I spent two weeks (36 dives) at Reef House Resort, a quiet-ish operation located on a tiny cay that is a stone's throw from the south-east side of Roatan. This was my first visit to Roatan and Honduras. September is the island's hottest month (though I didn't really notice) and the tourist slow season. The first few days we had five foot swells and getting back on the boat was a bit hairy, but it calmed down for the rest of the stay, with a few days of absolutely flat seas. There were never more than five divers on the boat, except for one day when scuba instructors from the West End came over for fun dives, driving the number up to seven. So it felt almost like a private resort and dive boat. Some thoughts:
Diving
Sites were typically within 20 minutes, with the farthest west dive being past the Media Luna resort and the farthest east dive being Port Royale Gorge. Visibility was typically 60-80 feet and there was hardly ever current and no hard current. During the first few days I was a little concerned that every dive would be a wall dive that returned to the buoy in 20-30 foot of water, which would get monotonous after 2 weeks. However, we started doing some dives with very interesting topographies, i.e. hot drops into mild currents, multiple large crevices between the wall and sandy areas, transitioning from sandy bottoms to large coral heads to sheer walls to flat reefs. Divers with experience on the West End told me that it has bigger critters; I personally saw no turtles, one nurse shark, several sting rays, and one eagle ray in 36 dives. However, I also saw my first sea horses, bearded toadfish, the biggest sponges I've ever seen (as I two people could crawl into a barrel sponge I was gawking at), some amazingly healthy soft coral and lettuce coral fields, and lovely schools of jacks, wrasse, snapper, surgeonfish, etc along the walls. I'm used to bleached corals in the upper Florida Keys, so the comparative health of the reef was a treat. The 4-6 foot green morays have been fed lionfish and now will come out, away from coral heads, straight at divers, which can be a bit nervewracking but makes for some memorable dives.
There is a pier where you can do shore dives at House Reef, which is also a site that the boat will take you to a few times if you're there for two weeks. I did one shore dive on a day when there was a night dive, which means that there is no third dive in the afternoon.
Dive operation
The guide (Davit) and captain (Choco) were excellent. During high season, RHR runs up to three boats. The main boat has a platform but no ladder, so you have to get out of your BC and hand it to Choco before clambering on the platform and taking off your fins. This was a new procedure in my experience and the first couple of days of rougher seas, when the platform was levering up and down were a little hairy, especially as I dive a BP/W with crotch strap, long hose, and necklaced backup reg, which is a lot to undo while you're bobbing up and down trying to hold onto a trail line. After a few days of experience, I figured out that it was far easier to stick the spare reg in my mouth and get out of the rig at the safety stop depth and just swim up with the rig in my hands to hand it to Choco. This was much quicker than monopolizing the platform while trying to get out of your BC; even the exits with seven divers felt very delayed as people waited for their turn.
DM Davit has 18+ years experience guiding on Roatan, and not only appeared to navigate by landmark, but needed only a couple dives to keep a mental calculation of the air consumption rates of the limiting divers. Several times I saw someone fin up to Davit indicating that they were at 500 or 700 psi, and Davit would point up at the boat that we had just arrived at. Very impressive. That said, Davit is a bit idiosyncratic about his dive briefings. For example, "My office is the sandy patch at the front of the boat" translates as "When you enter, gather at the sandy patch at the front of the boat and I'll meet you there to start the dive." He will also add a zero to depths, e.g. 700 v 70, which makes the first dive briefing when he says "we are going east to 900 feet along the wall!" a bit alarming. That said, all the info you need is provided if you keep the above translation in mind. If you need a Very Serious Briefing, I imagine he would be happy to provide one. Also, the names of dive sites appear to change depending on how he dives them.
When we went west, we occasionally passed up to three CoCo View Resort boats that had come around Caribe Point / Media Luna Resort, but I we never shared a dive site and there were certainly no other dive boats when we went east. I really did feel like I was on a semi-private dive vacation most of the time.
Resort operation
So the point of this place is diving. It's on a small cay with really nothing else of interest on it. The resort itself has a saltwater pool created from the shore, a pier from which you can shore dive, a couple hammocks, a bar (honor system to write down your purchases), and a dining room. Rooms are simple, with two beds, a TV on a dresser, a lamp on a bedside table, and small bathroom with shower. My room had a large window converted into a air conditioning unit, but the rest of the windows were still screened wooden slats with no glass, so it wasn't the best insulated room. There were two rooms separate from the main complex that appeared to have better air conditioning, if that's important to you. A couple cockroaches made appearances in the bathroom when I woke up in the middle of the night.
You might be able to get away with bringing a non-diver along for a day or two, but I would imagine that it would get very boring very quickly unless they really love reading books and sunbathing. We divers took one morning off for a mangrove tour arranged with a RHR employee, partly to do something different and partly to give our Eustachian tubes and eardrums a rest.
I was generally pleased with the quality of the food, especially since I requested a pescatarian diet. For example, when the others got grilled stuffed pork roast, I got grilled lobster. (Rough life, right?) That said, my meals were more limited than the normal menu, which I definitely noticed by day 10 or so. Service was very responsive; on a day when I was feeling queasy, the kitchen had no issues substituting some inoffensive toast and fruit for the breakfast they were already preparing. They also have a heavy hand with the salt; a couple meals felt like I had a mouthful of saltwater. People who are trying to reduce their salt intake may want to make a special request for low sodium meals.
On Sundays, the place hosts local expats for live music and drinking. I felt a bit put out on the second day, when my sleepy, out-of-the-way dive resort was suddenly filled with at least two dozen strangers partying it up. There were maybe three nights in the two weeks when guests or neighbors decided to noisily party until the wee hours; ear plugs may be in order.
Oh, one peeve: RHR had two older REEF identification books for coral, and one recent book on critters that kept being 'cleaned up' and put out of sight in the manager's office. I had assumed that as a dedicated dive resort there would be multiple ID books lying about for people to reference while talking about dives. I regretted not bringing my own REEF books and would recommend doing so if you have your own.
Conclusion
I had a generally positive experience with Reef House Resort. However, two weeks felt like a long time for continuous diving, and not just because of protesting eardrums. I think most people would need to find a new purpose to keep their interest up, and people who dive to see sharks and other large critters may be disappointed. Our entire boat of divers ended up hunting lionfish for a few dives as something different. I also think that macro photographers would be very happy being based out of RHR: besides the usual sea horses, gobies, jawfish, cleaner shrimp, etc, there were so amazing encrusting corals, humongous overlapping sea fans, christmas tree worms on perfectly healthy brain corals, and arrays of tiny sponges that I was inspired to buy my first decent dive camera at the end of the trip.
Diving
Sites were typically within 20 minutes, with the farthest west dive being past the Media Luna resort and the farthest east dive being Port Royale Gorge. Visibility was typically 60-80 feet and there was hardly ever current and no hard current. During the first few days I was a little concerned that every dive would be a wall dive that returned to the buoy in 20-30 foot of water, which would get monotonous after 2 weeks. However, we started doing some dives with very interesting topographies, i.e. hot drops into mild currents, multiple large crevices between the wall and sandy areas, transitioning from sandy bottoms to large coral heads to sheer walls to flat reefs. Divers with experience on the West End told me that it has bigger critters; I personally saw no turtles, one nurse shark, several sting rays, and one eagle ray in 36 dives. However, I also saw my first sea horses, bearded toadfish, the biggest sponges I've ever seen (as I two people could crawl into a barrel sponge I was gawking at), some amazingly healthy soft coral and lettuce coral fields, and lovely schools of jacks, wrasse, snapper, surgeonfish, etc along the walls. I'm used to bleached corals in the upper Florida Keys, so the comparative health of the reef was a treat. The 4-6 foot green morays have been fed lionfish and now will come out, away from coral heads, straight at divers, which can be a bit nervewracking but makes for some memorable dives.
There is a pier where you can do shore dives at House Reef, which is also a site that the boat will take you to a few times if you're there for two weeks. I did one shore dive on a day when there was a night dive, which means that there is no third dive in the afternoon.
Dive operation
The guide (Davit) and captain (Choco) were excellent. During high season, RHR runs up to three boats. The main boat has a platform but no ladder, so you have to get out of your BC and hand it to Choco before clambering on the platform and taking off your fins. This was a new procedure in my experience and the first couple of days of rougher seas, when the platform was levering up and down were a little hairy, especially as I dive a BP/W with crotch strap, long hose, and necklaced backup reg, which is a lot to undo while you're bobbing up and down trying to hold onto a trail line. After a few days of experience, I figured out that it was far easier to stick the spare reg in my mouth and get out of the rig at the safety stop depth and just swim up with the rig in my hands to hand it to Choco. This was much quicker than monopolizing the platform while trying to get out of your BC; even the exits with seven divers felt very delayed as people waited for their turn.
DM Davit has 18+ years experience guiding on Roatan, and not only appeared to navigate by landmark, but needed only a couple dives to keep a mental calculation of the air consumption rates of the limiting divers. Several times I saw someone fin up to Davit indicating that they were at 500 or 700 psi, and Davit would point up at the boat that we had just arrived at. Very impressive. That said, Davit is a bit idiosyncratic about his dive briefings. For example, "My office is the sandy patch at the front of the boat" translates as "When you enter, gather at the sandy patch at the front of the boat and I'll meet you there to start the dive." He will also add a zero to depths, e.g. 700 v 70, which makes the first dive briefing when he says "we are going east to 900 feet along the wall!" a bit alarming. That said, all the info you need is provided if you keep the above translation in mind. If you need a Very Serious Briefing, I imagine he would be happy to provide one. Also, the names of dive sites appear to change depending on how he dives them.
When we went west, we occasionally passed up to three CoCo View Resort boats that had come around Caribe Point / Media Luna Resort, but I we never shared a dive site and there were certainly no other dive boats when we went east. I really did feel like I was on a semi-private dive vacation most of the time.
Resort operation
So the point of this place is diving. It's on a small cay with really nothing else of interest on it. The resort itself has a saltwater pool created from the shore, a pier from which you can shore dive, a couple hammocks, a bar (honor system to write down your purchases), and a dining room. Rooms are simple, with two beds, a TV on a dresser, a lamp on a bedside table, and small bathroom with shower. My room had a large window converted into a air conditioning unit, but the rest of the windows were still screened wooden slats with no glass, so it wasn't the best insulated room. There were two rooms separate from the main complex that appeared to have better air conditioning, if that's important to you. A couple cockroaches made appearances in the bathroom when I woke up in the middle of the night.
You might be able to get away with bringing a non-diver along for a day or two, but I would imagine that it would get very boring very quickly unless they really love reading books and sunbathing. We divers took one morning off for a mangrove tour arranged with a RHR employee, partly to do something different and partly to give our Eustachian tubes and eardrums a rest.
I was generally pleased with the quality of the food, especially since I requested a pescatarian diet. For example, when the others got grilled stuffed pork roast, I got grilled lobster. (Rough life, right?) That said, my meals were more limited than the normal menu, which I definitely noticed by day 10 or so. Service was very responsive; on a day when I was feeling queasy, the kitchen had no issues substituting some inoffensive toast and fruit for the breakfast they were already preparing. They also have a heavy hand with the salt; a couple meals felt like I had a mouthful of saltwater. People who are trying to reduce their salt intake may want to make a special request for low sodium meals.
On Sundays, the place hosts local expats for live music and drinking. I felt a bit put out on the second day, when my sleepy, out-of-the-way dive resort was suddenly filled with at least two dozen strangers partying it up. There were maybe three nights in the two weeks when guests or neighbors decided to noisily party until the wee hours; ear plugs may be in order.
Oh, one peeve: RHR had two older REEF identification books for coral, and one recent book on critters that kept being 'cleaned up' and put out of sight in the manager's office. I had assumed that as a dedicated dive resort there would be multiple ID books lying about for people to reference while talking about dives. I regretted not bringing my own REEF books and would recommend doing so if you have your own.
Conclusion
I had a generally positive experience with Reef House Resort. However, two weeks felt like a long time for continuous diving, and not just because of protesting eardrums. I think most people would need to find a new purpose to keep their interest up, and people who dive to see sharks and other large critters may be disappointed. Our entire boat of divers ended up hunting lionfish for a few dives as something different. I also think that macro photographers would be very happy being based out of RHR: besides the usual sea horses, gobies, jawfish, cleaner shrimp, etc, there were so amazing encrusting corals, humongous overlapping sea fans, christmas tree worms on perfectly healthy brain corals, and arrays of tiny sponges that I was inspired to buy my first decent dive camera at the end of the trip.
