Welcome to Tyll’s Dive located in the heart of West End on Roatan, the Bay Islands, Honduras home of the world’s second largest barrier reef.Tyll’s Dive takes pride in offering scuba divers a small family atmosphere where you are not just any number or just another diver. We dive in small groups. When you dive with Tyll’s Dive you are part of the dive family.Tyll’s dive family is world wide.
I have neglected the blog for way too long. Either been busy or not being able to find words unless it involved playing SCRABBLE. (By the way the shop got this shiny new Scrabble board for Christmas, and we were all excited and had guest players. Several people have been tapping on my shoulder and said it is time for an update!
So where to begin? Seeing the yellow Frogfish, finding the Seahorses or swimming with the pod of about 100 Dolphins?
Or the vast amount of Sargassum seaweed that kept floating in for weeks earlier this year. Tons of it. Apparently a piece had gotten loose and began to float. The Sargassum Sea is a very unik floating habitat in the middle of the ocean. Held together by the ocean currents. Look it up on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea very interesting. But when it hits land it begins to stink when it begins to decompose.
March was the month where everybody decided to come visiting. A good fun month with our loyal diver family. We just kept getting messages, Okay coming so and so, flight is booked.But it all worked out just fine. Some knew each other, others met for the first time. Got to go on a sailing trip with some of the divers on Captain Alex boat. A marriage proposal happened.Kevin and Danis wedding will be next year down here.
Had a visit from the past, Ron brought a dvd from one dive at Mandys Eelgarden in 2003. West Bay was jungle and Mangroves and wide sandy beach. No Mayan Princess, no Infinity Bay…no nothing, just beach.
Ron, you made us laugh seeing that dvd. What a bunch we were back then.
So they all left and boo, really quiet until we got our new team Utah arriving. Yes, we have team divers, a few team Colorado , a couple of team Arizona and of course our 2 team Wisconsin, and not to forget team Houston, New Jersey, Toronto and New York. Probably a lot more…
We have added some new shop members: Jackie Chan and Boy. We some how ended up with them...
The biggest news are that Dorte is going to visit her family in Denmark very soon after not having been there for about 9 years.
An era has come to an end. The Blenny House and cabins has been sold.
Between packing up and sorting out stuff, Jenny Blenny did find some time to come diving at Tyll’s. Many good memories and fun times to think back on. Wish Jenny all the best in France and we are sure some of her future travels will include a stop on Roatan for some more diving.
For a long time we did not take any divemaster trainees, but accepted Vincent earlier this year. We found we were busy enough to offer him good training and get enough experience that we would hire him. Well he had to go back to Canada.
When he comes back he will be an instructor and we hope we will have work for him.
We are now in August. Waiting for the Silvesides madness to return to Blue Channel. While waiting there have been so many great sightings. Pipe horses, Juvenile Trunkfish, also known as the Pea, Eaglerays, Turtles. You name it.
Tyll’s Dive is happy to see many of our “old” divers returning after a break of 6-8 years not being here. It has been amazing.
One of them is Wolfgang now doing his divemaster.
We at Tyll's Dive are (among many others) glad to leave 2013 behind us and start up on a fresh, clean page with many hopes for 2014.
This wonderful group of divers gave us a great start.
Having many of our repeat divers (now like friends and family) coming back around the same time every year is something we always look forward to.
We have added quite a few new members to the dive family.
Kimberly and Gary organized a fix the deck workshop one Sunday. Thank you all so much for spending a Sunday sweating,sawing and hammering. Here is the crew. Scott, Terry, Gary and Phil. Kimberly is supervising and Christian must be next door pulling nails out of reusable floor boards.
We did not find any treasures or monsters underneath the deck. But the cats, Blanca and Bailies are still not convinced - about the monster part.
We are glad to have Mel back,but we have not yet had many opportunities to play Scrabble. Phil and Tess who had been cat sitting and covering for her, went onto their next adventures. Phil and Tess, we can not thank you enough for all your help, support, hard work, enthusiasm, and being creative by giving the dive shop a little face lift with colorful signs.
For the diving part. Recently there have been seen Seahorses, Pipehorses and Harlequin Pipefish, last week was Eagleray week, then the weeks with the little puffers every where. Turtles, Drumfish and I could keep going.
Kal took some really nice photos. He has turned himself into be Tyll's Dive private u/w photographer and does not mind to share his photos with other divers.
Here is Kal.
Congratulation to Willem's 3 Open Water students Tracy, Michelle and Tino who just got certified.
A new blog entry is way over due. What happend between April and now?
It’s not all dive related, but still connected to Tyll’s Dive.
After a great spring seeing many good friends coming back to Roatan for their yearly get away from the cold, we have been enjoying the more frequent visits from Gary, Dory, Tracy and Kal, who are in the process of building or reconstructing their Roatan home away from home.
The Summer months rolled by fairly quick and we made new friends to add to our Tyll’s Dive family.
The Silversides have been back in the swim through again at Blue Channel. Amazing as always.
After several reports of Whaleshark sightings, Mel finally got to see and swim with her first one ever. What a treat for Sean and Virginia on their first diving day on Roatan.
So things began to slow down and we had to do maintenance on the boat. Quite a costly affair indeed. Well if you have a car or a boat you will know.
Have to mention what a great community West End has. During the time the boat was out of the water, we got help left and right so we could keep the business going.
This is Samuel" on "Very Deep", also gently called "The Slow Boat" by our divers.
It got them to the dive sites and back and we all very much appreciated we could borrow it.
Following is a little about renewing Honduran residency.
Our 5 years were coming up for renewal and change of status. Should be straight forward and not too complicated as long the Immigration receives the new 5 year fee up front on time. Then the lawyer puts together an application to be filed.
So far all is good until she try to get a statement from Interpol Honduras,that we are not wanted criminals. But there is a small detail, the Interpol office has been closed down for unknown time, and there is no plan B...Who mentioned fiascos in paradise?
Just recent we had a visit from our very first diver from when we took over Tyll's Dive in June 2002. Last time Nancy visited Roatan was 6-7 years ago. We had a lot to catch up on while her son got certified Open Water Diver. A great week that went way too fast.
In the mean while Jenny Blenny and Ben are touring the States, meeting Tyll’s Dive family every where...
And guess who is here right now? Matt de Jong. Good to see him after so many years.
April 2013
Semana Santa is over. Did not seem too crazy after all except the loud music at night.
So, I promised Kal to post the Cow song from Tyll, which is not from Tyll at all, he modified it. So am not sure it qualifies. But found other gems in Tyll’s treasure box.
But before we get to that, a little update might be in place.
After a very slow fall season it got busy around Christmas. Shop full of very nice people and then there was this high maintenance couple who ran from their bill. Well that was a learning curve. Have only had this happen once before in all the years. Everybody was so upset that this happened to us.
Mid February into March was like a big busy family reunion. It was wonderful. Also having Jenny Blenny and Ben around was just an extra treat.
We had 2 Birthdays we celebrated next door at The Buena Vida. Thanks Kimberly to be on top of that and help arranging the get togethers for Elizabeth and David.
This is Silke and her dad Bernd who did his open water. He decided to learn English now.
.
Am glad I first broke my wrist later. If you decide to walk to West Bay, be aware of very slippery rocks that have to be scrambled over in a certain section.
We have been very happy to have Anika and Giles Working with us and are sad they will be leaving soon. Working their way back to the States to get married. All the best wishes and hope they will be back one.day. Rather sooner than later.
The first dive at the point after a couple of days with rain and strong winds, was amazing. It was Patti and Jims second time here, and that dive was their best ever. A school of about 200 horseeyed Jacks!!!!
Photogenic turtles on other dives are always something special.
The water temperature is taking its time to warm up this year it seems. Air temperature not so much.
Hopefully this year will give us all a bit more steadiness business wise instead of the previous couple of years with either feast or famine.
Big thank you to all our loyal divers/friends, instructors and divemasters.
Finally got a bit inspired to write.
First of all, I want to share that the Roatan Marineparks photo contest
calender is available. Have a look at their FB page and see some of the amazing
photos that were submitted. I am proud to say I think I bought the first one as
they had just gotten them in. A great birhtday present to one of our divers.
(Lisa I hope its in your office and makes your smile and dream of your last
spectacular visit).
With the West End Road project finally finished after a year of construction
of sewage system and road surfacing, we can all finally get back to normal
life.
Leo has been documenting everything for a year now. He must be the one to
consult if there are any questions about where the water and sewage pipes are.
What a relief not to have dodging heavy machinery, random holes that
were closed one day and open again the next. We miss our sandy road. But since
there was no choice, we are glad to see we actually got the better of the
evils. A kind of sandy colored cement road with a rippled pattern.
We had a couple who have been diving with us for the last 5 years. At the
end of a diving day included logging
dives, maybe have a drink and out come the fish and creature books. Lisa and
Clay announced that this time was the year they observed the most variety in
the marinelife. And bigger groupers, bigger and a lot more lobsters and crabs.
This is a thumbs up for the Marinepark and all that are involved and
support.
September also was the time to see crazy amounts of Silversides and Glassy
Sweepers in the Blue Channel swimmthroughs.
The treat for the divers a couple of weeks ago were a pregnant pipehorse.
Well its the male who carry the upcoming offspring so don't really sure what
term to use...are the offspring of the seahorsefamily called “ seafoals”
then???
From the local scene, Haywood still directs the
traffic once in a while. Emerson is now selling fresh Basil picked in front of
the Blue Marlin most likely, the crazy twin is getting even more crazy. Will
not get into details on that one other than she has a thing with hibiscus
plants. Either she loves or hates them. The woman who used to take her pig swimming
in Halfmoon Bay on Sundays is not allowed anymore.
We have lived here for years now, and the priority
of rules, regulations and policework keeps baffling us.
Pigs are not allowed on the beach. So the pig got a
warning. If you show up again you might get arrested or shot. Reason is pigs
poo on the beach. So do dogs and some humans I am sure…
So
piggy is banned from the beach. Poor piggy, was fun to watch
Tyll has recently been back on the island from his home in La Ceiba. He found some goodies in his old house here,he had written years ago, and we agreed would they find a great place on this blog. Enjoy and hopefully it will make you smile.
DAT TEST (Divemaster Alert Test)
By Tyll Sass
Take this Divemaster Alert Test and match your skills with those of the experts. Answers down below. (No cheating now...)
1.
Archimedes Principal: If you have 30 gallons of fresh water in a
rinsetank, then you submerge and fill one gallon into a container. How many gallons remain in the rinsetank? when you compare them. a) 28 b) 32 c) all of the above d) none of the above
2.
If 3 divers in the water planned a bottom time of one hour, and 3 more
people jumped in and planned to stay 30 minutes halfway through the first group's dive. How many divers would be in the water 59 minutes after the first group jumped in? a) 5 b) 6 c) 12 d) none of the above
3. If you were diving in Cozumel, and wanted a dive plan before the boat left the dock for the divesite. Who would you ask?
a) the secretary behind the window who took your money b) the divemaster on the boat c) you'd call Paul Tzimolis of Skin-Diver magazine d) nobody, you'd plan the dive when the boat got there
4.
You have been assigned a new buddy, (as your last one is sitting this
one out in the chamber) and you notice him fidgeting with his equipment,
he is irritable, twitching and think he knows it all.
a) he has oxygen poisoning b) he is anxious/perfectionist c) he is on drugs d) he is obnoxious/dependent 5.You and your buddy are on 60 ft., and you notice a 10 ft. difference in your depth gauges. What should you do?
a) immediately go to the surface & blow your whistle b) use the 70 ft. schedule then decompress for 5 min. at 10 ft. c) continue the dive as if nothing happend d) throw the gauge that gives the shallower reading into the dumpster upon completion of the dive
6.
You are diving in a shipping channel. It is 20 ft. deep and 65 ft.
wide. The current is 2 knots. You decide to surface, and see an
oiltanker coming towards you that draws 18 ft. of water and is 60 ft. wide. a) Wave furiously to hail the bridge b) swim like hell! c) ditch your gear & head for shore d) kiss your ass good-bye!
7.
Somehow you've lucked out and drawn Bob Croft in a buddy-pool on a
live-aboard dive trip. (He was the world's free diving champion in the
70's). On your first dive with him, you are at 60 ft., suddenly his eyes widen and become the size of saucers. You should immediately:
a) drop his weight belt and slowly assist him to the surface b) drop his weight belt and inflate his BCD c) turn around 8. Your dive boat captain is drunk and passes out. Meanwhile the dive boat has run up on a reef and the batteries are dead. The tide is going out. You should: a) call the Coast Guard b) set all anchors and try winching off c) patch the hole underwater with marine-tex d) have a drink. You are going to be there a while 9.
Your new dive buddy weighs 350 lbs. You both jump into the water with a
giant stride. He forgets to inflate his BCD and goes straight to the
bottom. Then his weight belt falls of, he hits the CO2 cartridge and
comes roaring past you towards the surface. You should: a) grab his feet as he goes by b) try to deflate his BCD by stabbing at it with your dive knife c) drop your weight belt inflate you BCD and try catch him d) get back in the boat and get a new dive buddy
10) In an emergency, using oxygen, you should:
a) lubricate all moving parts with transmission oil b) if the valve sticks or leak, have an oxygen "expert" ready with a ballpien hammer c) be sure the gauge does not read over 21% before opening valve d) keep it on deck
ANSWER SHEET
1. None of the above - it never said he took the container back out, stupid! 2. None of the above - the second 3 were snorklers. 3. Nobody - the secretary doesn't speak English, none of the divemasters can hear, and Paul Tzimolis is always busy. 4. d 5. Both c and d are correct. since your buddys gauge read 50 ft. 6. Both c and d are correct. 7. Turn around. There is probably a great white closing in. Bob Croft likely wouldn't panic at 60 ft....he can free dive to 300. 8. You can't call the Coast Guard because the batteries are dead. The only answer is to have a drink. 9. d - this guy is an idiot. You need a new buddy. 10. d - if you missed this one, there is no hope.
2012.
What this year will bring us we can only wait and see.
Will the electric company RECO keep charging high fuel adjustment surcharges all year around?
Will the West End road project ever get finished? And if so, will residents and visitors think of it as a big improvement or a total fiasco? ,
Will The Tax People come back in even bigger force and audit businesses twice a day instead of every second day for a month?
Will any of us ever fully recover from 2009's Zelaya fiasco?
Will the world go crazy because of the Mayan Calenders ending?( Maybe a calender ending might just mean its time to get a new calender.)
Too many speculations for the first month of a New Year.
Some things seem never to change though, like the prices for diving and courses, and the availability of baleadas, rice, beans and chicken. At least we have this to hold on to so we can have some stability
in our daily life.
Looking very much forward to see a lot of you again this year for diving, hanging out, a game of Scrabble, Cribbage or Rummy 500, home cooked meals, catching up and sharing stories, fantastic diving in a small group. Not just watching fins and bubbles.
A recent diver at Tyll's Dive mentioned that we are not a big fancy shop, but a small shop with a big heart and where a small group experience is what you get, not just promised. Like that, because thats what we are really.
This is why Tyll's Dive can never be a big busy shop. We need to have time for our people,
make sure everyone has a good experience and a good time on Roatan, and thats why we love what we do. And hope we will be able to continue on with this .
Hope we can add more to the Tyll's family over the year!
Back to superstitions and such, would like to close this blog entry with a quote from Groucho Marx:
"A black cat crossing the street signifies an animal going somewhere.
Sometimes thats all it is."
I know I have neglected the blog for a while. But there has not been much to report apart from contractors and the mayor making progress for West End this fall.The progress is digging random holes and putting in pipes . Its a perfect thing to start a project like that in the rainy season. But I am not an ingeneer. Just a spectator.
People have been troopers to get from A to B. Rubber boots are really fancy things to have these days.
For the diving. Its been turtles turtles turtles. I wish the turtlekid would have been here with his turtle tapper. Geaorgina and Pete might have been turtle whisperers as well.
Team New Jersey rocks. Dory, Tracy and Beth. What a fantastic team. The rubber boot diva diving team!!!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND ALL BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR!!!!
Yours team Tyll's :-)
The biggest event in June was probably Peeter. Peeter is a rescued kitten from West Bay. The litter lost their mother when they were 3 weeks old and a watchman brought them to Celeste at West Bay Lodge who lovingly brought them up. We were ready for a new family member and got in contact with Penelope from Roatan Renegade Rescue who told us to go see Celeste.
Peeter
So a few days later we scheduled a dive to Mandys Eelgarden so the dive boat could drop of Amanda and me to go and meet Peeter. There was no doubt at all about the kitten. Peeter kind of looked up "Hi my name is Peeter, how are you?"
Afterwards Amanda and I walked around in West Bay and felt like being on a different island and being tourists. The watch and sunglasses guys didn't first recognize us, we being out of our natural environment of West End.
You may wonder why Amanda was not taking out the dive that day. She is also having a new family member, although not a furrry fourlegged one, but a little boy. She is glowing and happy to be a real mom some day soon.
Helen
We love Clay and Lisa, they always come back and bring good vipes to this place. Even though Lisa had to study so much this time, we found time to have lots of laughs together. Samuel said, Lisa is always smiling and happy. Samuel got that absolutely right.
We have been studying too: Watussas interacting with Peeter or vice versa. Very interesting. Am not sure if Peeter relates himself more to a Watussa than to a cat.
Also observed we have sucide sugar ants at the house. They climb the water bowl, and then drown. Does that make any sense?
Ever heard of Mini bees?
Mini bees are another thing. They live in a little plastic fitting outside the diveshop. Actually next to the meters. They are tiny, apparently friendly and don't sting. I guess its because you don't see them, and they are just there minding their own business.
Water tap wasps are another curiosity. They like to hang out underneath the water taps. Maybe they are just thirsty???
So who is filling in for Amanda. Melanie did before she went to the Caymans. Mo is still filling in when needed.
We recruited Helen. English science teacher and now Scuba instructor. Dive teacher is more fun than beeing a dry teacher. Her class room is in the sea, decoration is the coral reef and marine life.
Unfortunately or maybe it is fortunately that Ed, Uwe and Kristian do not always follow Helens advice in building bombs out of draino, alufoil and plastic bottles... The yard, the diveshop, The Wet Spot and the Blue Marlin are still intact.
Oh, The Wet Spot is now next door, great breakfast and lunch, and they are actually consistent with opening hours. Not like the Sharkcave. What a nice change that is, and we dont have to complain about the music volume every day.
What happens on thursdays? Karaokee night at the Blue Channel. Mo always fills
us in on how horrible the singers can be and want to sing over and over again. One thursday Hartley decided he can sing Bob Marleys "One Love". And he did. The two words he could remember were "One love" so the song was like this: One Love, One Loove, One love, one Love. one looove etc. Yes he could have read the tele prompter, but he didn't.
Details, details...
Helen just finished a rescue course with Martin who actually has DMP (dive master potential). It went very well. Instead of calling out Pizza pizza they called out Peeter peeter (course code for help help, to not attract a scene in our little community). Austin, thank you for helping out.
One last thing, keep supporting the Roatan Marinepark, read their newsletters and help where you can.
Instructor and backgammon player Tanguy and his student
Slippery Dick about to head out. In the water Matt and Jenny
Alva and her kitchen
Not happy with my draft for the June-July entry so decided for the this. Enjoy.
I think it was mid 2002 that we took over Tyll's Dive. Tyll kindly told us we can use his equipment , boat and compressor to start up with. So here we are with the apparently unsinkable boat called Con Permiso, a bunch of equipment that had seen better days, a squirrel that would pee on you when you passed by its cage to go to the toilet, a parrot called Hamburgeso, a dog named Pastelito and last Tyll's and Alvas adopted son, Christian. (The kid from hell, to be honest).
We had entered the Fiascos in Paradise:-)
We orderd a few sets of new equipment, hired Dexter to build a boat that could travel further than Blue Channel. We had a partner at this point, Jas. He sold out later though. It was all challenging times. Even order food at Alvas restaurant was a thing in itself. You order your food, go diving, and it might be ready when you get back. But hi, thats how it was.
The building of the boat took longer than anticipated, so in the meanwhile we got a skiff from Don Hickmann and used the tinfoil boat from Doc Radowski. Just imagine the picture.
The equipment arrived and finally Dexter brought the boat as he got tired of the checking ups on the progress. Colour was grasshopper green...Not the agreed colour, but guess was what he had available.
Uwe and Jas were horrified. I found it was pretty in a special way. Uniquie, only boat in West End with that colour. Well they won and it got repainted and named Slippery Dick after a wrasse.
Many evenings there would be people playing guitar and singing. The Burrito Brothers would chip in with their repetoire like Ground Hog Day, Monica Monica and Running with the Buffaloes (all composed by Tyll)
The idea of moving or at least revisit Central America got planted in our heads in the end of the 1980'ties. Had visited friends in Guatemala and El Salvador and just fell in love. Almost 10 years passed before we came back. First we had to live out the dream of having a house on the country side in Denmark with garden, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks and a pig.
Every sunday we would study the newspaper travel section and dream of places far far away. Then one sunday, a danish journalist had this brilliant article about the Bay Islands and in particular Roatan, it just sounded to be the place you have to visit. We were still not divers at that time. But the article we kept and made it a goal that one time we would go there. In the meanwhile Uwe got certified as a CMAS diver at the local diveclub in Loekken, Denmark. Do I have to mention cold water diving? I Dorte) was not as hardcore and chose to get Padi certified on Crete im Greece. Anyhow I managed to join Uwe and his drysuit buddies for around 10 cold water dives on the west coast of Denmark. Then finally we had saved up for a month vacation to ROATAN in Octuber 1998. It took a bit longer to save up, because everytime we were close, the car broke down and had to be fixed.... We were getting suspicious that our mecanic had an fix alert build in that was connected to our Roatan trip savings account...
Anyways. We finally arrive . Of course the taxi driver tells us that Dolphin Hotel is the only place that has room available this late of the day, which turned out to be a lie. By the way they still do that to people arriving late in the day.
We go for a little stroll to find a bite to eat. First impression of West End was THATS IT?. Thats gonna be 4 long weeks. It seemed so small.
Next day we got a nicer place to stay at Geophies Hide away and met dutch Ron. We are still big friends. Shared a lot of rum and stories and still do by the way when we get a chance to visit. We went diving every day. Everything was beautiful an pristine. Huge groupers the size of me, my dive buddies. Then remember it was fall 1998. Hurricane season. Well of course Hurricane Mitch passed by to say hello. Was interesting days. No power -no water- no internet. Well internet was not very common those days anyway. So the news about the storm was sparesly. Rudys family decided we should empty the concrete watercistern and use it as a shelter. All right so we did. We were all prepared. But Mitch just kept harassing neighboring island, Guanaja. But that was still very close. The power of nature surely flexed its muscles and toyed with us for days.
You might think, thats it, never coming back. No, seeing people helping each other in the community effort at getting things back on track and collect to them that lost stuff was the most amazing thing. Unfutunately we had to leave a week early because of family issues back home. Thanked everyone for a great time, and told Ron, Hi dutch boy, we will be back and be your neighbour again.
Went back to Denmark sold the rest of our belongings (the car we sold to the mecanic, well he knew what he/we had replaced all parts possible). So we packed our bags once again in January 1999. Arrive in Miami for Superbowl. Great! No room under a $100 to be found. Welcome to Miami!!! Airport luggagecarts works though, you just have to move around when the vacumcleaner woman approaches you.
We arrive, and people here all the same, maybe a few new faces. And Ron, the dutch boy had not left. Happy days to see a good friend.
So now we here. No plans at all. We dive and gain experience of the reef and the islandlife, how things work. Uwe does his divemaster and later instructor. Get involved in maintain and troubleshoot aircompressors, boat engines and scuba equipment. I learn go diving without Uwe being my dive buddy. Clyde assures he will look after me. And he did. I get to be the diveshop girl (not quite a manager yet), but observe what to do and not to do if it was my shop.
At some point down the road we decide to leave the island to explore other places. 4 months later we are back! And it was great to come back home. We missed it so much. We got our old jobs back too. Just like that.
And then we got friends with Tyll. And a whole new chapter and challenges began with taking over Tyll's Dive.
