I dove with Las Rocas last May of '04 for a week. We were staying at Foster's West Bay (which was fine, by the way), and we dove with Las Rocas out of convenience. West Bay has the best beach (for Mom), but it is a $10 cab ride each way to West End, or $3 water taxi if you can get one. The Las Rocas accomidations looked fine from the outside, but I think for some reason they lost power a bit more than we did that week (probably no fault of their own).
In my opinion, the dive operation was hit and miss from day to day. It's a small operation with two small boats. The DMs were very good, and everyone was friendly. Most of the dives were great, but we hit the same few sites after a few days. On the downside, I missed several dives because they were either overbooked, or did not have enough people signed up for a night dive or shark dive. Some dives had three divers on board, other dives had twelve or more. On one dive, we got into some choppy seas, and the captain almost hit me with the prop. I also observed them change the oil on one of the outboards, and dump the old oil in the bushes. I know it is not the U.S., but it still bothers me.
If you are looking for some casual, easy diving on West Bay Beach, they are fine. If you want to maximize your bottom time, and see a variety of sites, you might want to consider other options. When I do go back to Roatan (and I definitly will), I would either go all inclusive at CCV, or stay in West End for a few days, shop around different dive operators, then hit Utilla for a few days.
Feel free to e-mail me at
cfalgout@hotmail.com if you have any other questions.
