Rob and Anna's travel adventure

Roatan Island, Honduras - UPDATED with photos

Anna´s entry

Today is December 31st 2005, the New Year Eve. We finished up our 2005 year by taking a dive to the coral reef... We have been on the Roatan Island for 2 weeks now.

Roatan Island is about 50 km off the coast of Honduras. The island is surrounded by over 100 km of living coral reef, and it is THE place to scuba dive and snorkel. Our main purpose going there was to get our certification for open water scuba diving. We signed up for training with a local dive shop run by a British couple who have been diving themselves for 30 years - they moved here from Great Britain about 7 years ago, and stayed on the island permanently. Our scuba training has a few set-backs. The first week, the island was hit by a puring rain - reminiscence of the passing-by tropical storm, and the water visibility was nonexistent. Then, during the 2nd week, in the middle of my training, we all got concerned about me diving with my former retianl detachment eye condition, and it took a few days to complete the research and get the doctor permission for submersion at 60 feet. Then, once I was back on track, Rob picked up a horrible flu bug, and some people even were wondering if that could have been malaria... Finally, both Rob and I ere back in training, and finalized all our tests, and training dives. We got certified right before the New Year!

Coral reef is beautiful here! A lot better than in Belize - it seems less damaged, and a water clarity is up to 30 meters - 90 feet. The colors of the underwater corral are absolutely incredible - purple, burgundy, green, lilac, etc. We have taken 5 dives this week, and saw eagle ray, sea turtles - so cute! - green moray eel, and of course an abundance of various tropical fish and gorgeous reef landscape. It makes such a difference to be underwater - fish don{t seem to be afraid of you, accepting you as one of their own, they swim with you for a long time and let you observe their sea world. Scuba diving turned out to be such a wonderful rewarding experience, even though in my first day of training I was a little apprehensive - but this is a story for another day.

I feel a little sad leaving the island... The natural beauty of the island is amazing - turquoise blue waters, fine white sand, palm trees, exotic tropical plants, sail boats on the horizon - all of that combined with a laid back pace makes it so peaceful here... But it{s time to move on. We are heading back to mainland on Monday January 2nd. We would like to make it to Nicaragua by early next week. But before we reach the border, we will plan on making a stop in La Ceiba and Tegucigalpa - the capitol of Honduras. We will need to get adjusted back to the city pace - after 2 weeks on the island, we start forgetting what the REAL world is like...


Other links for Roatan -

http://www.vsamp.com/photos/CentralAmerica/CentralAmerica-Images/10.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/4/4593730_4c92b9f094_m.jpg

http://www.audubon.org/market/no/trips/Belize_Guatemala_Honduras/images/Roatan_beach.jpg

http://www.hondurascoco.com/mes%20photos/TOFS%20DOM/hogfish.jpg

http://www.roatanislandvacationrentals.com/images/diver.jpg

http://coralsphere.com/roatan1.jpg

http://ht-mp.com/roatanisland/spectacularfish.jpg

http://www.andersontravel.com/jpgs/roatan_island_honduras.jpg

posted by Rob and Anna @ 6:12 PM