Although Turquoise Bay, I will call it the Bay from here out, is considered by locals as the East side of the island. However, geographically it is actually situated on the North side of Roatan at near the center of the Island. It is situated about 30 minutes from the Airport off the main island road in an extremely quiet cove that is protected from surf by the barrier reef that is about a ½ mile from the beach. It consists of very well maintained grounds, a total of 26 rooms which can accommodate two to multiple guests. They include a few bungalows nestled on a gentle sloping hillside, and a two story hotel type building known as the “Central America Building” that is conveniently located right next to the dive shop. This is where we spent our 11 nights. Of note, not all rooms are filled with divers. The Bay seems to be a vacation spot for many from the mainland and throughout Central America. So not everyone there was crowding boats.
The accommodations were pretty much what you would expect for island life, so in short it's no 4 or 5 star resort. The rooms were extremely spacious. Ours had a large chest of drawers, closet, a couch, and a king sized bed; it slept well for us, but who doesn't sleep well when you're doing a lot of diving? One awesome thing about our accommodations was the fact that when we showered, we NEVER ran out of hot water or pressure! The only down side to the room was because of the time of year, we were there August 2014, the air conditioner ran full tilt 24/7. This was great as we were nice and cool, which was appreciated because it was hot and humid outside, but the unit was so loud we could hardly hear ourselves talk. Now at this point I would say the rooms were very quiet and we were never bothered by our neighbors, but I'm not sure we couldn't give that credit to the air conditioner. Our cable TV was lacking in viewable channels, but others apparently did not have that problem. They did change our TV out once, but that didn't accomplish anything. Probably just a bad cable. However the saving grace is the entire resort has a very robust wireless network and we could easily live stream whatever we wanted on our Ipads from just about anywhere on the place. So I would highly recommend to bring a laptop or similar. You are warned not to drink the water out of tap. They supply you with a small pitcher in the room for your needs. When you needed more a quick walk to the restaurant will get you an iced refill, no big deal really. Long story short we were happy with our room.
The restaurant is buffet style. From my understanding you can order any special needs from the kitchen. Breakfast begins at 7am. Dive boats leave dock at 8:30. Lunch begins at noon. Dinner however, is not served until 7pm. This was a bit disappointing as most days you are off the water by 3:30 and I don't have to tell you how diving makes you famished. So waiting until 7pm to eat is a bit difficult to handle. Luckily, we did bring a bag of our own snacks to help tide us over a bit. Apparently they do have a snack time offered at the bar starting at about 5pm. However, we were completely unaware of this until the very last night. I can't comment on the bar as neither of us partake in spirits. The food was at times hit and miss. Some meals were lacking in quality we spoiled Americans are used too. Ice cold pancakes, coffee thick as tar, most all meats well overcooked. Some meals however, were quite good. Some dining situations were uncomfortable as the place has air condition, but they rarely turned it on, or up. Several evenings the cooking promptly filled the room with so much smoke it tempted you to rush through the meal just to get to fresh air. You do tire of repetitive offerings, but what else would one expect in this type of atmosphere?
One thing I do have to brag on is the staff. Everyone on the grounds from the armed security guards, grounds keepers, cleaning staff, administration, and service staff were quite frankly awesome! They were courteous, cheerful, and a joy to be around. Just ask for what you need and you will get it with a smile.
Grounds, as I stated, well maintained. The beach is absolutely beautiful! However, we only went down there once and that was to have the beach night barbeque dinner, which was probably the best meal of the trip! There was reason we did not beach during any of our free time. You may have heard this, and the rumors are indeed true. The sand flies will suck your blood dry. They do seem to be attracted to women more than men. This was an observation across the campus population. My wife had numerous bites on her during our stay, I only had three. Maybe it's a pheromone thing or maybe she's just sweeter than I am? My point is, bring bug spray and use it. Try to stay away from DEET containing products as it is said to be bad for the reef. My preference is Skin So Soft – Expedition. General feeding time for them is.... daylight. You will not only get bites at the beach, but at the pool and even a few on the boat dock. Itching can be controlled with an application of a hot spoon, or clear fingernail polish. The Bay does try to mitigate the issue as several times I saw personnel out with sprayers. It is important to remember that this is not unique to the Bay. It's an Island thing!
Dive Operations-
Your dive Op at the Bay is Subway Watersports. Markus and Alexandria, a great couple of Swedish descent, took the business over in 2012 and are running things full tilt and very professionally and efficiently. They have an in depth PADI dive training program and they cater to divers 7 days a week. They provide service to most dive sites in 10 minutes. The longest trip, to the El Aguila wreck, was 30 minutes in a fast boat, and one hour in regular transport. Subway is unique in the fact you are not fighting the crowds who mostly dive off the West end area of the island. For those of you who are not familiar, the West end is considered the “Party” place. It is full of dirt roads, bars, spots to catch a bite to eat, no matter if your outside on the road or walking into places like the Cannibal Cafe, and your typical plethora of shops selling what I label as tourist crap. If your staying at the Bay, a trip to West end is about 15 miles away and will cost you $20.00US one way to get there. Morning dives your at the dock at 8:30. Most days you will come in to dock in between Dive one and two. This is convenient if you left something you need or have something to take care of, however the dock time is usually only 10-15 minutes before you're headed back out. Personally, this in and out activity did not make much sense and I would rather just spend my top time in the boat, but its really no big deal. After the second dive you're back in for lunch and usually departing around 1:30 or 2pm for the third dive. You are typically back to the dock by 3:30pm. There is one night dive each week. They have wash stations, dock side showers, and locker rooms. The crew will have your tanks set up and dive ready at departure. Since we dove for 10 days we had several transitions. Our first week we dove in a non crowded boat consisting of us and several young ladies going through dive master training. Captain Pedro and DM Sylvan were a great duo! Sylvan was extremely knowledgeable about the sites and had a sometimes dry, but good sense of humor. One good thing to see was the DM's are very proactive and taking out lion fish at every opportunity and Sylvan was a killer! Some came home for dinner, others were offered as a free meals to morays, snapper, grouper and the like. We only hopped on one crowded boat of 15 but, that was by request by some new friends we made. Most other dives we had six to eight.
Conditions for August, ambient temperatures were 85' with 80% humidity. Water temperatures averaged 82'. Visibility was 75' on day one, averaged 40-50 feet most days, and of course the last day it was 100 feet. We've done Roatan before and the visibility was better. Our previous experience was spring and not summer. I can't say for sure that time of year was a factor. We had clear blue bird days the entire trip. There were two nights where thunderstorms rolled in and out during the early morning hours.
We logged a total of 28 dives on our trip. Overall marine life was scattered. More populous in some areas that others. There was scattered evidence of bleaching. However, each site had its own discoveries and every dive was full of adventure. I will have to call this particular trip the Green Moray capitol of the Caribbean. We saw more morays than I have ever seen on one trip, and we saw them on most dives. You may also take note in my video that on 3 different days at 3 different locations I had morays directly in my camera lens. Exciting and great footage to say the least. However, I believe this is occurring due to human intervention by over feeding of lionfish. These creatures I believe are looking for handouts and my fear is that one day it may lead to an unprovoked attack as they acclimatize to being fed. Yea, take any opportunity you can to cull lion fish, but you may want to consider bringing more back to the boat. Our favorite spot was Underground reef. We liked it so much we did it 3 times! It consists of a drop off into a valley between two reef ridge lines, impressive walls, a great reef cave swim through an a plethora of marine life. The El Aguila wreck is one not to miss as well. A descent wreck dive with several opportunities of safe penetration. Huge groupers populate the site throughout the water colum.
Overall this trip we rate in a excellent category overall. I believe Turquoise Bay has been a bit overlooked by most and more than likely because you just don't get much feedback on the place like you see with AKR and other big operations. I'm not a professional traveler or critic by any means, but I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, so in my humble opinion I would fully recommend TB as a consideration for your next dive trip. Hope you enjoy the video... We enjoyed making it! Peace~Out.
VIDEO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA5zULIvWQo
