Dive Review of
CoCo View in
Honduras/Roatan, Bay Islands

Bahamas, Mexico, Austrailia, Florida, Midwest USA

Dive Conditions

Stay with buddy  

Dedicated tank on boat and shore  

Overall Rating

The diving at this resort is extremely convenient.  There are two walls,
both extending several hundred meters, in opposite directions, directly in
front of the resort.  The accommodations, while not luxurious, are
certainly adequate.  There is no television, and there are no telephones,
or WiFi access, in the individual cabins and rooms.  The air-conditioning
is powerful and reliable.  There is purified water in all the rooms, and
there are small refrigerators.  The food, I found, was better than that
described in previous reviews in this publication.  There was fresh fish,
steak, fresh vegetables, and lobster.  While it is possible to dive five or
six times per day, it is also true that there is only one unique boat dive
in the morning, and one unique boat dive in the afternoon.  The second dive
in the morning and in the afternoon is conducted on one of the two walls
directly in front of the resort.  Having said that, there is excellent
structure, and plenty of small to medium-sized creatures on both walls. 
The visibility on the two walls is surprisingly good, however, this
deteriorates after approximately 50 meters as one approaches the resort
from either end of both of the walls, and the visibility on the wreck,
which is directly in front of the resort, between the two walls, is only
fair. The best strategy on the drop-off dives seemed to be to linger for 20
to 30 minutes on the first 50 meters of the wall, exploring several depths,
and then to spend 10 to 20 minutes on the wreck before taking a safety stop
on the way back to the resort. I would have to say that the wall diving in
front of the resort became rather routine in the last three days of the
week.  It might be best if the dive operation were to offer two unique boat
dives each morning and afternoon on the last two days of the week, and to
skip the nearby walls at that point. I noted that one of the groups was
able to convince the dive master and boat captain to do this. I do not know
if a tip was involved in that decision. The other two dive boats were not
offered this option.  The boats are very convenient and spacious.  There
are plenty of exit and entry points.  Despite the large number of divers,
there was never a problem exiting or entering the boat.  Most of the dive
sites were within a 15 to 20 minute boat ride. The dive storage lockers
were convenient and secure.  This resort is rather isolated from the
mainland, requiring a short boat ride.  This, combined with the distance to
the west end, a 45 minute cab ride, greatly limited the amount of island
sightseeing that was possible, although it certainly increased the security
and privacy of the area. Theft appears to be uncommon, many divers left
computers and regulators out in the open, or in the open and unsecured
storage lockers. I also noted that there were no opportunities to shop for
wine and liquor prior to arriving at the resort.  A savvy traveler would be
well advised to purchase wine or liquor in the United States prior to
departure, and to pack it along, if weight permitted.  The trip from the
airport to the resort is rather rushed, and one cannot count on visiting
any liquor store. The only other option is to purchase all beer, wine, and
liquor at the bar in the resort, which can easily add a hundred dollars to
a dive trip.  For some reason, which no one at the resort, either among the
staff members or the guests, could understand or comprehend, the owner of
the resort made a decision to soak all of the main floor of the dining and
bar area with diesel fuel on Thursday morning of the week we were at the
resort.  This produced a nauseating stench in the entire building for the
next 72 hours, making meals and recreation quite difficult. It was assumed
that this was done to preserve the lumber. It made many of the guests sick.
Although I will probably go to this resort again, I will make a point of
asking, in advance, whether this practice will be repeated during the time
of my intended visit.  There is WiFi, that is free, in the main building. 
We found that it worked well with our Skype software equipped laptops,
allowing telephone calls to the states for two cents per minute, provided
one had a microphone headset for a laptop. There was live entertainment on
two of the seven nights, but, otherwise, the complex was fairly quiet after
8 p.m. in the evening. Divers interested in frequent evening entertainment,
and easy access to town will not be happy here, and actually will find more
entertainment options at the West End on Roatan, or on Utila, a more
compact and easily negotiated island about 15 kilometers away, which offers
a similar quality of diving, and a resort very similar to CoCo View, the
Utila Dive Lodge. 

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