Roatan Diving
Roatan never disappoints. Except, maybe the 1st time I went there over Thanksgiving and the rains, but the topside activities, mainly having drinks with divers from allover the world at the bars, made up for for the storms. But fast forward to May, where conditions were superb. No rain for 5 days, calm waters, perfect temperatures (above and below) and low humidity.
The diving is close to perfect: Water temp. 82, visibility 80-100 ft., marine life has the usual players from large turtles, tons of spiny lobsters (many were in clusters), frequent groupers, large porcupine fish, etc. Of course there is the shark dive on the other side out of Coxen Hole featuring a dependable showing of at least 30 large reef sharks, and some large groupers attracted to the bait, then there are the night dives ( I took 2, one with just me and a guide that lasted and hour and 15 minutes) with gazillions of urchins, common octopus, crabs galore, banded shrimp, many spotted eels and then some. There is actually an excellent downloadable Roatan reef life book (written be a long term Roatan expert) that can also be downloaded for a few bucks and pretty much features everything that can be seen underwater. On the West End the scene is basically dive shop, bar, hotel, dive shop, bar, hotel and so on. Nice people, down to earth, cheaper than other Caribbean islands, no mega resorts, but many simple cheap and clean hotels.
Roatan has a multitude of excellent dive companies offering any type of certification. Overall, a great destination for beginners and advanced divers since one has a diverse choice of shallow sand bottom dives to deeper wall dives.
