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Roatan is a small narrow island off the north shore of Honduras in the Caribbean Sea. We had to cancel a booking to go there some years ago when Kate's work took her to Australia. We wanted to go here as we heard through several friends that there was great snorkeling right off the beaches. This year we rebooked a last minute flight on Air Transat from Toronto to a week long all-inclusive at the Media Luna Resort.
The resort is on the south west side of the island about mid way. It's a long shuttle bus ride from the airport. There's a major road running north and south along the island and our resort was a good distance off the main road on a rough narrow lane that was quite steep -- an adventure in itself. I understand that most resorts are down on the south west corner of the island in an area called the West End where there are good sheltered sandy beaches. Our resort was quite isolated with rocky outcrops and not much of a beach. The isolation was fine and the swimming was fine as well -- the coral reef was only a very short distance off shore. But you're on the wind ward side of the island and can have some very windy days.
We had a private cabin a good walk away from the main buildings near the diving dock. Most of the rooms were cabins like ours (some were duplex) with bamboo thatched roofs. At one time, when they were first built, that would have been very nice but the bamboo has rotted and the roofs are being maintained on the cheap -- they've removed the rotted bamboo (a great home for bugs and critters) and covered things over with tar paper. Not as pretty but effective for a while. The day of our arrival was quite cool and there was no heat at all in our room. There's air conditioners that are supposed to generate some heat but they didn't work very well. I got the impression that this had been a 4 or 5 star resort that was sliding down the point scale.
Nevertheless we got what we came for. We took a couple of boat trips to go diving. Lots of visitors come to do scuba diving with air tanks and so on. Some even come to get their scuba certification. We're just keen to do some snorkeling over easy access reefs that haven't been pummeled by too many tourists. We were really pissed to see a fellow standing on the coral in our bay -- that soft coral takes years to grow!
One day we went south with a crew of divers to Big French Key with the Fantasy Island Resort nearby. On the way there and back we made several stops to snorkel while others dove deeper with their scuba tanks. Another day we took a long boat ride north to Pigeon Cay Beach (a very small island in the middle of the ocean) where we had a beach lobster BBQ. Other days we snorkeled in the waters around the resort. The reef off our bay and the diver's dock is quite accessible with steep drops and great formations. Some days it was a little too rough to swim out there -- I don't like to be bouncing against the fragile coral. When you scuba dive I understand the weather isn't so much of an issue.
We saw lots of iguana on the rocks around the resort and especially on the sands of Pigeon Cay in the far north. One fauna I was not so keen about was what ever took a liking to my flesh. In spite of using lots of insect repellent I still ended up with a ton of itchy bites on my legs.
This resort had just one large dining hall and it was not terribly busy -- we were definitely there in the off season. I understand it gets busier at Christmas time. The food was Ok, not very exciting and the wine on tap was awful. A fun trick during meal time was to have my Android phone cast music to the resort's sound system. We'd play the Ramones and other punk music but nobody seemed to notice .... well the guy who was trying to control the sound system probably did!
We've been to all inclusive resorts before and, as Canadians, the inclusive part many are interested in is the alcohol. I've already mentioned the crappy wine, there's more. The single bar by the pool (the dining hall, etc.) wouldn't serve us any alcohol until near noon -- we found that odd. Even odder still, one day they ran out of rum! How can that be?
We met lots of people who were returning to this resort. I suspect there are other places which are better. On the plane back we met a couple who rented a cottage on the West End privately through AirBnB. I don't know if I'd be willing to do that, but if you've been here before and know the lay of the land that might work as well.
Anyways, there's lots of good snorkelling (and diving if you're able) on Roatan. We enjoyed our break from the grey days of early winter. The diving is certainly better than anywhere on the Florida Keys. We've snorkeled off St Lucia but never found any dramatic coral as there is here. We've investigated Belize, which is supposed to have the best diving of any in the Caribbean, but have never been. I'm not sure if we'll go back again, but, if we did, we'd probably stay at a different resort.
