We boarded our Islena Airlines flight from Tegucigalpa to La Ceiba, which was an SD3-60. We had never seen a plane like this; it was a turboprop, but square rather than rounded. It looked like a flying mail truck. It was old too, which made us a bit uneasy, but it got us there. In La Ceiba we boarded a second flying mail truck to Roatan, an island about 70 to 80 miles from the mainland.
We hopped in a taxi and were off to Cocolobo resort. It was evening now, and dark, so we couldn’t see much. We were dropped off at the resort, which is just outside of the town of West End. There were no lights on and no one to be found. A few minutes later someone asked us to wait just a minute, in Spanish and using hand signals. Soon afterward someone came to show us to our room. It was nice, with a huge balcony right over the beach.
We walked into town down a poorly lit path to find some food. It was the start of the slow season, so there weren’t many people out, which was probably a good thing. We talked about finding another place to stay, someplace in town where there would be other people. Andrew had been there 3 or 4 years prior and stayed at the Hotel Dolphin. We stopped by to see if they had a room available. We were in luck: $35 a night with air conditioning! It was a pretty basic place, but at least we wouldn’t feel so isolated. We were back at the resort at about 8pm. The only light on in the whole place was in our room. The pool was empty, the bar closed, and no services of any kind. That was an early night to bed, simply because there was nothing to do. In the morning, we nervously told the resort attendant that we were checking out early, fearing he would make us pay for the 4 other nights we had booked. He was nice about it, and a taxi drove us and our luggage away from the lonesome Cocolobo.
Our first order of business was to book our dive trips for the next 4 days. We went to Ocean Connections, the company Andrew had been diving with before. We set up 2 dives a day for the next 3 days, and one last morning dive on our last full day in Roatan. It’s a nice dive shop, right on the water with its own pier and boats, and a cool crew. As it was low season, it was just the 2 of us, our dive master and multiple instructors on each dive. Diving is really the main attraction to Roatan. It has the second biggest reef in the world, second to the Great Barrier Reef. The dive sights are all within minutes of the shore, too. The visibility was excellent and the colorful coral seemed endless. We forgot the underwater camera on this trip, so there are no underwater photos to share. We did see some great stuff though, such as a big Green Moray Eel, multiple sea turtles, and the really cool Porcupine Fish. It was huge, probably 2 feet long and really fat. They’re cartoony looking things, with short stubby tails, big round bodies and big eyes. They can swallow air to puff up into a ball. They also sharp spines which they can stick out, though this one didn’t puff up or stick out his spines. He was hiding under some coral then swam off quickly, as they’re pretty shy. The coolest dive we did, which was our last one, was called Spooky Channel: so called because the coral is like a maze with a number of tunnels to swim through. The coral bridges above you block some of the light, which creates an eerie, dark blue world with fish gawking at you. Toward the end of the dive, closer to the surface there were tons of giant grouper and barracuda, which weren’t shy at all.
Our first day we fell into a routine, which was such a perfect day, we made every day just the same. We would wake up and have coffee at a little coffee-bar next the dive shop, then walk into the dive shop at about 8am for the first dive of the day. Afterward, head to the internet café, then somewhere for a late breakfast or early lunch, and then back to our room at Hotel Dolphin for a nap. We would be back at the dive shop at about 2pm for our second dive of the day. Afterward, back to the room to get cleaned up to be at Sundowners at 5pm for happy hour. Three or 4 Port Royal beers later, head off to dinner somewhere, and to bed by about 9pm. It couldn’t have been more relaxing.
Big resorts and commercialism haven’t yet arrived on Roatan, and hopefully they won’t. The town of West End has one main sandy road, unpaved, lined with motels, bars, restaurants, markets and dive shops. Just sleepy, tropical island, with amazing diving.
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