The Flights

We reserved a "park and fly" at the Best Western El Ranco Hotel near the San Francisco Airport. This worked out really well. The room rate of $148, included a room upon our return (we decided to stay the night we returned since the flight came in at 1:00am), and parking for the 2 weeks we were gone. When we returned, a shuttle picked us up. The shuttle driver handed us the keys to our car, and dropped us off right in front of our room. Our car had been moved to a parking space near the room also.

We flew out of San Francisco at 12:59am on TACA airlines. Most people believe TACA stands for "Take A Chance Airlines", but we had great success. Our flight from San Francisco was 5 hours and 45 minutes to San Salvador.

The San Salvador Airport was impressive. Not large, but clean and efficient. There's tons of duty free shopping there if you're in to that sort of thing. Our lay-over there was only about 45 minutes, and our connection to Roatan was on time.

The flight to Roatan was via La Ceiba. Current runway work on Roatan prevents larger jets from landing so we transferred from a 737 to a Shorts 360. Again, the flights were on time, but these smaller planes can not handle all the luggage contained in a 737 so we arrived on Roatan without our bags. Kati and I had carried on our regulators and a video camera. Our intention was to carry our valuable gear, not to be prepared for missing bags. Next time, we'll pack preparing for the worse. This is what I plan on carrying on my next trip:

BC
Regulator
Dive Computer
Mask
Fins (if you can fit them in)
Snorkel
Swim Suit
Change of clothing
Toiletries

When we returned home, the flights were basically reversed, but we also stopped in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The Shorts 360 was quite a ride through the rain storms over Honduras, and the San Pedro Sula stop complicated the route, but TACA was on time, and all our bags arrived with us in San Francisco.

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