Rainer
Contributor
My sister, Christina, moved to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa eight months ago to work for a non-profit. We decided a visit was in order, so we quickly settled on the nearby island of Roatan as a meet up point. Jennifer (jenth), my mother, and I flew from LAX to San Salvador (overnight) and then took a puddle jumper over to the island in the morning. Christina had arrived the day before to pouring rains, but thankfully, our entire stay would be sunny and dry.
We stayed at Bananarama (Bananarama Dive Our Eco Friendly Dive Center and Beach Front Resorts :: West Bay Beach Hotels), which is on West Bay Beach, a short ten minute taxi ride (via boat or car) to the West End. The resort is pretty low key, but quite comfortable. The resort staff are extremely friendly and helpful. The beach here is quite nice. Mom spent most of her trip happily camped on a lounge chair here.
While mom relaxed, the rest of us dived. We did all our diving through Bananarama.
Christina spent her first three days getting OW certified, while Jen and I hoped on boats. The resort has three pangas (two covered), and they tended to run two boats in the morning (two cylinder charters) and one boat in the afternoon (one cylinder charter); the third uncovered boat only went out with students.
We were paired with another (very friendly) couple from Oregon, and would be diving with them and our dive master, Lu, for the next five days (occasionally, another couple would also be paired with us). Each morning, we'd grab an early breakfast (the kitchen would prioritize food for morning divers), put on our dry suits (yes, we dived dry), and loaded gear onto the boat. The boats are fast and the sites are relatively close. I don't remember a ride out longer than about twenty minutes. Dives were all DM led, and lasted about an hour (55-65 minutes). Most of the profiles were shallow, max 60', and all were multi-leveled; the top of the reef in most areas comes up to 15-25'. A couple of dives (including the El Aguila wreck) were down to 100' (the wreck is about 110' to the sand). After the first dive, we always came back to the resort for the surface interval (water and fruit were served in transit), before heading out for the second dive. We'd then come back for lunch (a few hours). The afternoon boat usually left around 2pm. Most divers seemed content with just doing two morning dives, and we were often just four (and once just two) on the afternoon charter. Private diving.
In all, we did 15 dives, at the following sites (only one repeat): Temptation Reef, Half Moon Bay Wall, West End Wall, El Aguila Wreck, Blue Channel, Sea Quest Shallow, Spooky Channel, Tabyana’s, Puncher’s Paradise, Pablo’s Place, Butcher’s Bank, Hole in the Wall (one of our favorite dives!), Mandy’s Eel Garden (night dive), and Fish Den.
Blackwood was super generous and lent us his Canon SD960 and housing. Jen and I both shot underwater stills (first time for either of us) and video on several of the dives.
Here's a short video highlighting some of what we saw (largish HD file; best to let it first load for a few minutes):
[vimeo]19818216[/vimeo]
I found the reefs to be quite healthy and spectacularly beautiful.
continued...
We stayed at Bananarama (Bananarama Dive Our Eco Friendly Dive Center and Beach Front Resorts :: West Bay Beach Hotels), which is on West Bay Beach, a short ten minute taxi ride (via boat or car) to the West End. The resort is pretty low key, but quite comfortable. The resort staff are extremely friendly and helpful. The beach here is quite nice. Mom spent most of her trip happily camped on a lounge chair here.
While mom relaxed, the rest of us dived. We did all our diving through Bananarama.
Christina spent her first three days getting OW certified, while Jen and I hoped on boats. The resort has three pangas (two covered), and they tended to run two boats in the morning (two cylinder charters) and one boat in the afternoon (one cylinder charter); the third uncovered boat only went out with students.
We were paired with another (very friendly) couple from Oregon, and would be diving with them and our dive master, Lu, for the next five days (occasionally, another couple would also be paired with us). Each morning, we'd grab an early breakfast (the kitchen would prioritize food for morning divers), put on our dry suits (yes, we dived dry), and loaded gear onto the boat. The boats are fast and the sites are relatively close. I don't remember a ride out longer than about twenty minutes. Dives were all DM led, and lasted about an hour (55-65 minutes). Most of the profiles were shallow, max 60', and all were multi-leveled; the top of the reef in most areas comes up to 15-25'. A couple of dives (including the El Aguila wreck) were down to 100' (the wreck is about 110' to the sand). After the first dive, we always came back to the resort for the surface interval (water and fruit were served in transit), before heading out for the second dive. We'd then come back for lunch (a few hours). The afternoon boat usually left around 2pm. Most divers seemed content with just doing two morning dives, and we were often just four (and once just two) on the afternoon charter. Private diving.
In all, we did 15 dives, at the following sites (only one repeat): Temptation Reef, Half Moon Bay Wall, West End Wall, El Aguila Wreck, Blue Channel, Sea Quest Shallow, Spooky Channel, Tabyana’s, Puncher’s Paradise, Pablo’s Place, Butcher’s Bank, Hole in the Wall (one of our favorite dives!), Mandy’s Eel Garden (night dive), and Fish Den.
Blackwood was super generous and lent us his Canon SD960 and housing. Jen and I both shot underwater stills (first time for either of us) and video on several of the dives.
Here's a short video highlighting some of what we saw (largish HD file; best to let it first load for a few minutes):
[vimeo]19818216[/vimeo]
I found the reefs to be quite healthy and spectacularly beautiful.
continued...
