4/3/2010 saturday

the rest of the trip was uneventful into atlanta. we got there, found our next terminal and on the way to the gate we pass the delta lounge so we hopped in there and grabbed breakfast. they had chocolate muffins, bagels and cream cheese, bar, juice, coffee. the chairs were much more comfortable, and they had couches. i thought about taking a pic but there were a lot of passengers hanging out and well, i don't look great when travelling but don't mind people taking me in a setting like that but some people do care and i didn't want to piss anyone off. so i passed on it. sorry.  if we have time to visit on the return trip (unlikely but you never know, ATL is famous for *not* being on time) i'll see how crowded it is. boarding was on time thank goodness. as we were leaving the lounge we passed the little 'office area' where there was a man on the phone. matt stops and looks at me, points to the guy and asks "pawn shop dued?" i dunno. there was a row of clocks displaying times around the world

just outside so i tried to be inconspicuous but of course dude was looking out, and knew i was walking past to give him a look. i got a small smile. it sounded like him, it *did* look like him, so we're calling it our celebrity sighting for the trip. clarke peters is his name. and he was on hbo's "the wire" as the detective lester/pawn shop duty.

we boarded from midcraft, and when i reached our seats in 1st class the F.O. was in the galley. i asked him if i could have the pilot fill in my flight log. he took it, signed his name, and said 'follow me'. i got to go onto the flight deck. it was a little odd seeing an analog cockpit! the last several times i've been up there they've all been digital. while the pilot was filling in all the info they were asking me questions like "where was my favorite place i've been", "what's there to do in roatan", "how many places have i visited". it's kind of fun. especially when the pilot could've been the F.O.'s dad by the age difference! i swear he looked like a 20 year old kid.

the flight to roatan was a little bumpy but nothing like the storm in MS we encountered. as i'm filling in the customs card i asked the attendant a couple questions. the entire form was in spanish and while i once was decent at it i am no longer, and matt wasnt' remembering much either. we're trying to figure out 1 of the questions when i notice a cockroach on my arm. a little squeal and i shook him off. the gal didn't even see it. the other attendant who was starting to prepare for food service looks over with a question in her eyes like "what's the matter???" i didn't want to say it too loudly so i have no idea if either of them really got that there was a cockroach on board. no other little screams were heard so i guess he found his way out. hope he had a passport because he isn't going to be in GA anymore. LOL.

we got a pretty good view of the island as we approached, circled over and landed. it's a short runway that parallels the ocean, and it's a bumpy runway, but 10 years ago it wasn't even paved. as we're touching down i tell matt this is like a field landing. short, sweet, and bumpy. there was one i swear they must've installed a speedbump. we get to the end and there's a large circle - like the trolly turn-arounds in san fran. we circle around and head back to 'the terminal', a 1 building airport. there were some cool older planes there. we are waiting for the stairs when someone notices they are being hand pushed by 2 guys up to the door. the humidity just sucked the breath out of us when we got to the door of the plane. quite a bit different from seattle. we're through the line at customs, and we're waiting for our bags. i joked with matt about which carousel they'd come up on. (the joke is: there was only 1). there were only 5 of us on the plane going to cocoview so we were all out pretty quickly.

we hopped onto a shuttlebus and were driven eastward through french harbor to the dock for the boat to cocoview. planes, boats and busses. a few minutes' ride and we were at the dock for the resort. i call it a resort, but it's nothing like what most people would call a resort. it is kind of rustic in its charm. if you want to be pampered this is not the place. some might call it run down, others might describe it as tired, or in need of repair. screened-in windows or doors often have gashes in them, doors don't all fit square. but it's not the place one goes to sit by the pool and drink colorful slushy concoctions with umbrellas. this place is for die-hard divers. in fact almost all of roatan's

 economy is diver/tourist based. the people both at CoCoView and elsewhere we've met are friendly, the food is filling, carb-loaded, and tasty. and there is enough diving to O.D. on if you want. they have a gym - a bench press, some free weights, a stair-stepper, and a lat pull machine. it's in a room on the 2nd floor, there's a fan, and while i'm not sure if it works an a/c unit. oh, and the windows open. the bedrooms/bungalows all have a/c, but the main dining/game/bar/lounge room seems to be cooled by fans and screen windows. no pool. their website says they have a hottub, not that you'd really want to get in it with 80+ degrees farenheit and at least 50% humidity. there's a spa with facials, mani/pedis, and massage. and that's about it. one gets up and breakfasts, then goes out on a boat dive. comes back and has lunch, goes out on a boat dive. comes back for dinner and then has the option to chill out or go for a night dive (boat or shore). in the meantime, if you don't want to eat, or want to skip the boat there's unlimited shore diving. yup. 24/7 free shore diving if you want to live in the water. and there's snorkeling. i've been doing quite a bit of that the last couple days. in fact the backs of my hands look like i held them up to a heat lamp for way too long.

but i jump ahead of myself. when we docked at the resort we were given forms to fill out - disclaimers about how we know diving is dangerous etc. and basically told our rooms weren't ready and there was an orientation meeting in about an hour. then we're pretty much turned free. ok. now what? matt and i walked up and down the full length of the docks in a self-tour that took about 20 minutes to complete. 1 good thing we saw was a hawksbill turtle who was injured had been rescued by one of the employees and placed in a penned-in portion of the sea to recover. lunch was being served so we ate up spaghetti with sauce - quite yummy, bread, and dessert. by then we were able to get into our rooms and change clothes. we decided we weren't going to try diving that day due to the air pressure with the planes. the orientation meeting kept getting pushed back later and later. long enough of a time gap for us to say 'now what do we do' and too short a time gap for us to actually do anything. then we see people who came in with

 us out on an orientation dive. oops guess we missed the orientation meeting. at least there's another at 8.30 the next morning. ugh. -turns out there wasn't a meeting, some guys just grabbed a dive master and did their dive portion of it that afternoon. we decided it was nap time and that took us to dinner which was quickly eaten then we went back to bed!

day2 roatan.....in progress

test photos

4/2/2010 friday

we packed up the car and left for the airport around 7:30pm. matt dropped me off with the suitcases at the skycap counter and went to park the truck. there were 2 guys in front of me in line so no problem. it's cold and rainy and i'm in shorts but it shouldn't take too long, right? 1 of the guys had overpacked his bag by at least 10 pounds. the skycap was like you have to pay extra and the amount was enough the guy got pissed off. he kept repeating "i have to pay as much as i did for my ticket just for my luggage?" or something like that. i'm sure he was exaggerating a little bit, humans do that, but it must've been significant. i'm not sure who said it or if it's trustworthy, but i heard "10 bucks a pound" at 1 point. to top it off the skycap only took credit cards and there was no card processing equipment at the outside counter so he has to take the cards and run inside, process them, get the tags etc, then run back out. apparently something went wrong as well becuase he had to make 2 or 3 trips inside to get this guy's bags taken care of. meanwhile these 2 guys are just cussing like a sailor. when a family with small children came up to the counter they didn't stop, either. what happened to the manners we were taught as children? finally their bags are on the conveyor and they're off.

now it's my turn. matt's still not back which surprised me. i figured i had waited long enough he should be there by then, but that's ok. i handed the guy our passports and he asked if there were 2 of us flying. i said yes, he was parking the car and i was to get as far with the bags as i could. he laughed. i managed to get the dive bag up on the scale. it was overweight. i did let the guy know i had room if i needed to shift some items from 1 bag to the next i could, but i would rather not. i was preparing myself for the 'just pay it' or take them inside and repack and check them there... but then he looked at the tickets and asked if we were flying 1st class. when i said yes he asked again. not sure if that was for both legs of the trip or for both of us. but when i answered yes again he said "ok no problem". so Hah! fly 1st class and you can get an overweight bag on for free! (ancient chinese secret? as the
commercial used to say?) but then he said there was a problem, he couldnt' check our bags. just then i saw matt walking through the terminal and knew he could deal with it if neccesary. the guy actually let me behind the counter so i could see the display. yup, 'not able to process at this time' or something like that. no problem. the guy thinks it's because we're flying international. at least there's no line inside for 1st class.

we get the bags up to the counter and galina helps us out. the dive bag is overweight so it gets a 'heavy' sticker. then the other suitcase is underweight. but by the same amount as the other is over! so i only had a distribution issue, not really a weight issue. :-) we also got a 'priority' sticker on our bags. i'm guessing that's to distinguish them if for some reason the plane is overweight as a whole and someone's bag has to be left behind it won't be 1 of ours. i've flown 1st class a couple times previous but never with checked bags. galina smiled about the weight thing and said don't worry about it. this was not the last we were to see of galina.

turns out our flight was in the south satellite. we got through security rather quickly. i was ahead of matt and watched our bags go through the scanner. i was curious if we'd have to open the regulator cases and all. as it came through the guy looked at it and then asked me if we were going to SCUBA. "yes we are" i answered. the regulators actually looked like regulators, unlike the bike tires that looked like triangles.  once in the south satellite we found the delta lounge and hung out until it was time to board.

the lounge was nice. they had tvs and you could actually change the channel if you wanted. how is it that jeff probst gets to host larry king live when larry king isn't on? anyway, a little bar in 1 corner, free cokes, juice, water, some cookies and trailmix type stuffs were also set out. there was a little biz section in the back. can't say much for the chairs though. and no loungers or couches. you had to sit up or lay on the floor. just as we're about to get up and leave to board the gal at the front comes over a PA letting us know the pilot found a small machanical issue he wanted to have repaired before we took off and was going to delay boarding for about 30 minutes.

30 mins later they made the call for 1st class boarding. yay for our pilot. and i'm glad that they do those pre-flight checks! so we get on board, take our seats, and we sit. and we sit. the jetway gets pulled away from the plane - wait a minute, it's coming back to the plane. we hear the door open, which once closed seldom happens. the pilot comes on the PA. a passenger in row 11 was putting their items in the overhead compartment with i guess a little too much force and caused the oxegyn masks to deploy in that row. here comes galina, with maintenance crew. they work on it, go on and off the plane a couple times, and the pilot comes back on. he tells us we can't leave until it's fixed, apologizes for the delay, again. matt and i just look at each other, fully expecting to hear the words "we're going to get another aircraft" but instead he says they're going to turn on the in-flight entertainment and pass out the headphones to coach compliments of delta, instead of having to pay $2 each. so that was a nice little consolation. about an hour after our originally scheduled departure time we backed away from the gate.

we had a nice snack and some naps and watched a little tv on the way to atlanta. it was a pretty normal flight until we get to the mississippi border. there was this boom, shake, and drop. yup, we're awake. a couple more booms and shakes and a lot of bumps. we're flying right into the storm. matt turned on the interactive flight map and we saw the pilot had turned us almost directly south from our eastward direction. we could see the lightning sparking it was both cool and scary. we totally diverted a good distance - possibly adding another 30 minutes to our flight time when it was all over. oh well. less layover in atlanta. by then we're awake and there's no going back to sleep. it was about 6 or so in
the morning. i'm sure glad the pilot had whatever it was fixed before we boarded!