January 2011 Happy New Year

January 2011

The new year started up a bit hectic. Amanda in England, Mo got busy having students all the time,and we having to call in freelance divemasters and on top of that train a new boatcaptain, who by the way is doing a great job and working hard, but has a lot to learn is still understandable.
Samuel seems a good kid, but so was Marcos in many ways, but he had his flaws and decided to quit his job. We are on good terms and still care about Carmen and Marquito.
The pic above is of the very nice danish family that brought us danish yummi stuff.

Amanda is back working now. Such a relief. Things are all of a sudden back to normal.
Yves, our divemaster from 2008 came back on vacation. What a surprise, and how good to have him and Katja around for the little while they will be on the island before continuing their travels.

Dory and Tracy returned with their husbandsGary and Ken. Gary we know for long and Ken finished his open water course. Then next surprise, Gayle and Peter turns up. Its been a fantastic start of the new year with so many of our loyal and by now good friends coming back and friends of friends arriving too.

Jenny comes in to hang out on the boat and snorkel and to be our eyes and gives feed back. So wonderful to have her around here and there again.

Donkey the kitten have had to stay home most days lately. She is still so playful, that we are afraid she will get in the way.


Well 2011 started up busy, hopefully it will stay on with comftable busy and fantastic people in a steady flow. But it is certainly good to see West End alive again after a long long time.

Uncertain opportunities and decisions are laying ahead of us, whether they will get real, we will have to be patient and wait and see.

We wish everybody a Happy New Year and good health and whatever good things you can wish for.

December to remember

West End is still pretty slow. Nice for the people who likes to dive in small groups and get spoiled.
We have a new addition to the diveshop, Donkey. Donkey is a kitten somebody stragetically left at Sundowners, and ended up at ours to replace the emptiness of the still missing Molly and Lowfat.

She will never be a Lowfat, keeper of the weightbelts and she will never be Molly the dogfighter. She will be Donkey and will develope her own values for being a diveshop cat. She is cute and adorable, but are not all kittens like that?

West End is putting on its coat of Christmas and seems to wake up again as the businesses that were closed down are open again. Fairylights every where in all colours, fake Christmastrees, one is hanging upside down at the Blue Marlin. Something different.

Something never changes: The road gets grated and then it begins to rain...

For the last week Amanda and her divers had turtle sighntings on every dive, also they saw eels and a blackspotted nudibranch.

We had some of our "old" divers back. Overwhelming to have so many of them back at the same time. It was a wonderful week with a lot of catching up and vino sin queso party at the shop once again thanks to Sandra (James Bond diver, queen of fun and fighting fires when she is not travelling).
Lovely to see Marie Josee and meet Ray, and of all so strange to see Dory here without Gary the captain.
But those two we will see soon.

Things can be tight and difficult at times, but having all these people out there and popping in when you need them most is the most beautiful thing in our life.
I will use Sandras good bye words:
We love us, which means we are all there and means all of us. We love us!

Thank you all for diving with Tyll's Dive and becoming our friends.

Happy holidays and all the best wishes and good health for us all for 2011.

Happy thoughts in gray october days

Dive princesses and dive princes

What makes you a dive princess/prince?

1) you arrive on Roatan and think you will give it a try
2) you give it a try and kind of love it
3)You dive more and actually love it
4) whats that fish whats that little fellow poking out of the coral
5) now you really want to know what you are seeing and why they do what
6) sorry, you are hooked now
7) you don't wanna leave right now so you miss the ferry
8) bad weather, lets stay another day
9) I cant find my wallet
10) the Galaxy ferry at 7 am is too early anyway
11) Lets have a baleada since we missed the 2 pm ferry
12) We can have a dive since we are not going on the morning ferry
13) Group picture, we are really leaving. Okay. (Don't leave)
14) They left.....
15) But we know they left as diveprincesses, nothing less.
16) They went to explore the world, but know where they come from.
17) One fine day they will return.
18) I think 2 particular princesses know this story very well.
19) Is it then why we love what we do?
20) Left for your comment
21) Did not forget the diveprincess who brought the crocs and did the walks
22) We are all dive princesses or dive princes but there is only one queen and she might very well arrive in a few weeks
23) There is the Turtlekid
24) There is the seahorse finder
25) There is the paprazzi photograher
26) There is the finder of seaslugs
27) There is the seaspider girl
28) There is the little boy who one week is facinated by sharks next week by eagle rays (dive prince potential)
29) There is a diveshop family back at the shop who will make coffee and enjoy listenening to all the above findings
30)There is just enough stuff out there for everyone to enjoy. Keep blowing bubbles:-)
It's a beautiful day.

early ocober thoughts

Dive princesses and dive princes

What makes you a dive princess/prince?

1) you arrive on Roatan and think you will give it a try
2) you give it a try and kind of love it
3)You dive more and actually love it
4) whats that fish whats that little fellow poking out of the coral
5) now you really want to know what you are seeing and why they do what
6) sorry, you are hooked now
7) you don't wanna leave right now so you miss the ferry
8) bad weather, lets stay another day
9) I cant find my wallet
10) the Galaxy ferry at 7 am is too early anyway
11) Lets have a baleada since we missed the 2 pm ferry
12) We can have a dive since we are not going on the morning ferry
13) Group picture, we are really leaving. Okay. (Don't leave)
14) They left.....
15) But we know they left as diveprincesses, nothing less.
16) They went to explore the world, but know where they come from.
17) One fine day they will return.
18) I think 2 particular princesses know this story very well.
19) Is it then why we love what we do?
20) Left for your comment
21) Did not forget the diveprincess who brought the crocs and did the walks
22) We are all dive princesses or dive princes but there is only one queen and she might very well arrive in a few weeks
23) There is the Turtlekid
24) There is the seahorse finder
25) There is the paprazzi photograher
26) There is the seaslug lover
27) There is the seaspider girl
28) There is the little boy who one week is facinated by sharks next by eagle rays
29) There is a diveshop family back at the shop who will make coffee and enjoy listenening to all the above findings
30)There is just enough stuff out there for everyone to enjoy. Keep blowing bubbles:-)
(this could also apply to a dive prince)

Dive princesses

What makes you a dive princess?
1) you arrive on Roatan and think you will give it a try
2) you give it a try and kind of love it
3)You dive more and actually love it
4) whats that fish whats that little fellow poking out of the coral
5) now you really want to know what you are seeing and why they do what
6) sorry, you are hooked now
7) you don't wanna leave right now so you miss the ferry
8) bad weather, lets stay another day
9) I cant find my wallet
10) the Galaxy ferry at 7 am is too early anyway
11) Lets have a baleada since we missed the 2 pm ferry
12) We can have a dive since we are not going on the morning ferry
13) Group picture, we are really leaving. Okay. (Don't leave)
14) They left.....
15) But we know they left as diveprincesses, nothing less.
16) They went to explore the world, but know where they come from.
17) One fine day they will return.
18) I think 2 particular princesses know this story very well.
19) Is it then not why we love what we do?
20) Left for your comment
21) Did not forget the diveprincess who brought the crocs and did the walks

(this could also apply to a dive prince)

Where did Matthew go?

This is the story. Matthew was the first announced storm to come by Roatan this season (lets just forget about the actually really first one (TS Alex), because that one was too early in the season). We all follow the weather on different weather pages on the internet, since we are a dive community we have to be aware that the boats are secured and bilgepumps are working properly. Well by friday early afternoon it already was clear that Tropical Storm Matthew would make landfall on the coast of Nicaragua and venture inland to mainland Honduras, Which means the islands would go clear with a bit wind and rainfall.
Anyways, everyone goes by continuing on with daily life. Some looking forward for friday night out in town untill the authorities arrive with following announcement: Because of incoming storm, there will be a curfew from latest 10 pm, make sure to stock up on food and water as no vehicles will be allowed out untill saturday 6 pm.
Here are following emergency numbers and so on. Since when does RECO (electric company) answer their phones after hours? Anyways, this was around 5 pm, and Matthew was already zooming across the mainland and we still had peace and quiet.
Uwe did ask the authority person: will I get arrested for checking on our boat during the night? They assured that he would be fine. Uwe did not get arrested for the record.
We have been living here since 1999, and have been through quite a few northerns, tropical depressions, storms and getting the outerwinds from hurricanes and had never had a curfew put on us for that reason.

In a storm with wind and rain, it might be the safest time ever to forget to lock your door and go out walking the street or beach in the middle of the night. The potential looters and robbers will be cuddling up home where it is safe.

Well we guess the Islands had to follow the emergency regulations they have on the mainland. After all, they got all the rain and mudslides in the end.

Saturday everything was back to normal.

Now this week we have rain and it has been windy, but its not a TS , (its just miserable changing NNW/NW/SW), so we can run around in the night if we want to.

PS. Think Matthew went to Belize...

Christmas came early this year

After years of talking about getting a roof extension to give us some shade from the strong afternoon sun, it all turned very fast into action and reality. Big thanks to friends who helped us make this happen. Its AWESAME as Conal, divemaster, would have expressed it. A bit under 2 days and it was done. Amanda, instructor, supplied us with pics.
A lot of people were overseeing the work and the progress. Here Phil and Ken watching from above.
And here is the support team watching from across the road.

The pic'sare kind of in the wrong order, but at least I could finally upload them.
The roof is so nice. Come join us in the shade:-)