First time on Roatan, looking for a dive op....

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Cochise86

Registered
Messages
26
Reaction score
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Location
Ontario, Canada
# of dives
200 - 499
Good evening fellow divers

My family is looking for a dive shop to get us diving for our winter dive vacation. AKR and CCV are out of the question....so what would you recommend in the West End area, probably doing a specialty cert.
So far our experience of diving is Grand Cayman(Ocean Frontiers), Cozumel(Tres Pelicanos and Liquid Blue) and BVI (Dive BVI). Thanks
 
I did my OW with Island Divers and Stuart Morgan. I was a specials needs student and Stuart was awesome. My sister is a seasoned diver and keeps going back to dive with Stuart.
 
You have many options in West End so if you have the time I'd suggest diving with a few ops then sticking with the one you liked best. When in Roatan I've always used Sun Divers and/or Los Rocas Dive Center. I like Los Rocas because its a smaller operation, a more personal staff and almost always has smaller groups on the boat.

Depending on where you're staying and whether or not you have a rental car you may want to stick with whatever shop is the closest.
 
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Los Rocas is in West Bay - a couple miles west of the West End. I don't really see any reason to dive with Los Rocas if you're not staying there. Unless you like to ride the water taxi every day.

There's probably a dozen shops in the West End - more if you count resort affiliated shops like Splash or whoever is at Sueno now. Here's some to google in no order:

SunDivers
Native Sons
Coconut Tree Divers
Reef Gliders
West End Divers
Roatan Divers
etc.

My short list would be Coconut Tree (think DiveBVI but more fun) or Reef Gliders - I know the owners very slightly from our local dive scene b4 they moved to Roatan. But really all are good, established operations.

Some don't like CTD since their afternoon boats are DM training dives but frankly I did - I practically solo dive since I film so generally had my own DM shadow. Once when we were blown a little too west it was nice to have someone to talk to while waiting for the boat - which we could see picking everyone else up first.

Unless the plan is to save a few bucks by buying a 10/$350 pkg. - just about everyone has one - I think the suggestion to try other shops is a good one. In a week of diving we used 3-4. CTD, Barefoot and AKR plus I forget whose boat some of us dove with one night - since we dove around the island. It's virtually all boat diving so the rates are pretty reasonable compared to other locations.

Roscoe is right, it would help to know where you're staying to customize the list to shops nearby. End to end the actual West End is over a mile plus there's rentals past it in both directions.

All book the shark dive since that's done on the south side thru Wailuka - they own the concession. Most provide a ride, either included or for $10pp. on a shared van. Dolphin dives are at Anthony's Key - about a 10min drive east. Walk-ins are welcome you just pay a little more. Pre-book that too, we did one morning and had our own DM, boat and 3 dolphins for the hour.

you also might find this useful: http://www.roatan.net/Roatan-West-End-Map.pdf
 
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Thanks to you all...all booked!

In any (of many) similar threads, we hope the OP will write a trip report when they get back. We hope.

How about you at least tell us where you booked and what the reasons were?
 
Not so familiar with replying....

We chose to go with Sun Divers as we had good email exchange, like the boats and preferred the early 2tank dives. We usually dive every second day as the other day, we'll be going around the island with our paddleboards to explore the bays and beaches...
 
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And yes, I will write a report sometime in March....
 
Call Gaye at Coconut Tree. Two trips with them to date and have loved every minutes. My son did his open water during a trip there and it was top notch.
 

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