pigletfish
Contributor
We rented a private home in West End and dove with Native Sons there and with Subway at the French Harbour Yacht Club. Our 5 dives with Subway were on the south side: Calvin's Crack, Mary's Place, Menagerie, Fish Soup, and a night dive at the Prince Albert wreck. Our 6 dives with Native Sons were in the vicinity of West End, including the El Aguila wreck, Lawson Rock, and Bear's Den. We also did the shark dive with Waihuka at Las Palmas.
The coral was lovely in Roatan and the wrecks were nice to dive. However, the waters are clearly overfished and the marine life was not as abundant as we had expected based on all of the press Roatan receives. The two dives with the most fish were ones where the water was chummed, which is (in my opinion) not ideal. There were some pretty and interesting critters to see - more so around West End if chum was not involved - but no big schools like you see in Belize, Cozumel, and many other places.
We particularly liked the big groupers who hang around like dogs at the West End sites. (I suspect, though, that this is because they are sometimes fed?). And our night dive at West End had a not-too-shy octopus, always a winner!
As for visability, it was fine, not the most spectacular, but clear enough for pleasant diving.
Native Sons and Subway are both highly recommended - friendly staff (mostly British), very professional, rental gear was high quality. Subway even has XS women's BCs - yay! Subway was twice as expensive as Native Sons, but they were the only ones who would take us out to the sites we wanted to dive on the south side. With both Native Sons and Subway there were always only 4-6 divers (and 2-4 instructors) on each dive.
Mixed reviews of the Waihuka shark dive. Their gear was a bit tired and air slowly leaked into my BC throughout the entire dive. It was the only "cattle boat" dive we did (and it was all Italians except for us), but they had the situation under control - this dive is all they do - and it felt safe. It was definitely cool to see all the sharks. My biggest complaint is that we made a reservation to do the dive a second time, but when we arrived they told us the group of Italians that morning was bigger than expected and so there was no room for us. Simply turned us away in favor of the extra Italians - very unprofessional.
We did the dolphin snorkel at Anthony's Key Resort. We had originally signed up for the dolphin dive, but several people (unaffiliated with the resort) recommended the snorkel as being more of a "sure thing" to hang with the dolphins. It is a sure thing - you are in an enclosed pen (with murky water) with about a dozen dolphins vs. being out on the reef with only 2 dolphins, who can swim away from you if they're not interested. I can't say that I don't recommend the dolphin snorkel - dolphins are wonderful in pretty much any situation! - but if you've snorkeled with dolphins in the wild you may be left feeling a bit strange from this captive experience.
We also snorkeled a couple of times of West Bay Beach - shallow coral gardens, some pretty fish, and turtle sightings both times, so definitely a worthwhile activity!
(My brother-in-law rented snorkel gear from Happy Divers in West End, and they are awful - long story involving big additional charges - most definitely not recommended. But, with the exception of this man and his partner who rents cars - ironically, they share a shack painted with "God Bless You" - the Honduran business owners we met around the island were friendly and honest).
Our one big non-water activity was the canopy tour, located between West End and West Bay. There are 11 zipwires and it was good fun. =)
We ended up renting a car when we arrived at the airport, which was a good choice for us since we like to be independent, were out and about a lot, and were shuttling between dive operators on both sides of the island. We almost always rent a car on vacation and didn't find the driving to be any worse on Roatan than many other places we've travelled. We did end up getting bumped in a parking lot, causing a dent and a broken tail light, but the rental car agency is charging only $200 for the repair (vs. the $800 we were charged for a more minor ding in Hawaii). The charges are covered by our credit card, so no worries.
The weather was just about perfect - only one short storm during the day midweek and a couple of overnight showers.
Happy diving!
The coral was lovely in Roatan and the wrecks were nice to dive. However, the waters are clearly overfished and the marine life was not as abundant as we had expected based on all of the press Roatan receives. The two dives with the most fish were ones where the water was chummed, which is (in my opinion) not ideal. There were some pretty and interesting critters to see - more so around West End if chum was not involved - but no big schools like you see in Belize, Cozumel, and many other places.
We particularly liked the big groupers who hang around like dogs at the West End sites. (I suspect, though, that this is because they are sometimes fed?). And our night dive at West End had a not-too-shy octopus, always a winner!
As for visability, it was fine, not the most spectacular, but clear enough for pleasant diving.
Native Sons and Subway are both highly recommended - friendly staff (mostly British), very professional, rental gear was high quality. Subway even has XS women's BCs - yay! Subway was twice as expensive as Native Sons, but they were the only ones who would take us out to the sites we wanted to dive on the south side. With both Native Sons and Subway there were always only 4-6 divers (and 2-4 instructors) on each dive.
Mixed reviews of the Waihuka shark dive. Their gear was a bit tired and air slowly leaked into my BC throughout the entire dive. It was the only "cattle boat" dive we did (and it was all Italians except for us), but they had the situation under control - this dive is all they do - and it felt safe. It was definitely cool to see all the sharks. My biggest complaint is that we made a reservation to do the dive a second time, but when we arrived they told us the group of Italians that morning was bigger than expected and so there was no room for us. Simply turned us away in favor of the extra Italians - very unprofessional.
We did the dolphin snorkel at Anthony's Key Resort. We had originally signed up for the dolphin dive, but several people (unaffiliated with the resort) recommended the snorkel as being more of a "sure thing" to hang with the dolphins. It is a sure thing - you are in an enclosed pen (with murky water) with about a dozen dolphins vs. being out on the reef with only 2 dolphins, who can swim away from you if they're not interested. I can't say that I don't recommend the dolphin snorkel - dolphins are wonderful in pretty much any situation! - but if you've snorkeled with dolphins in the wild you may be left feeling a bit strange from this captive experience.
We also snorkeled a couple of times of West Bay Beach - shallow coral gardens, some pretty fish, and turtle sightings both times, so definitely a worthwhile activity!
(My brother-in-law rented snorkel gear from Happy Divers in West End, and they are awful - long story involving big additional charges - most definitely not recommended. But, with the exception of this man and his partner who rents cars - ironically, they share a shack painted with "God Bless You" - the Honduran business owners we met around the island were friendly and honest).
Our one big non-water activity was the canopy tour, located between West End and West Bay. There are 11 zipwires and it was good fun. =)
We ended up renting a car when we arrived at the airport, which was a good choice for us since we like to be independent, were out and about a lot, and were shuttling between dive operators on both sides of the island. We almost always rent a car on vacation and didn't find the driving to be any worse on Roatan than many other places we've travelled. We did end up getting bumped in a parking lot, causing a dent and a broken tail light, but the rental car agency is charging only $200 for the repair (vs. the $800 we were charged for a more minor ding in Hawaii). The charges are covered by our credit card, so no worries.
The weather was just about perfect - only one short storm during the day midweek and a couple of overnight showers.
Happy diving!
