Top Roatan Dive Sites

At Blue Island Divers, we have over a dozen dive sites within only 3-5 minutes by boat from our dive center. Expand that radius to 10 minutes, and we have well over 50. Thanks to Roatan Marine Park, the reef along Roatan is ultra-accessible to dive boats, with permanent and reef-safe mooring buoys located approximately every 200 yards. The wide variety of dive site moorings in Roatan enables you to start your dive inside the reef wall in shallow shelf reef areas, along descending walls, near cavern and canyon formations, along deep channels, and more.

Choosing the Best Dive Sites in Roatan

We usually select our dive sites for the day as we leave the dock, with an eye for the optimal diving conditions based on the day's current, visibility, and weather conditions. We do also take into account diver requests, although this is not a guarantee. If you let us know when you purchase your package that there are a few sites you'd like to see, or what kind of dives you typically enjoy, we will do our best to work your preferences into our weekly schedule. If you only have a few days and there is a site or two you definitely want to see, we recommend you book a private dive trip and let us build the perfect dive day for you!

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Roatan Reef Favorites

While it's impossible to name them all, here are a few of our favorite sites, all right at our doorstep.

Mora CHannel/Mora Wall

Mora Wall is home to our house reef. Mora Channel is divided by two beautiful, decorated walls that house vibrant and varied corals, abundant macro life, schools of both juvenile and mature fishes, as well as interesting topography. This is one of the best dives you may do on Roatan. Whether you are a new open water diver or a more experienced diver, everyone loves this site. There are several canyons and swim throughs with common species being snappers, different types of groupers, parrot fish, eagle rays and elusive nurse shark.

“The Odyssey” Shipwreck

This 300 foot cargo ship lays just in our front yard sitting in the sand at 110 feet. Its stern reaches up to a height of 60 feet and this ship lists to its starboard side. You will descend down onto the wheel house where you can explore inside and out. Outside the stern are marine stairs that connect its various levels and on its handrails live a huge quantity of hydroids that has found this to be the ideal place to grow. The central part of the wreck lays flat at 100 feet in the sand; if you look east into the sand you may be lucky enough to spot a garden of sand eels. While you are exploring the wreck be sure to keep an eye out for the green moray eel that may be hiding out in the numerous holes of the ships walls and deck. The Odyssey was sunk in 2002 to create a base on which the reef could grow and give the diver an opportunity to explore this impressive structure from underwater. The Odyssey houses the encrusted atlantic thorny oyster, great barracuda, grouper and the blue parrotfish just to name a few.

Bear’s Den

This is an impressive site with various levels and deep crevices for a diver to explore. A diver’s excitement starts from the moment they enter the water by discovering a beautiful swim through located just below where the buoy attaches to the reef. If you drop down into the sandy crevice at 40 feet and follow it out to the reef wall, the swim through exits at a depth of 60 feet with a sheer descent below. The wall continues down to over 100 feet where it meets a sandy bottom. Following the wall to the east you will see a large coral outcropping laying at 80 feet along with magnificent examples of Leaf Coral throughout. While heading west of the buoy, a diver finds more of an open layout at 50 feet with sand patches and examples coral colonies. In the shallow areas of this site there are a variety of caverns that are quite reminiscent of where a bear might actually sleep, with one cavern, “Bear’s Den” being our favorite.

Keyhole

Characteristic of channels you’ll find on Roatan where lagoon water mixes with the ocean and where tides have eroded deep channels into the reef, Keyhole offers an impressive display of topography with ample wall space and overhangs to explore. The reef will guide you into the channel that gradually descends to a depth of 100 feet with impressive walls on either side of you that reach all the way up, breaking the surface. For advanced divers there is a swim through in the channel at 90-100 feet and for everyone there is a set of 3 swim throughs at 50 feet and 30 feet. Once through the the channel, near the buoy, the channel widens and opens to the reef where you can find a variety of soft corals and an abundance of marine life.

Four Sponges

This is a well rounded dive site made up of distinct levels that give a diver the opportunity to observe a variety of marine life. The buoy here lies at a depth of 45 feet. After descending 10 feet, there is a small wall that descends subtly to a 30 foot plateau; here you can find open areas with a bottom composition of sand and rubble. Go just a little further and you can descend to 50 feet where it then drops more dramatically to 90 feet and meets hard ground. A gradual descent from here leads you down to a nearly flat sandy bottom at 120 feet. Throughout each level be on the lookout for giant barrel sponge, variety of whips and plumes, scorpionfish, schools of blue tang, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles and a sand patch where a massive concentration of yellow jawfish can oftentimes be seen.

Other Local Favorites

Wicked Pissah, Spencer’s Rose Garden, B’s Deep, Double D, Captain Ron’s Hideaway, Cindy’s Surprise, Jaeger Bomi, Rockies Reef, Queen Angel, Hideaway, Melissa’s Reef, Front Porch, Spooky Channel, Wrasse Hole, Chaz’s Choice, Magic Bobby, Canyonlands, El Aguila.

2 Tank Dive Favorites

Depending on schedule, weather and visibility conditions, we sometimes plan 2-tank outings for our divers, enabling us to visit dive sites which are further away from our part of Roatan reef. On a 2-tank dive, you can expect a transport time of 20-40 minutes, and you’ll do your surface interval on the boat.
Favorite 2-tank dive sites include Garden of Eden, Dolphin Den, Rockstar, Butcher’s Bank, Blue Channel, Hole in the Wall, Overheat, and more. Just Ask!