Diving Roatan

I had heard that the coral reefs of Roatan were amongst the most beautiful in the Carribean and that diving in the Bay Islands in the North of Honduras a real must. Initially the toss up was between Utila (cheaper courses) and Roatan itself (where although more expensive, the west coast lies in a protected maritime national park). 6 of 1 and half of the other as I had also heard that the marine life in Utila was good. In the end I chose Roatan, partly to evade the possibility of drunk backpackers and also because of the better coral reefs. As the bay islands and the north of Honduras had been British for many years, whilst Sir Francis Drake and of course the pirates were giving the Spanish a poke in the eye, predominantly English is spoken here. There is a large garifuna or ex-slave population, so it has a don't worry, be happy west indian feel.

Everything in Roatan is expensive, partly because everything has to be brought by ferry from the mainland about 35km away but also being a captive audience, we had to pay whatever was asked... Even the local supermarkets were outrageous and the only place to buy food reasonably was at the hypermarket at the other end of the island. There was a shared kitchen at the hostel, but it took ages to cook anything because the gas pressure was so low, and the limited utensils meant having to try to coordinate with the other guests.

The 2 restaurants that I liked there were "Creole Kitchen" run by a local woman of english descent (although she assured me that she didn't have pirate blood in her) and a fancy desdigner restaurant owned and run by Italians that would not have been out of place in Camps Bay. Although there menu in general was pricey, they had a special of 2 lobster tails for just $12, very tastey. Although I did feel guilty about eating them, as they are such beautiful creatures in the wild and they are now being overfished like crazy. Local garifuna youths are recruited, given SCUBA equipment with minimal training and sent to collect as many as they can. The result, a decimated lobster population and scores of young men crippled as they over dive to depths far to deep, without any safety stops and get the bends. Too much of this and the body never recovers.
As for Creole Kitchen, one can eat just so much roast chicken in a week....

But the diving itself was gorgeous, and barracuda plentiful as well as numerous turtles, lobsters, a king crab at depth and huge Grouper fish by the Aguila wreck, around 37 mts so tame you could almost touch them. Inall, I dived with 3 different companies, Native sons, Bluewater Adventures and Reef Gliders. As Native Sins was closing the day after I arrived, I did my advanced PADI with them in a bit of a rushed fashion, but the dive instructor David was great fun and very good with knowledge of flora and fauna of the reef, having dived the area for the past 6 years. Bluewater adventures were brilliant, the individual attention gave me a chance to improve my diving technique, fix buoyancy issues that had not been addressed in my peak performance buoyancy course, and both Lee and Jason took me on beautiful long dives exploring parts of the reef I had not yet seen. Reef Gliders hsd s grest social life and was also a very professional outfit. I joined them for a night dive (too much moonlight, shame) and a dive the next day. The experience was enhanced by having Michelle as my buddy.. she is an amazing diver who can last what seems like forever on a tank of air, and her forte is taking photographs underwater. You can see some of them on various of her posts on http://www.apeppercloud.blogspot.com but the real joy is that she is a great singer and musician, and a couple of evenings we experimented with me playing for her singing as well as singing together. It was really beautiful and great fun.

The view looking down the "street" where Chillies Hostel/Native Sons are situated

A closer look at the building on the right above. Jimmy, a large jovial black man has his own hostel and church and travel business all run out of the same window. He had a flair for florid oration

Half moon Bay, West End. our local beach, complete with hungry mozzies and sand flies

West Bay, where the rich American holiday makers hang out

The exposed coral at the end of West Bay

My trusty steed (on which I explored the island for a day) with East End behind, not as popular or as pretty as West End (ring any bells?)

The east side of French Harbour where a lot of the poor people live

A bay close to Oakridge on the south east side of the island

One of many iguanas around that area, don't know if they were all escapees from the local iguana farm

Looking west towards Sandy Bay and West End

The crew at Native Sons getting the boat ready before a dive

A beery debrief at Native Sons/Chillies

Swimming through the hoop for Peak Performance buoyancy....

This time with a smile...

With the England flag on the mooring line (forget who they were playing that day) and a photogenic jack helpfully swimming by