Underwater Photos of Roatan, Honduras
View this blog entry in Google EarthLatitude: 16° 20' 58.28" N, Longitude: 86° 32' 51.08" W, Coord: 16.349525°, -86.547525°
Filed under: Photo of the Day on 5/14/2007
Some years ago I spent two weeks diving on the Honduran island of Roatan with some friends, checking out the corals and walls and just relaxing. The diving was pretty tame, with not much going on underwater. The place was nice for Caribbean corals, with lots of healthy displays of elkhorn and staghorn corals and some big barrel sponges. But the reef fish were totally cleaned out — it was damn near impossible to find an adult grouper, and I don’t think we saw a single shark during the entire two weeks. Unfortunately, grouper was the #1 item on the menu at the place we stayed as well as at all the restaurants we visited, so the paucity of fish life had an obvious explanation. The big attraction at one of the island resorts was a dolphin “encounter”, where people pay to swim in a shallow pen with some captive dolphins. Can you spell w-r-o-n-g in Honduran? It was screwed up in so many ways. It’s too bad, Roatan would be a pleasant place for a dive trip if the fish were still there and the dolphins weren’t caged.
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| Elkhorn coral. Roatan, Honduras. Image: 05563 Species: Acropora palmata Location: Roatan, Honduras  View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Elkhorn coral. Roatan, Honduras. Image: 18502 Species: Acropora palmata Location: Roatan, Honduras View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Pillar coral. Roatan, Honduras. Image: 18503 Species: Dendrogyra cylindrus Location: Roatan, Honduras View this Image in Google Earth! |
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| Pillar coral. Roatan, Honduras. Image: 18504 Species: Dendrogyra cylindrus Location: Roatan, Honduras View this Image in Google Earth! |
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Updated: May 22, 2013
You are not kidding! Iam going to Roatan next month for snorkeling. Will I see any fish? Where did you take these awesome photos and with what camera? Where did you not see any fish? Any suggestions for snorkeling sites?
Comment by marcia — 2/2/2010 @ 6:09 pm
I stayed at Anthony’s Key Resort, but we dove at a variety of locations around the island. None of the spots we dove had much in the way of fish. The sponges were huge and abundant, and some nice pillar and elkhorn coral. But little in the way of fish, a real disappointment. And the ridiculous caged dolphin “experience”: seeing people participating in that left a bad taste in my mouth. I won’t ever return to Roatan.
Comment by Phil — 2/2/2010 @ 7:32 pm