Bay Island Beach Resort Snorkeling report

[rsmith55]

I just got back from a cruise on the Carnival Paradise to Roatan and I thought I'd share this report with prospective adventurous snorkelers. To try and avoid the cruise crowds, my wife and I made a reservation with the people from Bay Island Beach Resort to do a "boat snorkel". They picked us up just outside the gates at the ship terminal as expected on time (about 7:30 Roatan time) and gave us a ride in an air condit. minibus to the resort. It was only a ten min ride. I found the resort to be low keyed and very friendly and nice. It was extremely uncrowded and quiet there. Look for the big red parrot that lives in the tree outside the dive shop. We had a small wait until the boat was ready but I actually enjoyed that time to walk the beach and nose around. The beach was long, curvey, tropical, and with a tan colored sand. You could see a ray and bonefish swimming in the shallow water near the shore. I had considered snorkeling without a boat, directly from the beach and I'm glad I didn't because the water near shore was very shallow (read unsnorkelable) and in deeper water I found it to be murkey around "spookey channel". So the boat worked best. They took us down to the anthony cay area and out to the deeper water where we jumped in and snorkeled about two miles up the reef. It was great!!! The water there was pretty deep (about 50 ft or so) but the reef reaches up to within about 8 ft of the surface. So we snorkeled along the edge where the incredible reef drops off into much deeper water. We passed over numerous "canyons" were the reef splits and you can see the sand way below. It was quite an experience. The reef seemed to me to be in great shape, with a tremendous variety of corals. Didn't see too many fish but it was mid day and they might have been hiding from the sun. After this they took us up to Spookey channel at my request where we found out why it is named "spookey". As I said the water was murkey there but the guy told us it had been raining previously and that caused it to be murkey. Then we had a nice lunch at the resort. All in all it was not exactly what I expected but a great experience. The nice people from BIBR then took us back to the ship in plenty of time. (we were due back at the ship at 1:30 and did make it with time to spare.) This trip worked for us. Hope this helps anyone going to Roatan.