Discovering Roatán’s coral reefs with Anthony’s Key Resort

Even though we got our open water certification in Roatán, we didn’t really get to see all that scuba diving in Roatán has to offer (underwater) because our training dives had been limited to just a few dive sites.

A few of the main Canadian charter vacation companies offer affordable all-inclusive Roatan vacation packages with easy, direct flights. We decided to take one in the spring of 2015 with a trip back to Roatan.

While we enjoyed our last trip to Roatán staying at the Media Luna Resort (which offers great shore diving since it’s on the south side of the island), this time we decided to stay at Anthony’s Key Resort. AKR has been around for ever (in scuba years); they helped put scuba diving in Roatan on the map. This place is designed for being in the water… when staying at AKR, you choose either a dive or snorkel package.

AKR has a fleet of 11 dive boats, a hyperbaric chamber on site, numerous rinse tanks, and large equipment lockers right at the dock. Few dive operators run as efficiently or as smoothly as these guys.

Most of the rooms are individual bungalows located on a key (Anthony’s Key) separate from the main island, accessible by a very short water taxi ride. (While this may sound like a hassle, it’s really not, and riding the water taxi is one of my favourite memories from the trip.)

When you arrive at the resort, you’re assigned to your boat for the week. Each boat is on a slightly different rotation of the dive sites so there is never more than one group at a dive site. This way you get to know your dive master and captain, as well as the other guests you’ll be diving with.

Three or four dives per day

AKR offers 3 dives a day (2 morning and 1 afternoon) and 2 night dives per week. Unlimited shore diving is also offered off the key at the Front Porch dive site (which could be an extra afternoon dive or a night dive… or both). We did 4 dives a day on most days, and the shore dive site was one of the most memorable ones. The Front Porch shore dive site really comes to life at night when the small animal life comes out (octopus, crabs, swimming flaming scallops

Highlights from our scuba diving in Roatan included a very large yellow frogfish, the Odyssey wreck, diving through coral channels, octopus, Caribbean reef squid, green moray and goldentail moray eels, large grouper, scorpionfish, sea turtles, and a distant eagle ray.