Roatan: Dive Sites at the West End

Monday, June 14, 2004

016-17.520 N
086-35.940 W

Ahoy from Roatan, Honduras which is clearly one of the top diving destinations in the world,

I must admit that when I first arrived here I was quite disappointed with the diving. We had just come from the atolls off of Belize where the diving is spectacular and there are tons of large fish. What shocked me about Roatan was the lack of fish, especially large fish. We eventually found them, but there just weren't as many.

As I spent more time diving the sites I began to understand the attraction to diving here. The coral and sponges are magnificent and there's an amazing variation to the underwater terrain. Swimming one direction from a dive ball can result in a completely different dive experience than swimming the other way. I've also learned to closely examine the incredibly complex ecosystem that coexists under the waves. It is truly astounding how many unique species can cohabitate within a small area. I've never seen anything so complex above the water. I've spent hours pouring through my underwater guides to try to begin to understand what I've seen. My eye has sharpened tremendously yet I know that I am barely scratching the surface as to what's there and I have little appreciation as to how these species interact.

These reports are limited to the dive sites on the leeward western end of Roatan. We covered about 5 miles from the western most point to the cays past Anthony's Cay Resort. The wind & seas kept us from going much further. We dove many of the sites multiple times as the visibility and currents changed which way we could dive and what we could see. Many times we had visibility in the 200+ foot range, which is amazing.

We had our tanks filled at Sueno Del Mar (slow service) and Luna Beach for $5 US per tank.

Over all I have thoroughly enjoyed diving here and can heartily recommend the area. There are tons of dive shops in the area through whom you can book packages or separate dive trips for about $25/dive. However the serenity of diving off your own dinghy can't be matched by large group dives.

The dives sites are listed from the western point and going NE. The numbers after the site name correspond to the numbers on the dive map that all of the shops sell for $5. Many of the dive balls were missing, making it difficult to determine which sites we were at. The laminated map contains a lot of inaccuracies as well. Roatan should take lessons from Bonaire where all of the balls were numbered and named. I hope that this helps!

-- Geoff & Sue

West End Wall (2): This dive ball is located about 50 yards after the cliffs begin on West Bay Beach. When we dove it there was no ball, just a floating line. The line is in about 120' of water. You need to swim towards shore to get to the wall. The wall is slopes between 30 and 45 degrees and is much more a steep hill than an a wall, but it's the closest thing that we've seen to a wall since Lighthouse Reef. We experienced very little current but visibility was poor from 40 feet down. The highlight of the dive was seeing a Spotted Scorpionfish and two HUGE Cubera Snappers doing a mating dance.

Mandy's Eel Garden (4): This dive ball is located on the edge of the reef basically where the beach ends and the cliffs begin on West Bay Beach. This dive takes you along sloping coral walls which end up on a white sand bottom. All along the bottom you'll find patches of Garden Eels. Hold your breath and approach the eels slowly with as little motion as possible to get a good view of them. There is an amazing variety of corals and sponges in the area. About a hundred yards to the NE you'll come across the mooring for Butcher's Bank (5) which has a colony of eels at the base of the mooring. Quite a few large Snappers and medium Groupers inhabit the area and we found a playful Hawksbill Turtle. A very nice dive.

Turtle Crossing (7): This dive ball is located SW of the anchorage about where the West Bay hotels begin. The ball was located in a large sand patch about 50 yards from the edge of the reef. Going to the NE the reef wall was relatively uninteresting as we saw very little in the way of fish. The return trip along the top of the reef was the highlight with lots of interesting coral/sponge formations.

Sea Quest (8): This dive is just outside of the anchorage and can be accessed by a small cut in the reef. It's a very shallow dive (20-40') with broad rows of coral covered with lots of small fish. It's a pretty dive and if you get tired of being in shallow water it's a short swim to Octopus Acre.

Octopus Acre (9): This was a delightful dive and once again it's located very near the anchorage! There's beautiful white sand along the top and bottom of the reef providing wonderful contrast for the coral. Be sure to do this dive on a sunny day. There are lots of individual coral mounds, sponges and there's even some nice large fish. At about 80' you'll find a large patch of Eels in white sand. This dive is one of the best that we've found.

The Bite (10): This dive ball is located just east of the big-boat entrance to West End. This is a relatively shallow dive at 40-60'. The coral appears to have been damaged in a storm, but it recovering nicely. In general it's a nice dive site with nice coral formations, interesting sponges, and several large Snappers that decided to follow us in hope of being fed. A good dive if the seas are keeping you from going too far from the anchorage.

Blue Channel (11): This ball is the second ball east of the channel marker for the anchorage. We dove it 2 times with a lot of current and twice with none. The ball is a long way from the edge of the reef and I would guess that it's meant to be a beginner dive or a shallow second dive. We would swim over the shallow coral to get to the edge and then swim the wall. The wall was very nice going to the NE with lots of shelf coral overhangs and some small caves, but there's not much in the way of fish. It was very easy to go deep and we needed to constantly watch our depth gauges. As is common with a lot of the coral at the top of the reef, it showed signs of prior damage, but was recovering. An OK dive, but not a dive to rush to.

El Aquario (12): This ball is located just west of the small boat entrance buoy located in front of the Sueno Del Mar dive shop. Note that the buoy is red but you keep it on your left when returning. This was a wonderful dive starting out as a 150' vertical wall and then morphing to a 45 degree wall with lots of cascades and then finally ending up as a 30 slope on the western end. While we didn't see lots of fish, we did see a HUGE grouper and played with a sea turtle. The top of the reef was about 45' and had lots of nice sponges and coral. Thumbs up on this dive.

Light House Reef/Half Moon Bay Wall (13/15): These balls are so close that I can't tell which is which, plus we swam both directions and covered several balls so we basically covered both sites. The ball that we tied up to is at the point of Half Moon Bay and the West End. I liked the area to the west of these balls best as there was lots of deepwater sea fans providing beautiful outlines against the sun. One of the most visually stimulating sites we've dove at. There were lots of deep fissures running through the coral. The top of the reef had some of the prettiest sponge and coral arrangements that I've seen. Great visibility (200'+) but highly variable strong current. Highly recommended!

Canyon Reef (18): This site is the second ball to the SW of Gibson Bight. We swam to the NE and followed a sloping wall lined with shelf coral ending in a shallow sloping sand bottom dotted with coral heads. The dive map shows the maximum depth to be 120', but in practicality it's about 80'. The wall was nice, but had little life other than sponges. The return trip along the top started at 60' at the NE end but it rose to 20' or less back at the ball. We did see a lot of crabs and a huge school of Tangs on the way back. A lot of the coral at the top edge of the reef shows signs of severe damage sometime in the past, but it's trying to come back. Per the name, there were lots of canyons running perpendicular to the reef. Over all it was just an OK dive that I wouldn't make an effort to come back to.

Fish Den (19): This ball is located just west of Gibson Bight. This was our first dive and according to notes from 2 years ago ("Feeding frenzy with Yellowtail Snappers and lots of large Groupers") we expected a lot of fish. We didn't find them. We had excellent visibility, which made it very easy to go deep without realizing it, the sponges were good, but the coral had seen better days. We saw very few fish and were quite disappointed, especially having just come from Lighthouse Reef.

Gibson Bite (20): Skip this dive site. Two years ago and once again this year we had poor visibility due to outflow from Gibson Bite and we didn't see anything spectacular. With all of the other dive sites, why waste your time in cloudy water?

El Aguila (26): After a dinghy ride which included getting 2 big guys and their dive gear completely air born, we arrived at the dive site, which is just west of Anthony's Cay Resort. There are 2 balls, one on the reef and one that goes directly to the wreck. We chose the ball on the reef, which proved to be a good call as once you're done with the wreck you can enjoy the reef. The wreck is a freighter that was sunk on purpose after being stripped. It's in 110-80 feet of water and is pretty boring as wrecks go. We found lots of large groupers, which you can closely approach, waiting to be fed. The reef was the most interesting part of the dive with lots of deep canyons running through the coral. While it's a nice dive, I wouldn't just go there for the wreck.

Bear Den (30): A teeth chattering trip down to the balls near Anthony's ended at the Bear Den. This was a very enjoyable dive on a wall that was very reminiscent of Lighthouse Reef in Belize. It was a vertical wall that descended 150+ feet and it had lots of large overhangs of sheet coral which created a myriad of holes for fish and creatures to hide. Visually it was one of the most interesting dives I've done here. Not a lot of fish, but very beautiful in its own way.

White Hole (31): Another bone jarring trip ended with us stopping at what we think was White Hole. We're not exactly sure as on our westward dive we saw a mooring that didn't make it to the surface. The primary draw of the sites in this area has to be the domesticated groupers and snappers that hang out looking for handouts from divers. These are 3-4' BIG fish that come close enough to be petted. At times we had 5 large fish within a 20' radius sometimes chasing another away so that they could be closest to the divers. It can be a bit disconcerting when you see a mouth full of teeth headed straight towards your face! While it was fun to be so close to these large fish, it was a bit sad to see these huge fish reduced to domesticated pets. The trip along the base of the reef (70-80') wasn't particularly interesting. The return trip along the top (25-45') featured lots of small fish amongst widely varied coral heads, which made it very colorful. Over all this was an enjoyable dive.

Log ID: 499