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Having been to many of the so called ‘Shark Dives’ throughout the Caribbean, I must admit I went on this one with little hope of anything worthwhile. Roatan is NOT known for sharks - you very seldom see any sharks and if you do it might well be a nurse shark. After eight previous trips to Roatan spanning 45 or so years, I had never heard a positive comment about this dive. However, having said that, I was sent to see this one and I must say I was very pleasantly surprised. There is a shlelf area just short of the dropoff which is 70 feet down and for some as yet unknown reason (or so I was told) female sharks congregate here. They are all female reef sharks which show extensive breeding scars pretty universally. While one might speculate that they gather in this area to breed, that wouldn’t be true year round.
The dive starts out rather normally where the dive guides line up everyone with their backs to a wall as if that would afford some nonsensical form of protection. I suppose that’s to give novice divers some sense of security. They then proceed to draw the sharks in with a bucket of fish and feed them by hand. At this point I was still a touch bored but once the feeding routine was over we were allowed to swim out among the sharks and let them swim all around us. I would have to say it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable dive and an experience that would tend to make novice divers or even experienced divers who have an unwarranted fear of these beauties feel more at home and relaxed.
If you get to Roatan, I recommend you take this side trip - especially if you’ve never had the opportunity previously to get up close and personal with these apex predators. The price is $100,00 and in line with similar venues ,
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