Undegreed
You're unique...just like everyone else
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2012
- Messages
- 1,066
My wife and I love to snorkel and plan our vacations to places that offer us the best opportunity to do so. After going to Tahiti a couple of years ago we thought we had pretty much ruined ourselves for snorkeling anywhere else. Until we stumbled onto Roatan, Honduras.
We (actually, to include “me” in this reference is way overstated because my wife did everything) were researching a number of different places to go this year and coming up unimpressed with all the options. Curacao, Belize, Bonaire and even Tahiti again just didn’t feel right. Time was running out and we had to commit so we were resigned to settling. As my wife was doing some final research on Bonaire she had the Travel Channel on in the background when the words “snorkeling” and “Roatan” caught her attention. She immediately started her Googling and thus began a snorkeling dream trip.
Roatan is an island off the coast of mainland Honduras that is bounded on the east side by a part of the Great Barrier Reef. We stayed in Sandy Bay at the Tranquil Seas. This particular part of the island is not completely Americanized with tourism which, for us, was perfect. The food is awesome, the locals are simply wonderful people and the snorkeling is amazing. We saw a lot of typical tropical fish as well as some non-typical…at least for us. Lionfish, blue nosed trumpet fish, squid, and a toadfish (during a night snorkel) to name a few.
We paid a guide to take us out to the ocean side of the reef – up until then we had snorkeled from shore/kayak on the island side of the reef. The guide took us to “Four Sponges” and “Blue Channel” and the experience was difficult to put into words. The best I can explain is that it was like swimming in an aquarium. The fish were everywhere. I blew through my camera’s battery in an hour from the constant photos and videos. The sad part is that the depth of water/fish was +/- 10’ and deeper so I had to dive to get good pictures. I don’t mind diving but I neglecting to reset my white balance on my camera so all the colors at the top end of the spectrum were filtered out of my pictures. It was so very disappointing.
If you enjoy snorkeling, or diving for that matter, you should check out Roatan.
We (actually, to include “me” in this reference is way overstated because my wife did everything) were researching a number of different places to go this year and coming up unimpressed with all the options. Curacao, Belize, Bonaire and even Tahiti again just didn’t feel right. Time was running out and we had to commit so we were resigned to settling. As my wife was doing some final research on Bonaire she had the Travel Channel on in the background when the words “snorkeling” and “Roatan” caught her attention. She immediately started her Googling and thus began a snorkeling dream trip.
Roatan is an island off the coast of mainland Honduras that is bounded on the east side by a part of the Great Barrier Reef. We stayed in Sandy Bay at the Tranquil Seas. This particular part of the island is not completely Americanized with tourism which, for us, was perfect. The food is awesome, the locals are simply wonderful people and the snorkeling is amazing. We saw a lot of typical tropical fish as well as some non-typical…at least for us. Lionfish, blue nosed trumpet fish, squid, and a toadfish (during a night snorkel) to name a few.
We paid a guide to take us out to the ocean side of the reef – up until then we had snorkeled from shore/kayak on the island side of the reef. The guide took us to “Four Sponges” and “Blue Channel” and the experience was difficult to put into words. The best I can explain is that it was like swimming in an aquarium. The fish were everywhere. I blew through my camera’s battery in an hour from the constant photos and videos. The sad part is that the depth of water/fish was +/- 10’ and deeper so I had to dive to get good pictures. I don’t mind diving but I neglecting to reset my white balance on my camera so all the colors at the top end of the spectrum were filtered out of my pictures. It was so very disappointing.
If you enjoy snorkeling, or diving for that matter, you should check out Roatan.
