Trip Report Roatan (west side) - December 2024

[therookie]

TLDR; Uncooperative weather, visibility ranging from poor to meh, a dive resort that fits our medium budget that consistently meets our high expectations, and some of the best diving we have ever done.

Four of us (3 PADI AOW divers with limited experience and 1 non-diver/occasional snorkeler) spent 10 days on Roatan, based in West Bay, in early December 2024.

Travel/Airport:
My wife and I live on the Honduran mainland, the other two traveled from Canada. One of our party flew in to RTB via Miami, and reported that the total time from opening the aircraft door (no boarding gates at RTB, you board and deplane aircraft of all sizes via stairs) until she was through customs and immigration with all luggage in tow was twenty minutes. Some here on SB have reported horrific waits on arrival (and I have seen pictures of such in local Honduran news and social media) and when multiple nearly-full flights arrive within a few minutes of each other that will almost assuredly be the case, but I just wanted to report that it isn't always that bad. This flight was on a Monday - anecdotally I hear that Saturday is the worst day for arrival at RTB in terms of immigration lineups.

The rest of us had other plans for after this trip so we met up in San Pedro Sula and then flew a local regional airline to RTB on their last flight of the day - SOSA is the name of the airline. I will spare all of the details in this report, but someone at the airline made the decision to remove my luggage and my wife's from the plane due to overweighting (after first loading it, even though we were probably the first ones on the flight to check in!) without the courtesy of at least advising us so that we could pull out some essentials for the night and the next morning, which would have been very easy to do (SAP is a very small airport). It is a cultural pattern we have noticed over the years here - anything to avoid a controversy in the moment - but my wife is a force of nature not easily reckoned with in situations like this and she was at least able to ensure our luggage arrived at our accommodations by 8am the next morning, with luggage delivery at the airline's expense. My only reason for mentioning this at all is simply to say that if you ever have occasion to fly from the Honduran mainland to Roatan, I can't recommend SOSA. We booked with them because they allowed a 50 lb weight limit for the fare that we purchased (their competitor CM Airlines limits you to 35 for approximately the same price) which worked better for us. Well, would have worked better for us, had it actually worked. CM has treated us better over the years, and we will stick with them in future.


Accommodations:
We stayed at Naboo Resort and Dive Center. My non-diving wife reserves the right to choose where we stay when we visit Roatan, since she spends more time at the resort than we divers do. It is located on Bananarama Road between the Bananarama Inn and the West Bay mall. The location makes it convenient to the beach (a two or three minute walk from the hotel entrance to West Bay beach) and far enough back that any activity at the beachfront properties isn't easily heard at the resort. It is an adult-only property (meaning all guests must be at least 18 years old), impeccably clean, with a beautifully landscaped, well-shaded pool area, which also includes a jacuzzi. A note about the jacuzzi - it does not get super hot. Especially in the morning it is still quite cool as they do not run the heating overnight. I'm reasonably certain that's primarily a cost-saving measure - most people don't necessarily want to be in a hot tub in the tropics first thing in the morning, but my wife isn't most people. For most of the year the solar heat would help heat the pool quite a bit faster, but in early December the weather often doesn't co-operate and it can be early afternoon before it is actually at a temperature you want to soak in. But once it gets to that temperature, it is blissful - and a major drawing card for us. Along with the jacuzzi is a nice-sized, clean, and well-maintained pool (the dive center does some of the confined water training in it). Breakfast is included with the rooms - it is a buffet style breakfast with choices that vary daily. We very much enjoyed the breakfast selections every day we were there. The restaurant's menu for lunch and dinner is excellent - it is one of our favorite places to eat in all of West Bay. We have a medium budget for our Roatan vacations, and high standards regarding cleanliness and comfort. (Remember we live on the Honduran mainland; we aren't in the slightest looking to "rough it" while on vacation). My wife loves this place, and since we leave her to her own devices for long periods of time while we are out diving, I am really glad that she does.

 

[therookie]

Dive Center:

I have dived with the sum total of two dive shops in my entire life, so please take my opinions here with a grain of salt. Naboo has two boats with a maximum capacity of twelve divers each (a picture of one, taken from the other by a Roatan-based photographer that I understand has relationships with several dive ops, is attached). When diving in West Bay/West End/Sandy Bay areas, you initially board their boats from the beach (in front of Bananarama) via the boat's ladder - hand your gear to the DM in the bow, then wade out to the stern (usually waist-deep, sometimes a bit more) and up the ladder into the boat. So yeah, you are wet before you start, which isn't for everyone, and of course for those with mobility issues on land it's likely not feasible. Water entry is via backroll, return to the boat by the same ladder used for initial boarding.

Their policy is no more than six divers per DM. In three years diving with them I don't think there have ever been more than 10 on the boat, including DMs and the boat captain, and that often includes snorkelers along for the ride and then doing their thing at a site while we are doing ours. This year we were never more than five divers, plus DM and captain. This is one of the reasons I like this operation so much - it's small, so it feels very personal. We have gotten to know the DMs over time as well, and that helps a lot. Also, I rent everything except mask/snorkel/fins/DC, and their rental equipment (all Mares products) has always been in excellent condition. I did have a minor problem with the mouthpiece on my second-stage regulator on my first morning dive this year that I didn't realize until we got to the dive site - reg worked fine but the mouthpiece kept wanting to slip out of my mouth. I could probably have kept it in place by chomping down really hard on it but I would have likely had lockjaw by the end of the morning so after a chat with the DM we agreed I would just use my octo that morning and they would swap it out for the next day. After that, everything was perfect.

Naboo Dive Center won't be for everyone here, especially those looking for a high volume of dives, and even more especially smack dab in the middle of the rainy season! Their "standard" schedule is a two-tank morning (surface interval generally runs 45 minutes to an hour, depending on what the computers say) and a single tank in the afternoon, with night dives available depending on demand (minimum four divers). However, when the weather is bad from the north they dock their boats on the south side (at Coxen Hole) for safety and bus their divers there from West Bay (25-ish minutes, depending on traffic, so we meet up a half-hour earlier in the dive shop to board the transport to the dock) and dive on the more sheltered south side of the island (given winds out of the north). When that happens, they only do morning dives. We wound up doing 8 of our 14 dives on the south side this year due to weather - it rained, accompanied by north winds, for parts of literally every day we were there. On the plus side, when diving the south side with Naboo, you board their boat from a dock (hopping over another boat that has always been docked there every time we've done it). So you're not wet before you start. Unless it's raining... Anyway, this scheduling limitation didn't bother us at all. Two of us are "older divers", by DAN's standard, and the other is close. After a two-tank morning we are ready for a good lunch and a relaxing afternoon in the hot tub anyway, so it really didn't matter. However, I fully understand that for some, that's a turn-off.

We really appreciated the DMs, for a couple of reasons. One was when it came to picking the site to dive. They would start with a plan from the shop (they do that before the divers get there while getting the gear and tanks ready - it's valet diving service which, again, isn't for everyone but we love it - and do the dive briefings on the boat) but then often revise it after either communicating with other shops or just from observation of poor visiblity. One morning the DM said this was literally her fifth choice of starting dive site for that day. On one occasion we were heading for a site between West End and Sandy Bay for our second dive of the morning when the captain noticed from a ways off that there were several boats already in that area, so we went elsewhere. They will take into account requests for specific sites to dive if you make them, but without guarantee.

We also appreciated their displayed confidence in us as divers, despite our relative inexperience. When we dove Mary's Place this year, we had an OW diver with us, so in the dive briefing our DM told him to stay with her and the two of them would stay at max 60ft, but the three of us (AOW) could buddy up and go deeper if we wished - just keep aware of her as well and she would keep aware of us. So we did, and it worked out perfectly. We were very happy that she was comfortable with not insisting we stay right with her. Another morning was an experience I won't soon forget. Cold (by Roatan standards), rainy morning, with a north wind which means south side diving, and just the three of us with the DM. We tried one site - DM felt the visibility was too poor to be worth splashing. We tried another site - same story. We went to a third mooring, and she said "OK, let's go from here. Now, for a dive briefing - I have no idea where we are, I don't recognize this mooring" (the captain didn't either, he's relatively new) "but the wall is that-away and the island is over there so let's just go exploring. We're not likely to get lost. Stay close together, doesn't have to be reach out and touch your buddy close but don't get separated, and we'll see how it goes". The plan was to do a simple out and back, but that plan didn't happen. The DM knew that a current was a possibility and made sure the captain would stay aware, and sure enough we got down about 5 or 6 metres and hit a current that sent us for a great ride. Visiblity was one notch above "poor", but it didn't matter. Tons of reef fish and gorgeous soft coral, and a porcupinefish that was the most relaxed dude (or dudette) that I have ever come across in my dives so far (just sitting there finning enough to stay stationary in that current, which was great practice for me to try to stay that stationary finning against that current with my right leg in order to get something close to stable video to share later). So relaxed he (she?) let me get far closer to a porcupinefish than I ever have before - when I see them they are at a distance either in a pair chasing each other's tails, or darting to some other part of the reef to get away from the ugly aliens from above. A picture, clipped from a video taken with my very cheap camera in those far less than optimal conditions, is attached. When one of my dive buddies came up from that dive the first words out of her mouth were "Best. Dive. Ever." But to my point, when I said to the DM during the surface interval (while we were eating pineapple and drinking hot tea out of a Thermos - did I mention that it was COLD by Roatan standards? That was a first!) that I was surprised she took such relatively inexperienced divers "exploring" like that she said "Nah, you guys are good. You pay attention, you think underwater, gas consumption is good - no worries. I wouldn't have done it on your first day with me but at this point, it's all good". It's a small thing, but that confidence acted on and expressed when we actually get things right does a lot for us newbie divers that are just starting out.

That dive took us right to the southwest tip of Roatan, so rather than motor back up to another dive site on the south side and then dock at Coxen Hole, the DM showed more flexibility by calling the shop and suggesting we dive the West Bay Wall and just come back to the usual "drop-off" spot in front of Bananarama. Shop agreed, so we did that surface interval on the boat (drinking hot tea) followed by what quickly replaced the previous dive as the Best. Dive. Ever. Visibility was upgraded only from "a notch above poor" to "slightly below fair", but it didn't matter. A turtle right off the bat, minutes later a pair of eagle rays cruising above us at the top of the wall, Creole wrasse everywhere (I have never seen so many), more porcupinefish, a ton of Black Triggerfish, Black Grouper, Atlantic Spadefish and at the end of the dive a turtle who seemed to feel our DM wasn't doing a good enough job of guiding us and offered us a five-minute tour of the West Bay Wall of her own, if we were willing to follow her. Which, of course, we were. How do you say no to a turtle? A picture, clipped from a video taken by that same cheap camera in slightly better conditions, is attached.

 

[therookie]

Condition of the reef:

For context on my comments about this, my first trip to Roatan was in 1995, when we spent a week snorkeling in West End and West Bay. So, for those lamenting the condition of the reef around Roatan in 2024 and now going into 2025, please believe me when I say that I understand your pain. We've been visiting, snorkeling and now diving this island regularly for nearly 30 years. I was not a scuba diver in 1995, not certified as such until 2021 when SCTLD had already made its way here followed by the extensive bleaching of the past few years due (at least in part, according to my limited knowledge of these matters) to sea water that is warmer than these corals are accustomed to, so I can't comment on the condition of the reef at depth in those years. But absolutely, no question, the reef around Roatan is not what it once was, and it will be considerable time before it can be that way again.

However, to my layman's eyes, the bleaching seemed less prevalent this year than last year. Now in part there may be a bias because we spent more time this year on the south side, and (again, with my limited knowledge) from my reading it seems that bleaching affects the soft coral (which is more prevalent on the south side) less than it does the hard coral (which is more prevalent on the north side), so it could be that my brain is saying "there is less bleaching because I didn't see as much white stuff on the coral" - there, that should tell you how well-educated I am on this topic. On the other hand, I was somewhat expecting this and made a deliberate effort to focus on the bleaching when we were diving north/west side sites, and it still seemed like it was less. However, we weren't diving all the same sites that we did last year, and depths were likely different, or maybe in areas where there was more extensive bleaching I was more focused on pretty fish at the moment and just didn't see it - there could be any number of very scientific explanations for my completely unscientific, rather vague observation that "it seemed like there was less bleaching this year". But that was my overall impression.

Having said that, to my untrained but not inexperienced eyes, there is still a lot of beauty to be seen on the Bay Islands' reef system. We have lived in this part of the world for nearly 20 years, and learned long ago that you can focus on the beauty here or you can focus on the ugly here, and only one of those two things is sustainable in the long term if you want to stay. As an example, I can walk out onto the terrace of our apartment and up to the parapet and look out and see a row of trees that right now are full of gorgeous orange flowers. Or I can look straight down and see an unbelievable hodgepodge of broken down televisions, refrigerators, fans and other odds and ends that are stored by a shop next door (literally "pegado" in Spanish - we share a wall between the yards) that seems to recycle these things - but they are collecting far, far more than they seem to be recycling. I bet you can guess what I choose to focus on when I walk out that way... So I apply the same principle when snorkeling and diving on Roatan. I focus on the beauty of what is there (and there is a lot) and not on what it used to be.

Please don't get me wrong. For those who have cut trips short to Roatan because of their perception of the reef, or who feel so sad at seeing it that they feel they can't come back - I get it, I truly do. I'm sure I sound like a total Roatan fanboy to some, but it's the closest thing to local diving that I have, and from what I read here on SB a lot of us are rather passionate about our "local" dive environments, right? I figured I should just join the club...

For those who have taken the time to read this trip report to the end, thank you. It's my first attempt at this, so please let me know if it's really too long/wordy/not enough useful information etc and I will try to improve in future.

Happy bubbles!

 

[jtreed]

Great report! Very helpful