hell is it?! Never in my four-plus years of scuba diving on Roatan have I seen this creature! It doesn’t react to the light. It’s a four-inch-long obsidian rippling tail with an obscenely upturned mouth.

Wait, is that another? And another! Holy crap!

I swing my light around the room, revealing at least twenty Black Brotulas lingering along the cave walls, wiggling like tadpoles from Mars. And then they disappear.

The silt wells up in front of my light, instantaneously reducing my visibility to nil. My light penetrates only inches into the globs of aquatic goo. My fingers lock around my line—my lifeline— and feel the fibers guiding me to safety. I remember my days of Divemaster training frigid murk of a North Carolina rock quarry.

I’ve been here before.

I inch forward, relying on the pressure of the line and my memory of the cave to lead the way. My right hand traces the wall. The light penetrates a little further. This must be the entrance the room. My left hand reaches out.

And then the wall moves. A pair of antennas rake my mask.

Damn lobsters.

I wiggle through the entrance on my elbows. This room is silted too. It’s shadow diving at it’s finest—analyzing the indistinguishable smear of soil and light to discern shapes, walls, ceilings, direction, and ultimately the way out. The reel turns one click at a time in my hand. Regulate the breathing. Focus. One click at a time.

And there’s the light. The cloud of silt dissipates. A quick loop of the reel unhooks my last tie off. Hand spinning quickly, I reel my way toward the cave mouth, undoing the tie-offs from earlier.

And there she is: that blue, that endless blue, the Caribbean blue that sears my soul with my love of life, living, and thankfully staying alive.

And here I am: a hovering cloud of cave dust, metal, neoprene, and smiles.

I love my life.