Nice beach with snorkel for non-diver wife???

[jeremyl]

I think we are Deciding on Roatan for our trip - Not Bora Bora, but I think we are saving that for the future... So we will probably splurge a bit on one of the nicer places, get some spa treatments, etc. Seems some of the condos can be had at big discounts from owners directly so we will look into that.

I read the reef is ~50ft from most of the West Bay resort beaches... is this correct? How deep is the reef there? Any current/surf to speak of? I want to make sure she has a real easy time getting out to the snorkeling while I am diving. I'll figure out who do dive with once we pick a resort. I assume its fairly easy for me to find a good dive op (no cattle boats please).

Would prefer not to get the feel of invasion from the cruise boats. Any comments on how to do this?

How bad are the sand flies?

Also how much diving is there to be done? Is 7 days "plenty"? Should we pop over to Utlia for a few day (week)? She can take up to 2wks for this trip but if 7 days is "plenty" for Roatan maybe we will just save vacation time for later.

Also - can anyone speak to kitesurfing? I would be interesting in a course. I did find one place. Dont know if Roatan is really know for its surfing.

Thanks!
J

 

[jenth]

To answer a few of your questions (based on my one week on Roatan 3 weeks ago)...

We had a reef right off of where we were at West Bay (I don't know how it is anywhere else). We stayed at Bananarama...and it was a quick walk down the beach (maybe 3 minutes?), into the water, and pretty soon you'll be in the reef. There's a huge reef there with tons of fish (and even turtles) that plenty of people snorkel. I'd say the reef plateaus at about 20'-30' and is about a football field size...before sloping down to a wall that's at about 60'-100'. My husband and I even borrowed the kayak one morning, moored it on one of the buoys and snorkeled around awhile. Nice thing about Bananarama is that the kayaks are free to use.

While we were there, we did see lots of dive boats of various sizes. What I liked about ours was that it was a panga...so in some sense, it could never be a cattle boat. I don't feel like I ever saw a cattle boat there, but most boats were definitely a bit bigger than ours. Might be worth just asking the dive op you're looking to go with.

Re: the cruise ships...I think they were there 2 or 3 days of the week. We could tell they were there mainly by the signs that our resort would put up (arrows to the beach, etc.). But it never felt like it was an invasion. There was more bustle and people around those days, but it was never a big deal for me. Bananarama also took good care of us...we were given priority for tables and lounge chairs.

I, too, was seriously worried about sand flies. We brought maybe 8 bottles of deet...and used one (four people in our party). Where we stayed, it never seemed to be an issue. Not sure if our resort put something in the sand...but I never got bit there. When we went to other resorts for dinner, however, both my husband and I did get bitten. It was never *that* bad. When we did get bit, we had forgotten to put deet on...since staying at our resort made us somewhat complacent.

I don't know how much diving you like to do, but I found that most divers I met there were doing roughly 2 dives a day (usually in the morning...leaving the rest of the day for other activities). My husband and I were adding a 3rd in the afternoon. We ended up doing 15 dives over 5 days...and that was plenty for us (and we're used to doing a lot of diving...up to 10/month locally). We only did one site twice...and we were quite happy and dived-out by the end.

Don't remember seeing any kitesurfing there...

I don't know if you're still considering resorts, but we were quite happy with Bananarama. If you're not looking for a fancy place, I think it's perfect. It's not run down, but has a quaint island-y feel. And it was quite affordable.

 

[yellownancy]

I would recommend West Bay Lodge. It's just behind Bananarama, on the other side of the street. We where happy to have our own hut with a hammock and a nice little pool to spend a few hours when the cruise boat came in and the beach was busy with cruise ship people. They are only on the beach for a few hours, so it's not a big deal really. We LOVED the snorkeling right off the beach and did so every day for the 14 days we where there! We saw so many fish it was really enjoyable. The beach is amazing too. It's a great place since you want to dive and your wife want's to snorkel! Best of both worlds! :cool2: