Another Snorkel at West Bay Beach on Roatan

The highlight of my 2023 Western Caribbean cruise was the stop on the island of Roatan, Honduras's ultra-popular vacation spot. The beautiful reef off West Bay Beach rewarded me with some of the best snorkeling of the entire trip. When I returned earlier this month on a similar cruise there was no doubt I'd head back to the site for another chance to witness the same underwater beauty.

Rather than rent a car like last year, I opted for the cruise port's $25 package tour that was not only cheaper than a taxi but included a short stop first at West End, a picturesque fishing village on the western side of Roatan. The tour also guaranteed almost two hours at West Bay Beach, my real interest.

However the tour's name was a misnomer, Hop-On Hop-Off, as it was definitely not a flexible mode of transportation, where you had the freedom to get on and get off buses at frequent stops. Instead, passengers were obliged to start the trip in Mahogany Bay at a set time on a specific van and to return on the very same van several hours later.

Eventually the company dropped my group off at the far northern end of West Bay Beach, at Foster's Resort, where there were plenty of beach chaises and cantinas but only a remote proximity to the enchanting reef in my memory. I'd have to walk all the way to the southern end of the beach, at least a half mile away, to enter the water near the reef.

Our tour guide Gato didn't like the idea of me wandering too far out of his sight or of me swimming alone in shallow water over sharp coral outcrops. As a solo travel in a third-world country I appreciated the concern. Ultimately his offer to hire a small boat to take me and two other passengers to the reef was an easy decision for me not so much because of my concern for safety but because it would get me to reef the in the fastest way possible. The boat was ready and waiting, and I really wanted to see some fish!

It seemed like just a few minutes before I hopped over the side of the craft into the turquoise water and was back on the magical reef I snorkeled so easily from the beach just eleven months ago. The visibility was as perfect and the coral as abundant as I remembered. Scores of sergeant majors and chubs were quick to greet me, no doubt used to guides releasing food for the amusement of tourists.

A school containing hundreds of Atlantic blue tangs mesmerized me as they swam in a tight formation deep below me. In a shallower part of the reef, I focused on a lone, bright blue striped fish, a new discovery I'd later identify as an indigo hamlet, a type of sea bass. At least three varieties of parrotfish were in the immediate area: the redlip, princess, and stoplight. Before I left the water later, I encountered a fourth, a redband.

I noticed a third person in the water near me, in addition to the couple from the tour bus. Spitting out my snorkel, I asked him if he were Marco, our skipper. When he replied "Si," I asked, "But who is watching the boat?" It turns out the boat was securely anchored close by and Marco was going to guide us through the reef. Good 'ole Gato, he really thought of everything.

In fact Marco soon pointed out a barracuda lurking motionless in a shadowed canyon below us. But our guide mostly let us meander on our own, when I could hover over shallow portions of the reef spying the most beautiful denizens of the reef like the resplendent array of butterflyfish and angelfish.

After about forty-five minutes in the water, I made my way back to the boat where not only the sergeant majors were still begging but also a stoplight parrotfish, usually a much warier family of fish in my experience. Back aboard, it was only a couple minutes motoring under cloudless blue skies back to the Foster's end of the beach.

Even within a increasingly crowded bevy of cruise-ship passengers, it didn't take long for Gato to find me - he really looked out for his group - to remind me our tour still had almost an hour to enjoy the beach. I wanted nothing more than to get back in the water but the reef was a long walk back down the beach. Gato suggested I snorkel under a nearby pier extending over the water. Possibly an abandoned fishing pier, I didn't have to worry about the busy boat traffic nearby.

The water was murky as I swam to the pier and then heavily shadowed as I swam under it. There were a few fish, mostly yellowtail snappers, schooling close to the underwater pilings. Within those tight groups was an occasional juvenile angelfish, probably of the French variety.

There were some grassy areas where the water was markedly clearer - I've stumbled upon stingrays in similar environments. But on this occasion another kind of luck was in store for me when I discovered a small school of Caribbean reef squid. There were at least four in one formation, each individual camouflaged in the gray-green landscape.

The several minutes I spent by the pier were hardly as thrilling as the ones I passed further down the beach on Roatan's spectacular West Bay reef. But any amount of time spent in the tropical island's sublime water guaranteed a visual reward to anyone looking through goggles.

Back on the ship I could both see and hear from my stateroom the private resort and beach of our port Mahogany Bay. A few snorkelers crisscrossing the mottled, blue and turquoise water along an undeveloped expanse of coastline enticed me to take one last peak at Roatan's vast underwater world. Alas a mid-afternoon nap was beckoning even more loudly until my next visit.