Dive Roatan

Southeastern Divers, Inc.

2720 Governors Drive SW, Huntsville Alabama 35805 - Phone: 256-536-8404

"Training the best divers in North Alabama since 1980."

Roatan, anyone?

One of the most relaxing dive trips I’ve ever taken was to Roatan, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. The diving is great, the food is excellent, and the dive staff is very courteous and will work hard to see that everyone has a great time. In fact, one of my favorite dives of all time was in Roatan, a site called Mary’s Place, but I’m already ahead of my story…

Getting to Roatan is super easy. Delta Air Lines flies directly there from Atlanta. After a quick hop from Huntsville to Atlanta, and a nice flight from Atlanta to Roatan, you’re there! Fantasy Island Resort operates its own shuttle from the airport to the resort, which winds through the Roatan country side on the way to the hotel.

Fantasy Island is a very nice place to stay. Each air-conditioned (very important in Roatan) room faces the ocean and has a balcony. Those balconies are great for drying dive gear and bathing suits. The resort has some native wild life in residence along with the guests. We saw wild peacocks, agoutis, and lots of very friendly monkeys. The monkeys are always looking for a handout. If you happen to have a few sugar packets in your pocket, you can make a life-long friend. Fantasy Island has two restaurants, an upstairs dining room with indoor and outdoor seating that’s used for breakfast and dinner, and a beachside open-air facility that’s used for lunches. All the meals are buffet-style and are included in the travel package. The island has a beautiful lagoon with a sandy beach, which is a great place to hang out between dives. Nightly activities are planned by the resort staff to keep everyone happily occupied during the evenings. There are luaus, native dance performances, and live music in the bar. For those of us who just have to stay connected, there are computers and wireless internet in the lobby.

Let’s talk about the Roatan diving! There’s gear storage right next to the dock. In the morning, you put your gear on the boat. Since you’ll be on the same boat for all three boat dives each day, there’s no need to take your gear off the boat until you’re done diving for the day. The dive staff is very accommodating to divers of all levels, from beginner to expert. If you’d feel more comfortable buddying up with a dive master, there’s one on every single boat dive. If you’re happy doing your own thing with your own buddy, that’s fine too. After every dive, the boat staff has bottled water and fresh fruit – papaya, mangoes, or watermelon ready for you to snack on. All the dive sites are excellent, with healthy reefs, lots of fish, and plenty of hard and soft corals. Seahorses are abundant (although well-hidden). Our dive master was able to find them for us on several of our dives.

Now, let me tell you about Mary’s Place, one of my favorite dives of all time. After the boat was moored over the reef, we did a giant stride off the stern of our boat, Little Kashi, with our dive master, Derry. We dropped down to the top of the reef at about 30 feet. Derry took us about 50 yards along the reef and then down to about 70 feet where he showed us the opening to a six-foot wide crack in the reef structure. The crack is open all the way up to the top of the reef, so there’s no concern about diving in an overhead environment. We swam in and made our way along the corridor, with abundant life on both sides of us. We saw HUGE crabs, lots of tube sponges, and tons of fish. At the end of the fissure, there’s a vertical chimney that took us from about 50’ to the top of the reef. While we were on this dive, a videographer swam along with us, making a DVD of all of us. We bought a copy of the video and I left a copy at Southeastern Divers. You can stop by and watch it anytime you like. It’s a great memento of a wonderful dive.

For the more adventurous, there’s a shark dive available with Waikua Diving. The reef near Waikua forms a large underwater peninsula that extends about two miles out into the ocean. The depth on top of the peninsula is about 70’, and on either side down to about 2000’. Sharks love this deep water with fast current. We rode out to the end of the peninsula in a small boat and did a back-roll (my favorite way to get off a boat) into the water. We grabbed the trail line, made our way to the anchor line, and pulled ourselves down to the top of the reef. Just below the anchor point, there’s a small wall about 20’ tall that sheltered us from the current, allowing us to rest comfortably on the bottom. Once we were all situated, the sharks appeared out of nowhere and the dive master started teasing the sharks with a big bucket of food. The bucket had holes in it so that the sharks could smell the food, but not get to it. The sharks circled round and round, within arm’s reach of us, bumping the bucket and challenging the dive master to give up the goodies. After about 20 minutes, there were about 30 sharks circling in front of us. The dive master removed the lid from the bucket and the sharks took over! They swarmed that bucket of food in a feeding frenzy until every last morsel was gone. After the feeding, as if called by their mothers, the sharks simply swam away. We went back up the anchor line, got back on the boat and headed back to shore. Just like the dive at Mary’s Place, there was a videographer in the water with us. My video of the shark dive is also at SDI for you to watch.

If the boat dives aren’t enough for you, there’s an excellent shore dive available from the resort. Just tell the folks in the dive shop you want a ride to the gazebo, and they’ll load tanks in a small boat and take you to the opposite end of the resort. Gear up at the gazebo and giant stride into the water. There’s a steel cable that will lead you right to a crashed airplane. After you explore the plane, you can go about ten kicks off the right wing tip to the wreck of an old freighter. She’s sitting upright in about 50 feet of water and she’s covered with lots of soft corals, hermit crabs, and schooling fish. It’s a great site to do the PADI Night Diver course or the Wreck Diver course.

When divers are talking to us about booking dive travel, we often hear, “My spouse doesn’t dive. Is there anything else to do?” Well, at Fantasy Island, there’s plenty to do! There’s a sunset party cruise, shopping in town, motor scooters, and nature trails to hike on. For some non-diving fun in the water, you can catch a ride to Anthony’s Key Resort and take a swim with dolphins. You can be up close and personal with these wonderful mammals. If you don’t want to be in the water, you can have fun on it by renting a jet-ski, small boat, or taking a banana boat ride. For adventure in the air, you can take a plane ride in an open-air three-seat plane. The ride takes about 40 minutes and you’ll get to see the whole island from the air. Maximum altitude for this flight is about 400’, so you don’t have to worry about flying and diving.

After a week in Roatan at Fantasy Island, you won’t want to come home. You’ll have a whole boat load of new friends, and a logbook full of great memories!

Want to go? Southeastern Divers has a trip to Roatan scheduled for July 18-25. The trip costs $1950, which includes airfare, transfer to the resort, all meals, and diving. Join me on this trip and we’ll come home with lots of great tales to tell our friends!

“Sea” you ~ underwater!

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