Just a couple of weeks away from leaving to head to Roatan. It will be nice to get to some warmer weather, it has been a much colder winter here than last year, which was our first in South Carolina. And, we had some significant snow week before last, which is not that common for this location. Brrrrrrr.
Ready For Warmer Weather in Roatan
We were able to purchase some swim fins from a dive shop for snorkeling when we visited Florida a few weeks ago for a short weekend stay. We had already acquired masks and snorkels for out trip to Tahiti in 2011. Now we are all set to enjoy snorkeling in the clear waters.
Stephanie and I contemplated taking a scuba diving certification course in Roatan, something we had discussed doing while living in Florida. Although it would be a great opportunity, there are several dive shops near to our house in West End, in the end, we decided there would be limited opportunities to do future scuba trips. It is just not something that we frequently have opportunities to do, possibly only occurring when we are on cruises that stop in popular dive spots such as the Cayman Islands. This has only happened once. It was just hard to mentally overcome the “opportunity” since we rarely stay in the same place for a week, and since the water in Roatan is great for diving. Also, we wondered if Stephanie was really ready since she has had even limited snorkeling opportunities. Not everyone takes to scuba diving, phobias are ever present. It woudl not have been an issue for me since I have already been certified, just many, many years ago, (say 1974) in the early days of the sport with rubber masks and fins, and older steel tanks.
On a positive note, we were able to change our seats on the Atlanta to Roatan flight. There was very limited selection when we initially made the reservations, but persistent checking on the Delta website, and lucky timing, afforded us the opportunity to re-select two adjacent seats that happened to open up. That will certainly make that 3 hour plus flight more enjoyable.
We are looking forward to packing for this trip as compared to previous trips. It is only a week long, all in warm weather, and all very casual clothing. No bulky sweaters, long underwear, gloves, formal wear, etc. Just some shorts, T-shirts, swimwear, maybe one pair of casual long pants, and a light jacket, and lots of sunscreen. We certainly should not have to worry about the 50 pound weight limit on our luggage.
We will be taking more US dollars in cash than we normally travel with, and needing to take smaller denomination bills. Purchases are usually in cash, either the local currency, the Lempria, with an exchange rate of roughly 20 Lempria to the US Dollar, or in US dollars at a somewhat negotiated exchange rate. Apparently Credit Cards are taken at some larger stores, and possibly some restaurants, and there are supposedly some ATM’s at banks in the larger cities where you can get local currency, if the machine is not out of money. Our normal 100% reliance on ATM’s for local currency is less certain, although we will be set up to try with our banks before we leave. In addition, we discovered on our last trip to Europe in November, 2013, that the Credit Union we normally relied on for ATM withdrawals has now decided to charge an international fee on withdrawals, something that we had not paid using the ATM’s previously. Now we will have to do some quick math on our initial purchases and determine if the “negotiated” exchange rate for US Dollars with local vendors is more or less than the fees charged to get local currency from the ATM’s. This will be fun to figure out and give us incentive for tougher negotiations.
This is about all for now.
