Thanks! I've been to Roatan. It was my first dive trip and we stayed in West Bay, not West End. That was a mistake I won't make again, as West Bay was about as boring as it gets, the place was overrun with kids, all the food was crappy, unhealthy, and expensive for what it was, and half the restaurants there are only open until about 2pm. It's like someone picked up an American suburb and set it down in Honduras. The diving was great though! I'll keep Utila in mind. Can you tell me where you stayed?
I don't remember the name of the place or even that it had a name. It was a multi-dwelling building that some woman whose family have lived on Utila since pirate days was renting out. (Like many of her kind, she referred to the mainland Hondurans as "Spaniards.") Although I recommend you make arrangements in advance, it is not that difficult to march off the ferry and find a place to rent just by asking around. Once I had been there a few days, I found several others who were looking for extra roommates and that sort of thing. I spent a little more to get my 42 year-old self my own place, though. It was no luxury digs, and I had cockroaches for roommates. From what I have read in recent years, there are more options to choose from now.
I think Bonaire would be a fantastic place to do this as well. However, I would want to rent a truck in Bonaire, since everything is so spread out. And that would add significantly to expenses (though I suppose the cost is offset by Bonaire being shore diving rather than boat diving). Also, having been to Bonaire only as a typical tourist diver, I can't say whether Bonaire has the sort of dive community network that I found on Utila. Utila was cozy in that respect, and after a few weeks you knew all the characters and passed them as you walked down the main street. There is only one main street in Utila town. Kralendijk is fairly compact, but still not really much of a walking town, and Bonaire as a whole is very spread out.
West END is not overrun with kids and definitely not reminiscent of the suburban US--it's more like Utila. I was just back there earlier this year. I think it has lost a little of its charm now that the main road is paved and some condos seem to have popped up, but it's still the kind of place I wouldn't mind hanging out for a few weeks and doing a course or whatever.
Without question, the diving quality and restaurant and grocery store options are far better on Bonaire than Utila. Things may have changed, but the bigger of the two grocery stores in Utila Town was still tiny compared to a typical US supermarket and limited in what it stocked. Personally, I enjoyed the challenge of cooking with whatever meager vegetables had come in on the boat that week and some frozen or canned items to jazz it up. I'm sure one could go all-out and buy the best of what the store stocked, but I enjoyed cooking like a college student again with really cheap ingredients. The pineapple--when in stock--was out of this world, by the way. If you have the cash, then by all means consider Bonaire a top contender. I did my trip when I took a year off from my career and was attempting to live like a penniless backpacker to conserve my savings. For that, Utila fit the bill perfectly. It was a blast.
I arrived on Utila thinking I'd just do a little diving for a couple of weeks, but was immediately coaxed into doing AOW and then Rescue. I escaped before they could persuade me to stay on for DM. A friend who had already been on the island for a year or more after being laid off from corporate America in his mid-30s had followed a similar path and was living the life of an instructor while he figured out what he wanted to do when he grew up.
