I want to be sure we go somewhere that falls in the Roatan Marine Park.
If that's your goal, then it's one of the West Bay/West End resorts. Since the official Marine Park boundaries are from the west point of West Bay to somewhere in Sandy Bay or just past there. So of the resorts named in this post - only AKR is inside it. Turquoise Bay is (I believe) too far east - I'm not certain of the eastern border. Although they must be fairly close to it.
Obviously CCV isn't since it's on the south side. I wouldn't let that be a determinining factor though - we didn't see much difference anywhere we dove, east, west or south. It's not like there's fishing trawlers hovering on the edge of the reserve..LOL. If anything, south is better for shallow reef structure than anywhere on the north side. I believe - but not sure - that the light blue designates the Reserve:
The Sandy Bay-West End Marine Reserve (SBWEMR) dates back to 1988 when the local community of Sandy Bay united and proposed the creation of a managed marine reserve to protect the shoreline and marine habitats in the waters adjacent to its shore. In April of 1989, the Sandy Bay Marine Reserve (SBMR) was officially designated, encompassing an area of about 6 km between Lawson’s Rock and Gibson Bight.
In September 1993, the communities of West End and West Bay agreed to extend the SBMR from Gibson Bight all the way around to the western tip of the island, to an area known as Key Hole on the south side. Currently, the Reserve encompasses 13 km of coastline and its boundaries extend from the high watermark down to 60 m in depth.
In the mid 90’s the Bay Islands Conservation Association (BICA), was requested assistance with the maintenance of the Reserve and a management agreement was signed with the Government of Honduras to manage the Reserve. Later in 2005, the local diving communities of Sandy Bay, West End and West Bay joined the cause and created the Sandy Bay-West End Marine Park association (SBWEMP).
Let's break down the fantasy that is Cocoview also. Likely perpetuated here on SB by people who've never left the resort (Doc being the exception..lol)
At Cocoview you do 4 boat dives per day. 2 are at dive sites, the other two are
drop-off dives at the wall/reef just off Cocoview and you swim into their dock from there. There's also the night dives and shore dives at the same site you did the drop-off dives. IDK what their night boat dive schedule is.
We dove with Coconut Tree in the West End. Every day they do 3 dives - 9, 11 (sometimes you stay on the boat) and 1PM. If there's demand (4 or more) they do a 2nd afternoon dive. We did it three times during the week IIRC. Every single dive was at a different dive site - we dove from the farthest west point of West Bay (Texas) to east of Spooky Channel - plus Spooky Channel itself. To do some south side diving we shuttled over to Barefoot Cay and dove Mary's Place and the Prince Albert at Cocoview. Later in the week we dove the Dolphin dive at AKR plus the Shark dive south of the airport. And were still back in time to do one afternoon dive. They do 1-2 scheduled night dives per week but any of the dozen other dive operators within 1/4 mile also do so just about any night someone is night diving.
Admittedly if you want to repeat shore dives at Cocoview - that's definitely the place for that. They have the wall and the wreck there. AKR has a meh shore dive off the Key and Reef House has a shallow reef in front of the property. Any other shore dives are off private property or long swims out - shorediving.com lists them. If you remove the ones off the resorts - 2-3 of the 11 listed are possible. It's basically impossible to find rental tanks outside of the resorts also.
If you want to see some of Roatan besides Cocoview while staying there - that could get expensive - and time consuming. Driving isn't the best idea and cabs across the island are reasonable but not cheap. On the flipside AKR is 5mins. by cab from the West End and West Bay (the nicest beach) is only 2 miles farther. Roatan is also long but not wide so crossing over to the airport, French Harbour or Coxen Hole is quick. So is Cocoview to AKR if you want to dolphin dive.