About West End Diver
Welcome to West End Diver! This website was designed as a result of demand for an impartial view of Roatan dive centers and dive sites around the West End and West Bay area.
Throughout this website we hope to provide you with some useful information on the range of dive centers around the area and the main PADI courses they offer, the dive sites within the West End & Sandy Bay Marine Park and some information about the island in general.
There is a seperate section dedicated to the West End of Roatan where you can find useful information on accommodations, restaurants, bars, shopping, transport and internet access.
There are a number of useful websites with information about diving in Roatan - most noteably:
The website www.bayislandsdiver.com also contains some very useful information about Roatan in general, but readers of this website should be aware that the author of the website is a full-time instuctor at one of the West End dive centers (we'll leave you to work out which one after reading the website). As a result, the information about diving operations is "somewhat misleading" to say the least as they obviously have a financial incentive in persuading you that theirs is the best dive center!
A brief introduction to the reefs of Roatan
Roatan is a beautiful island and a geat place to visit. It is particularly good if you are a diver or wanting to learn how to dive. Surrounded by a barrier reef system, it has the advantage over most Caribbean islands in  that the reef is extremely close to shore. This means that there are no long boat journeys and no need to spend the whole day on a boat when diving. This is also its main advantage over its neighbouring island Utila. Divers in Utila are often required to be at the dive center at around 7:30am as most of the dive sites are on the other side of the island from the main town.
Roatan and the Bay Islands are also home to around 90% of all Caribbean reef fish and species. This makes it one of the most bio-diverse places in the Caribbean. Whilst the Caribbean cannnot compete with places like the Red Sea, Asia and the South Pacific in full bio-diversity stakes, it is nevertheless a top destination. At only a 2 hour flight from Miami and 2 1/2 hours from Houston, it is also a breeze to get to from the US (unlike the other places mentioned).
Approximately 3 years ago the dive centers in West End and a number of other likeminded individuals and businesses got together to create the West End & Sandy Bay Marine Reserve. This organisation is  responsible for the protection of the reef system. They do this in a number of ways:
- Patrolling the reef to stop poachers
- Placing mooring bouys at dive sites to stop boats anchoring on the reef
- Educating locals about the importance of the reef to their livelihood and the tourism industry
- Arranging beach cleanup days with the dive centers
- Placing litter bins in various locations to stop garbage being thrown on beaches and ultimately ending up on the reef
Divers and snorkellers who go in the water within the Marine Park boundaries should be required to pay a fee. This fee is either $3 per day or $10 per year, whichever works out cheaper for you. Any dive center who does not charge you this fee is not supporting the Marine Park and hence should be avoided.
More information about the Marine Park can be found on their website, as well as a list of dive centers whom financially contribute to the Marine Park (in addition to supporting the fee system).
So what about us and who are we?
 All of us have been diving for over 8 years (some of us for over 20!). We have a combined total of over 65 years experience between us (no we are not young any more!).
Some of us are divemasters, some instuctors (2 of us are retired PADI Course Directors who have trained over a thousand instuctors between us) and all of us love the nice, easy diving around Roatan! Oh, by the way, all of us have owned or managed dive centers in our time (some of us still do! Big ones! Very big ones!).
Our diving experience ranges from around 1,000 dives to well over 8,000 dives each (who's counting by this point?). One of us was diving with the US Navy before there was even such a thing as "recreational diving". The conditions we have dived in range from artic waters (ice diving), the USA (Florida, California kelp forests etc.), Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia, Europe, the Indian Ocean, the raging currents of the South Pacific, Australia, Egypt and, of course, a few thousand dives on Roatan and other Caribbean islands between us.
It is this combined experience and knowledge that we have put to use on this website to give you an impartial view of the West End diving industry.
We hope you find the information contained within this website useful.
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