Native Sons: Messages

Morat Wall is one of the most exciting dives in the Bay Islands. The 3 miles long offshore reef offers great drift diving. Due to its far distance from settlements and most dive operators this site has a healthy collection of large sponges, almost pristine communities of elkhorn and staghorn corals, as well as large outcrops of star, brain and plate corals. The vertical wall is broken by numerous sand chutes and covered with large barrel, vase and rope sponges. Black coral dominate the depths. There is also a good chance to see large pelagic like nurse sharks, eagle rays, barracudas, tarpon and tuna.

Mary's Place is Roatan's most famous site and it is stunning. There is a canyon formed when a peninsula of the wall cracked away from the main wall. You swim into the canyon at 90ft, passing beautiful fan corals, entrances to other canyons, and come out at 120ft where a sand chute drops away into the deep blue. Swimming back around the peninsula you will pass some of the best coral on Roatan and look out for seahorses. They are commonly found here. You can then swim over the canyon, at about 30ft and take a good look at all the fans of beautiful coral growing around the top.

The stunning Prince Albert Wreck was an island freighter that sank in Roatan in 1987 and has been under water long enough for an amazing amount of coral to have grown on her. Every part is covered with a great variety of soft and hard coral and lots of fish have made it their home. The wreck is 140ft long and lies on a sloping shallow sand patch from 40 – 70ft in depth. If you visit in the summer you can sometimes find schools of silversides inside her. Close by is the wreck of a DC3 airplane.

The Aguilar Wreck was sunk intentionally by Anthony's Key Resort in 1997, broken into 3 by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and further rearranged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The 210ft cargo ship sits on the sand at 110ft and is a great dive. As you go down you are met by huge friendly groupers and blue parrot fish. There is a resident eel and some wonderful coral has grown on the ship. Don't forget to check out the garden eels covering the deep sand as far as you can see. We usually do this dive as a drift, starting at the wreck and then decompressing in the shallows and gradually making our way to Pillar Coral, to the west. For some reason there is an area between these two sites where there are so many fish, Bermuda Chubb, black durgons, groupers, schoolmasters, all hanging out at the top of the wall. What a great place to do a safety stop!

The Odyssey Wreck is the largest wreck on Roatan, a 300ft long cargo ship that was intentionally sunk in 2002. It lies on a sand patch at 110ft and has been a little rearranged by some storms. The stern is almost upright and stands 85ft high. The cargo hold has collapsed and the bow lies on her side but the size of this wreck is truly stunning and the coral has started to grow all over her. There is some nice shallow reef nearby where we decompress.