After getting scuba certified last year we had a goal of getting out to the ocean to experience the wonders of coral reefs. We did some digging around and found that Roatan Honduras was not only a premier location for diving, but also beginner friendly, and absurdly cheap -especially booking through a scuba specific travel agency like padi travel.

Roatan is a tiny island out in the Caribbean, just off the coast of mainland Honduras. The airport is probably the smallest truly international airport I’ve ever seen. It was surprisingly efficient though, both arriving and leaving. The island itself was absolutely gorgeous, and I don’t think it’s really possible one could design an island to be more of a tropical island paradise.

We stayed at Naboo Resort, which was absolutely phenomenal. They kept the entire resort spotless and beautiful, and the staff were super friendly and helpful. The dive shop had new (or at least new enough to not notice) gear for us to use on our scheduled dives, and the guides and boat captains blew us away with their knowledge of the various dive sites, and knowledge of the local waters in general. The small groups definitely made the diving experience feel more personal as well.

The highlight of the trip for us was the night dive we did. We weren’t able to see much of the String of Pearls unique to Roatan (we saw some, but there was too much light from the sliver of the moon for it to be out in full splendor), but we did experience a lot of bioluminescence from plankton, and it was magical. Someone swimming around looked like they were giving off fairy dust like Disney’s Tinkerbell. We also saw fan coral which expands and spreads out at night and curls back into itself in the presence of light, various sea slugs, a couple of translucent squid, and other fantastic creatures of the reef at night. I didn’t try to take any photos, because it was our first night dive and I didn’t want to bother trying to handle light and camera at the same time.

As usual, we tried all the food we could get our hands on. Our favorites wound up being the empanadas from the Argentinian Grill, the pizza from Bananarama, and Mexican tacos from a place appropriately called Mexican Tacos. The local Honduran beer, Salva Vida, is something I would like to see if I can find available nearby. That said, everything we ate while we were on the island was fantastic.

We will definitely be going back, hopefully sooner rather than later.