Sideways ---
Roatan is famous for the no-see-ems, they eat some people alive and hardly bother others. You find hundreds of posts discussing the different bug repellents in regard to Roatan. Not the safest place either. Can't even compare Cozumel and Roatan when it comes to that, I've explored a lot of the island, but I'm always feeling a little creeped out when you get back away from busy places in Roatan, never feel that way in Cozumel.
I believe Roatan has a major lionfish denial problem. Last time I was there I witnessed exactly what you saw on the west side, lack of fish compared to last time I was there. The frustrations grew and grew over my stay with conversation after conversation with divemasters with oblivious attitude to the lionfish, to dive shop owners with not a care in the world about the lionfish, even finding out that divemasters had been specifically told by shop owners not to kill lion fish on guided dives with guest because guest were complaining about the divemasters taking time away from their dive to kill them.
Seems like they are oblivious to their livelihood being slowly eaten while they ignore it.
Apparently the south side is completely different story with the house reefs being patrolled by divemasters much like Cozumel and abundant fish life, but west side was definitely lacking in fish life on many reefs. One noticeable difference was on one dive we did around the point where the reef was buzzing with fish, and there was a grouper breeding taking place, never seen so many grouper all in one place!
Roatan is such a mixed bag, such a beautiful island, visually it makes Cozumel look like a desert wasteland, with Roatan having that Gilligan's Island look to it, but Roatan is really a head shaker. Last time I was there, witnessed locals standing on the shallow reef in water up to their waists! Ugh!
---------- Post added July 23rd, 2013 at 08:36 PM ----------
That's a helluva price Mike, $20 a tank. We dove with West End Divers, and if I remember correctly, they were not over priced. They were $40 a tank.
Mayan Divers and Bananarama without even looking to much are offering $28.00 dives on their websites right now.
We've dived with them many times. When we started diving with Mayan Divers, Anya the owner lead the dives and it was awesome, since then they've grown quite a bit and changed their focus so now we look to Bananarama as they will cater better to an advanced diver. Both are very well run dive operations, very safety conscious, very friendly, great staff and equipment, have boats on the south side in the winter for when the weather kicks up and kills all diving on the west side.