August 2012    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 27, No. 8   What's this?

Mayan Princess, Roatan, Honduras

Disney-like digs and aquarium-like diving

from the August, 2012 issue of Undercurrent  

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Dear Fellow Diver:

The last time I went to Roatan's beloved CoCoView Resort, I became intrigued by the proverbial "other side of the mountain," where I discovered the town of West End, a sleepy, hot, mysterious admixture of folk art, vegetables sold off pickup trucks, dive shops, dirt roads and a beautiful beach. When my local dive shop advertised a trip to the Mayan Princess on Roatan's West Bay Beach, a couple miles and a world away from the town of West End, I jumped. While preferring more rustic, diveronly retreats like Pirate's Point on Little Cayman, I was intrigued by the Disney World façade, a splendor unknown to these parts -- and a very good price -- though little did I know that the kitchen would fail to escape certain Third World qualities.

Just past the entry portico of the all-inclusive Mayan Princess, a 240-foot-long pool undulated around tiny landscaped islands draped in waterfalls and inhabited by iguanas. Comfy chairs and umbrella tables flanked its terrace. Here and there were four-poster, gauze-draped poolside beds that I've typically seen at five-star hotels. Manicured red- and yellow-flowering shrubs lined the courtyard's walkway. However, I came to dive, and frankly, the place offered as good a sampling of marine life as one can expect in the Caribbean these days. Being a photographer, I was relieved when my assigned buddy said with a wink, "As long as I can see your bubbles, we'll be OK."

Surfacing after 66 minutes for a first dive in the 79-degree water, I had swum with the usual Caribbean suspects, though not in great numbers: grunts, hamlet, parrotfish, butterfly fish, schoolmasters, a gang of Caribbean lobsters, snapper, a juvenile spotted drum and iridescent azure vase sponges. With water that ranged from 75- to 100-foot visibility, I came upon a cluster of juvenile sunshinefish with gold upper bodies and purple lower halves. Spotting a rare solitary gorgonian hydroid -- resembling a tiny, white, carnivorous sundew plant -- satisfied my "when in Roatan, look for macro" quest within the first 30 minutes. Here, in the protected Roatan Marine Park, I saw a toothy tiger grouper and a yellowfin grouper on the first dive. On my second dive that morning, I spotted my first lionfish of the trip....