If one is "above" the corals on either Newmans or CCV Wall, you simply cannot get hit by any boat other than a canoe. More danger of Sunburn than anything.
Salvager- your depth looks correct, but your logged notes are just slightly off... On a drop off dive, if you "crossed over the PVC trail", you are now quite deep West of the wreck, and into the murk caused by Fantasy Island. It is indeed near a boat channel, but rarely used except by CCV boats...and they dropped you off 45 minutes before. Yes, a good spot for Lobsters and Lions. I go there at night- for much more interesting stuff. The other West side of the Channel? I wouldn't recommend for fish life, and the morons from FIBR roar through there too fast, but that's really a non issue for CCV divers.
Those shallows are rarely dived, but they are packed with life. On the North side of the channel is CCV and it's as pristine of a reef as one could ever want. It's packed with micro critters, which most divers have not yet begun to see.
On the other side of the Channel to the Southwest, that's Newmans Wall. It's rather barren by comparison due to heave crashing waves, but visit it on a rare still air night dive, spectacular.
The drop off dive is often maligned as "always the same". This falls into the same category as comments about the wreck.
Many divers can only see the ship, the same ones that can only see the shape of the rocks that make up a wall. It's easier to look at ship structures in a boatyard. If you want to see exciting rock formations, go to the Alps. It is simply NOT about formations and wreck penetrations, it is that "fish like structure".
Do the drop off dive at different depths, stay above 55' and you'll see dramatically different to fish life. I'm not talking about the obvious common stuff, get in, look close, take a magnifying glass and a flashlight.
Roatan's South shore rewards the patient, those with excellent buoyancy and close-up observational skills. It is truly for advanced divers - not because it's difficult diving - no, because only divers who are not preoccupied with diving itself, they can best find and see what there really is to enjoy. If you don't have that skill set yet, stay with the DM, or find a macro photographer and gawk at what he was just shooting.
In general, anybody that is below 65fsw is missing the point, and at CCV I've seen a whole lot of fish-life complaints from the 85' crowd. Go slow, stay shallow.
I've been everyplace that people drool about in dive magazines. Been there, dive that. My wife and I have been doing a yearly CCV, sometimes for two weeks, every year since 1985. Maybe we got it wrong, dunno.
I'll be there with my "fish wife" on May 26, along with, as it turns out- the OP and her Poppa...oops, better start packing!