I thought Mango Inn was in town - not on the beach?
Situated at the center of the village within easy walking distance of all the amenities of the island, the Mango Inn is nestled in beautiful gardens,
Never been there though.
Deep Blue is on a beach. But in most places, there's coral/ironshore offshore not sand. There is one spot where you can get in and do a shore dive, but the entry is a little difficult. We did it as a night boat dive, it was a good dive.
And they fulfill the
girly drinks overlooking the water aspect as their lounge/dining room/bar is about 50' from the water. With a front deck along the entire length of the building. Every room has anocean facing deck. The whole resort is built on pilings so the buildings are all very close to the waters edge.
We were just there last month. The food was very good/excellent and the service was exceptional. It's one of few places I've been where you can do as much or as little with your gear as desired - in fact you have to be faster than the staff to change your gear or help remove it from the boat. Repeated often was: "
You're on vacation, let us handle it for you" They were also very good at picking dives for the various skill levels on the boat. And have one of the bigger boats that I saw all week.
Also if the whalesharks are still around, they're doing a lot of research/identification in that area so you possibly spend more time than some of the other diveops looking for them. For us, we used our morning SI daily to go out to deeper water to locate them. Found/snorkeled with 6 on two different days. Made the whole trip special.
The downside if there is one, is that they're about 10mins. by boat from town. Since they're on the other side of a lagoon channel, it's the only way to town. They take people in town two afternoons/nights or you can make special arrangements to be picked up at other times. I believe there's a charge for that. Nice thing about it is the only noise you hear at night is the surf.
Bring/use 25% Deet. Sand Fleas are on the beach and Sand Flies come out mid-afternoon til dusk. I made the mistake of forgetting the Deet one afternoon and had over 100 bites (counted em) on my legs when I returned home.
Deep Blue is owned/run by Steve who's on here often as
Deep Blue Divers. His mum Shirley will meet you at the ferry/airport and bring you to the resort. And help you leave - she accompanied others staying with us to the airport. They also can provide help in securing flights from SPS or LaCeiba to the resort. The entire staff was friendly and very accommodating. And they have a great bar, more unusual liquor than I've seen in some local bars here.
You can either fly in from San Pedro Sula - with maybe a stop in LaCeiba or take the ferries over from Roatan. The ferry takes two trips, back to LaCeiba on the Galaxy and then over to Utila on the Princess. We landed on Roatan at 12:00 from Houston and were on Utila a little past 5.
Might also consider Laguna Beach, it's on the other side of the lagoon channel also but they looked to have a nicer beach. And a pool. Seemed like a bigger operation though, they had two bigger Newton diveboats (maybe 3). Deep Blue will have a max of 20 people staying there, they only have 10 rooms.
