Favorite Roatan dive sites?

[Doc]

Showoff

Just a smart guy. He lives in paradise. But here's the real point of his post.....

.... But I can spend hours there in the shallows on one day with a 8 gig memory card and then head back the next day as if it were all new again.

Way too many divers ask for advice here and are worried that they'll "have to dive the same dive site twice". It takes many lifetime dives to understand that this is not really a concern. If all you can see is general shapes of rocks and fish bigger than that toaster, that's all you'll look for. Watch one square meter of shallow coral reef for one hour~ most can not summon the patience... there is so very much to see, everything changes from minute to minute. All you have to do is have patience and be open to exploration... without even moving.

It's all right there.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Zznola, do you have your AOW? The dive ops on Roatan are pretty strict regarding enforcement of depth levels. So while I have complete faith in West End Divers getting you to as many wonderful sites as they can, there will be some you won't be able to go on. Really, don't worry about it, you are going to love love love anyway. Very pretty. Or you could take your AOW and that would take care of a couple of issues.
Say hi to all for me. Don't think Mel and Alex are there anymore, unless one or both have returned. I'll look forward to reading your trip report when you return.

 

[victorzamora]

My favorite dives are near the point just south of West Bay. The currents meet there which brings a lot of feed for the marine life and you often get more fish, turtles, rays etc as a result.

That's Texas

West End Divers have a couple of divemasters that are good at finding the smaller, more elusive critters....have fun.

Yeah, last time I was down there our DM showed us a bunch of blennies, nudis, and a few other macro-type life forms.

 

[Zznola]

Had a great week with west end divers. Great shop with really nice people. All of the dms gave me pointers throughout the week and my skills improved. Doc, you were so right. It really didn't matter where we were. We actually did two of the sites twice and I couldn't tell the difference. In fact, on one dive I could have sworn I'd been there before! Several of the dives were"smaller" dives along a sand bed and going from rock formation to formation and hung there for a few minutes to see who was hanging around. Those dives were what I called elegant !

Chilly, I didn't have my AOW. I skipped the Aquila dive but on other dive sites our group stayed a bit shallower so I really didn't have to skip any trips. It was awesome!


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[RTBDiver]

Zznola, do you have your AOW? The dive ops on Roatan are pretty strict regarding enforcement of depth levels. So while I have complete faith in West End Divers getting you to as many wonderful sites as they can, there will be some you won't be able to go on.

This is the type of BS I have seen more than once around the Island , and elsewhere, and while some dives should require a diver be more experienced it in no way is simply related the the letters on their cert card. I had roughly 200 OW dives, many 20 miles Mas o Menos offshore Jacksonville Florida from my own boat before I did my AOW and really only did it getting ready for the instructor thing and it was free for me. There are no depth limits or rules really other than the 130 rule, and the ones involving minors or actual training dives, other than that they are simply recommendation's . If your an experienced diver then have a log book and show it towards "proof of experience" Some will likely still try to get you to pay for a class, I would be in touch with PADI or whatever agency they represent immediately. Funny thing is in most places, Roatan included, your not even required to be certified to dive, its the getting air and access that get you

 

[victorzamora]

Agreed. Once my wife did a good proof-of-quality dive, her second dive was straight to 80ft. It was her 2nd post-OW dive, and they knew it.

 

[cdemith]

Dropped just past Texas, closer to Pablos today. Full review coming later. Lets just say it was awesome! Definitely go there, though results today were atypical as we were told.