Super Bowl - Roatan Style

Super Bowl – Roatan Style

I think I can safely say this was one Super Bowl I’ll not soon forget. Ben, Joe, Justin, Gretchen and two guests went to one of the local bars to see the Super Bowl. We did not have access here at the resort. The guests were Canadian and didn’t really follow football except during the playoffs and Super Bowl. They were excited to go along with us and experience a little local culture. Ben is English and had never seen an American football game and didn’t really like it much.

Actually the bar is owned by and American from Chicago and he was certainly an enthusiastic host. I’m would guess there were 40 people there with almost all being Americans living on the Island.

About 3 minutes into the game, the DIRECT TV box went down and we lost all signals. The owner was furious and beside himself but he shouted out for anyone with a box to go home and get one. Luckily one of the patrons did have a box and we were back in business about 15 minutes later. Then the power on the entire island went out and we lost everything including the lights. We sat with a single flashlight lighting the place for about 15 minutes until they could get a generator running and get things plugged into a very long extension cord. With this arrangement they got the projection TV running again and plugged in a couple of portable lights. We watch most of the game that way and the food, most pizza and wings, was prepared on gas equipment via flashlights. It was hilarious. About midway through the fourth quarter the electric did come back on and we were able to watch the colts outplay the bears for the rest of the night.

Earlier in the day we had several meetings to discuss how things work. We also met our staff. Jimmy and David and boat captains and Henry is out dive master. We learned a lot about the crazy pay system and Honduran labor laws. It the craziest system you’ve ever seen. If you work someone for 5 days in a row, you have to pay them for 6. If they quit you still have to pay them bonuses and vacation pay. If you fire them after carefully documenting and having them sign a document indicated they did something wrong at least 3 times, you then have to pay them severance pay, vacation pay and a bonus.

The entire staff is very new and has only been here a couple of weeks. Henry is not even sure he is staying. He used to be in charge several years ago and he’s just checking us out to see if he can work with us. Jimmy doesn’t know the narrow channels to get beyond the reef structure so we have a more experience captain (John) helping train him. He gets paid in some special way for helping out. We have a boat we rent from yet another guy when we have too many divers that only lets John drive his boat. John doesn’t think he’s staying around after Justin leaves at the end of the week so we are still scrambling a bit to get everying covered after Justin leaves. We have 12 divers the week of the 10th and 16 the week of the 17th and our boat only holds 10. Wow, this is a hands full right off the bat but Ben and I will work with Justin and Joe to make sure we get it done.

I’m really beat and heading to bed. No Internet connection tonight so I’ll post later.