How to choose an environmentally friendly dive center!

At Roatan Divers we are committed to protecting and bettering Roatan so that travelers will continue to see the beauty of our reef and it’s surroundings. We all want a dive holiday we can feel good about. It’s easy to achieve this when staying and diving at resorts and dive centers whose policies and infrastructure are designed to be as low impact as possible to help the local marine life thrive in their natural habitats.

Here are some of the things we do to try and make a difference!

1. We have recently taken another step to cut down on our carbon footprint by switching over to an all digital system. We’ve cut down the amount of paper we use by 80%. And we are working on ways to make it a 100%. Our system is designed to let guests check-in already prior to their arrival. Therefor when they arrive they don’t have to spend any extra time filling in all those forms. Which also means once they are signed in they never have to do it again and we can always reflect back on their previous visit to ensure they don’t do the same dives again, UNLESS they request it! We can also track their every dive digitally and have a log of their dives available to email to them if they forgot their logbooks at home. BAZINGA!

The system interface allows our instructors to look at the day’s schedule from home while sipping on their morning coffee. So they are 100% ready to give you the best service you so very well deserve!

2. Roatan Divers is also the only dive center in West End that is 100% AWARE. As a 100% AWARE operation, we pass the benefits on to you!

Roatan Divers and Roatan Divers Sandy Bay make a monthly donation to support Project AWARE’s worldwide conservation efforts. As such, all of our PADI certifications are processed as Project AWARE certification cards, so you get to have an exclusive card background with a shark or manta that identifies you as a supporter of Project AWARE, at no extra cost to you! Of course, if you’d still like to make an additional donation to Project AWARE, we encourage you to do so.

3. We always tell our divers to support the Roatan Marine Park and their efforts by buying a yearly bracelet. This year sports the nice bright Dutch Orange color. Do you already have yours?

Our briefings always include environmentally friendly dive practices. Making sure everyone knows that touching the reef or any creature on it is strictly prohibited in the Roatan Marine Park. As the saying goes: Take only pictures and leave only bubbles.

4. We try and make our divers aware of different types of sunscreen i.e. not all sunscreen is safe to use on the reef. Pick a sunscreen that contains a physical barrier against UV rays, like zinc oxide or titanium oxide, rather than a chemical barrier. To take even better care of your body, find a sunscreen that also contains natural oils, many of which contain their own SPF values. Support your community by buying locally sourced and made products - on Roatan, a very good option is Aegis Sol-Screen, which boasts an SPF of 30. The safest and best way to protect yourself against the harmful rays in the sun is to cover yourself and wear a hat. You definitely do not need to lather yourself in sunscreen right before you go diving.

5. We do not support any excursion that has marine animals in captivity or where wild animals are being fed. When our divers inquire about any of these, we explain to them the harsh truth of what animals in captivity have to endure. And feeding wild life has proven through time to be bad for the animal and often times detrimental for humans, because these animals grow accustomed to being fed and start associating any human as a source of food and can become aggressive when they do not get fed.

6. We encourage our divers to eat responsibly. Just because you want to eat something doesn’t mean you should. Before you visit anywhere, you should research what’s green-listed and what’s red-listed on the menu. Figure out what’s caught sustainably, and more importantly, legally! Green-listed seafood on Roatan include locally caught lionfish, tuna, wahoo and mahi-mahi, while yellow- and red-listed items include lobster, conch, grouper, snapper, and definitely shark and turtle. Worldwide, shrimp is also a red-listed food because of its unsustainable fishing techniques, so as much as we all love coconut shrimp and shrimp scampi, you should try and stick with the sustainable options wherever you are.

7. NO MORE SINGLE USE PLASTICS! We offer to go containers to all our divers that are going to go get takeaway food for lunch or that want to bring their own lunch to the dive center and they can just return them when they are done. We offer free water refills if you have a water bottle. Our drink station also have reusable metal cups and wooden stirring sticks instead of any plastic. We also have stainless steel vacuum insulated Water Bottles for sale to those who do not have their own.

8. We are actively involved in the Coral restoration project which is dedicated to conserving and restoring threatened coral species. The coral nurseries are stocked with coral fragments from multiple genotypes of Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) and Staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis). The coral fragments are “hung,” or attached, to the trees, we stock the trees with either “fragments of opportunity,” loose coral fragments that have broken off Elkhorn or Staghorn colonies, or from end-tip clippings of less than 10% of the coral tissue of a healthy colony.

9. We are proud ambassadors of Roatan Animal Support and Roatan Operation Animal Rescue! We encourage our divers to support these amazing groups that work tirelessly to not only save & protect and control the populations of stray animals on Roatan.

10. We incorporate the Roatan Marine Park Lionfish licence to be part of the Invasive Lionfish Control Program and the Coral Aware course as part of our Eco Divemaster program to make sure the future dive professional from Roatan Divers are ready to help fight the fight to conserve and protect!

“All dive shops are not equal. For some, cheap and cheerful diving is the bottom line; others go that extra mile to ensure their operations have a minimal impact on the reef. If divers want this to be the norm, we’ve got to show demand for sustainable, eco-conscious businesses by choosing operators that raise awareness for ocean conservation through both their actions and words.” Scuba Diver Life Blogger - Samantha Craven

Roatan Marine Park Coral Reef Restoration Program

Since July 2019, Roatan Divers has proudly been part of the Roatan Marine Park’s Coral Reef Restoration Program, supported by the Mesoamerican Reef Fund (MAR Fund).

The Roatan Marine Park has set up a coral fragment nursery at Seaquest Deep dive site. Roatan Divers, along with five other dive centers, have taken on the responsibility of taking care of the elkhorn and staghorn fragments that have been placed on “trees” in the nursery to ensure they grow to the best of their abilities. Encouraging coral growth through controlled fragmenting is an important way to boost hard coral population, and we’re so excited to be part of this project! As of October, there have been 16 trees planted, so this project is chugging along swimmingly.

Before any in-water work, we got in-depth and incredibly informative briefings about coral and their growth behavior. Armed with this information, we have worked extensively in-water with the coral fragment trees, making sure the tree structures and coral are kept clean, and keeping an eye out on the coral’s progress.

Armed and ready…to clean the reef!

While we have really enjoyed working on this project, it turns out our guests do, too! We’ve had so many guests volunteer for cleaning dives and take part in our Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation specialty course so that they can learn more about the work we’re doing and put their knowledge to practical use. We love that we can offer a hands-on course to benefit the Roatan Marine Park’s conservation efforts and are looking forward to the nursery’s continued progress.

Interested in helping out? Donate to the Roatan Marine Park so that they can continue to grow the Coral Reef Restoration program. Future plans include expanding the Seaquest Deep nursery and finding other locations around the island for more nurseries, as well as creating a Roatan Marine Park Coral Reef Restoration specialty course.

If you’re interested in learning more about coral reef restoration on Roatan, join us for our Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation specialty course and get practical, hands-on experience! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so it’s not one to miss.

A Change in Ownership

To our RD family,

After six years of creating and nurturing Roatan Divers, we have decided to step down as the owners and hand the reins to someone new. It has been an extraordinary journey, going from a small operation working off a water taxi for those two times a month we had customers, to a two-operation, 4-boat, 19-member strong crew. There have been many tears, many profanities, and most importantly, many laughs and an infinite amount of love. We could not have gotten to where we are without our amazing guests and our incomparable team, and we are deeply grateful to the last six years we had with you and feel we have a few thank you’s in order.

While our feelings of leaving are bittersweet because of how much of ourselves we have poured into Roatan Divers and how deeply proud we are of what Roatan Divers has accomplished, we are profoundly happy to hand the reins over to Irma and Martijn, two of our best friends and our former partners from Tobri Divers. We know that, in their care, Roatan Divers will continue its proud tradition of unparalleled service with a smile, and are excited to watch the new heights to which they can take RD. So the first ‘thank you’ must go to you, Irma and Martijn. Thank you for loving RD, for taking on not only the staff (rowdy bunch that they are), but for also keeping shop cat Singha and Captain Jesus in the RD family as well. It’s a monumental task that you are undertaking, and you guys are going to be great. We love you both and are so excited for your future with RD!

Team RD on our last shop event together

To our Head Captain, Victor: The one who started it all. It has been an honor to watch you grow over the last six years, and we can genuinely say that RD would not be RD without you. It’s hard to truly put into words how much our hearts burst with pride to see what a responsible leader you have grown into. You are one of the biggest reasons that we have loved Roatan, and we hope you know what great things you are capable of.
To Kevin, Cristian and Noe: Our sweet, hardworking captain team. We can always count on you, whether it be to fearlessly lift people out of the water or for a laugh. You all eat far too many baleadas, but by god if you don’t earn every bite! Stay kind, stay smart, stay on the straight and narrow - you are some of the best that Roatan has to offer and we hope you don’t change.
To Peter and Ann: Thank you for sticking with us through the high stress, slow business and little pay. You stayed with us because you believed in us and believed in Roatan Divers, and we are forever grateful that you stuck it out with us when the best we could do was barely cover your bar bills. You guys are amazing and we are so deeply grateful for everything you did for us.
To our all instructors, past and present: Hot damn! It’s because of all of you that Roatan Divers is where it’s at. The hours you put in with a smile, the many times you fought through colds, body aches (some self-induced by football), and tears - you are absolute champions. We love you all deeply and will (occasionally) miss you peppering us with inane questions that you could easily look up yourself. You guys are the best of the best, and don’t you ever forget it. We know we will see you all in the future, wherever we are in the world.
To our managers, Russ and Natalia: Thank you for everything you’ve done for and with us. It has been a privilege watching you both work and grow with the company, and we have never doubted that you love RD as much as we do. We are so proud of your representation of our company and know you have bright futures in whatever you choose to pursue.
To Singha: we (Saaya, specifically) love you so much. We know you’re in good hands with Irma and Martijn and we hope you know that we’ll miss you the most out of the everyone. You deserve everything good in this world.
To Jesus: (Excuse our poor Spanish, this is Google translated) Gracias por todo. Trabajas muy duro y mereces todo lo maravilloso que pueda suceder en la vida. Has criado a un hijo increíble y debes estar orgulloso de todo lo que has logrado.
To the RD fleet: Is it weird to thank our boats? We’ll do it anyways. Over the last six years we’ve had Manami, Ran, Freya, Saga and Atla, and you kept us safe through any weather and looked cool doing it. We will miss the roars of your engines as you take off, and know there will never be a greater fleet on Roatan than that of RD. Thank you to our intrepid boat builders, Lionel Arch’s and Darcy Martinez’s crew, for building an extraordinary, strong fleet. We’re looking forward to seeing your future builds with RD!
To Ginger’s Caribbean Grill: Thank you for keeping us broke, fat and happy. You guys have been the best neighbors ever, we cannot believe how lucky we were to find you! Thank you for making Roatan a more delicious place, you guys are so wonderful and we love you.
To The Beach House: Chuck and Karyn, you guys are class acts. Roatan is a better place because you are here. We hope you never change and that the incredible bond that RD + BH share is never broken. You’ll never quite know how much you mean to us because words will never do it justice.
To Blue Bahia Resort and Beach Grill: Thank you for welcoming us so openly into the Blue Bahia family! Opening up Roatan Divers Sandy Bay with you has been a delight, and we are excited to watch our relationship continue to blossom, even from a distance.
To Xbalanque Resort: It has been a fantastic experience working with you. Thank you for believing in us and our ability to make your guests happy, and we look forward to a continuing long and fruitful relationship with you.
To Kendall and Wikkid Divers: Thank you for being incredible partners. You make rainy season way more fun! We are deeply grateful for our south side partnership and think you’ve been an amazing addition to Roatan Divers and to the island.
To The Mares Store: Sergio, Tiffany, G and co. - you guys are amazing! Thank you for your continued support and unbelievable customer service over the years. We have been proud to be partnered with Mares for the last six years and would not have changed our equipment experience for anything.
To the Roatan Marine Park: You guys do not have an easy job. Thank you for the immense amount of work that you’ve put into conserving Roatan’s incredible reef. From the shop staff to the rangers, you are part of what makes Roatan great, and we hope that support for you continues to grow.
To Go Blue Bay Islands: Thank you for your hard work to make Roatan a better place. Manlio, you work so hard and often for very little reward, but we hope you know how important you have been to Roatan Divers and to the community.
To our drivers: Julio and Luis in particular, thank you. You’re the first faces that our cruise ship guests see when they get off the boat and their first interaction with Roatan and with Roatan Divers. Thank you for greeting everyone with a smile and for your reliability and kindness.
To everyone who has supported us through the years: It takes a village, and we’ve certainly worked with some fantastic operators and vendors in the last six years here! Thank you for your hard work, cooperation and for making our time here fantastic. We have enjoyed every minute we’ve collaborated with you.
And finally, to our guests: Thank you for loving RD. Thank you for your support over the years, for knowing that we were great even when we were still working off a water taxi, and for your enthusiasm for everything we endeavor! We’ve had the great fortune of meeting so many amazing people over the years, and cannot believe our luck at how lovely everyone was. You guys made the long days and the sleepless nights all worthwhile, and we hope you support and believe in Irma and Martijn like you believed in us. Thank you for making our Roatan experience one for the books and for helping our dreams come true.

And to all you young ones out there with ambitious dreams, don’t be afraid go for it! There’s no limit to what you can accomplish when you have a strong vision and put the hours in.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all. We’ll see you all somewhere in the world.

Saaya & Karl