Pictures of Roatán

Roatán is the largest and most popular of the Bay Islands (take a look at the map of Honduras to spot the three Bay Islands, Roatán, Utila and Guanaja). It is about 50 km off the coast of Honduras from La Ceiba. It is surrounded by over 100 km of living reef, making it a paradise for diving and snorkling. Parts of Roatán, especially the West End and West Bay beaches, aer as idyllic as the most tempting tourist brochure, with clear turquoise water, colorful tropical fish, powdery white sand and coconut palms.

The pictures below are all taken in Roatán, on two seperate trips. One with Monica in fall '95, and one with crazy diver Christian Lagier in winter '98. Even though it is quickly getting commercialized, Roatán is still Honduras best answer to the complete holiday paradise. If you're going on a strict diving holiday, Utila is recommendable, since it is smaller, cheaper and has a more cosy community. Pictures of Utila will come later on.

OK, West Bay Beach, the hit beach of Roatán. When we went in '95, we were about ten people sharing a mile of beach and the weather was good. The fish and corals are located right in front of the beach, so if you want to see corals, you put on your mask and walk/swim out there. Very easy.

Those palms behind are coconut palms. The authorities actually warn people from sleeping under the coconut trees, since a number of people have been injured by falling coconuts while doing so. Imagine filling out the insurance claim...

Diving time! Me in a classic superman pose. As you see, the equipment is not oversized, basically you have a wet suit and a tank on you back and that's it. I was surprised on how comfortable it was to dive, it really requires no formal skills except for breathing. Christian Lagier dived for the first time on this trip and he became used to it in no time. He was taking this picture with one of those cheap Kodak-use-once-only-underwater camaras. It could not go below 3 mts., so no deep underwater pictures this time.

Let me tell you one thing: It's a different world down there. Fish in all colors, swimming around everwhere, corals on all colors giving it all the look of a strange underwater forest. It just doesn't look like anything you know. And all 100 km of Raotán coral reef is like that. Amazing.

Well, ain't that Christian Lagier eating trying to eat a king crab? Yes, it is! After having eaten cheap dinners for some days, Christian insisted on dining out. We went to Gio's Restaurent in French Habour, Roatán, and spend a lot of our few money there. But it was nice to be civilized just for a night with a good glass of red wine. Little did we know that thieves were stealing stuff the our rented car outside the restaurent, but that's another story.