The Location

Roatan, Cayos Cochinos, & Utila

The Diving (From Aggressor Adventure Logs)

February 24th-March 1st 2024

• Average Air Temp: 82-88°F
• Average Water Temp: 80-81°F
• Visibility: 65-100+ ft.

Dive sites

• Sunday: (Roatan) Valley of The Kings, Capt. G, Mary’s Place, Mr. Bud
• Monday: (Roatan) Cara a Cara, Grande Coco, Black Rock
• Tuesday: (Utila) Cannery Bank and The Pinnacle
• Wednesday: (Roatan) The Odyssey, Sandy Bay Wall, The Lighthouse
• Thursday: (Roatan) El Aguila, Spooky Channel, Half Moon Bay, Taviana’s
• Friday: Butcher’s Bank

February 25th, Sunday:

Departing the dock at 6 am we head southeast to our first dive site and check out dive at Valley of The Kings, where Kevin, our divemaster, finds us a tiny brown sea horse, a porcupine fish and a net crab. It was a wonderful start to our busy day. Next, we move to Capt G, where we find pipe fish, large schools of Atlantic Spade Fish, Ocean Trigger Fish and Horse Eye Jacks. Moving on, our third dive is spent at Mary’s Place. One of the most popular sites, Mary’s doesn’t disappoint. We find mantis shrimp, a black sea horse, a rare bullet worm, fire worms, and mating parrot fish. We keep moving and next head to Mr. Bud where we spend the final two dives of the day. Another great find by Stiner, we come across another seahorse and a French angel fish. The night dive was teaming with life. Kevin pointed out to guests a big channel clinging crab, quail fin blenny, lettuce sea slug, a huge lobster, a somewhat shy octopus, a long arm octopus, 2 bar fish, a box crab, a beautiful sun anemone shrimp, and another black seahorse.

February 26th, Monday:

A pre breakfast dive at our day begins with at Cara A Cara where we are “face to face” with about 15 Caribbean Reef Sharks, including one male. There are Horse Eye Jacks and one especially curious grouper. During breakfast we make the crossing heading south towards Cayos Cochinos, Coco Grande 6 miles north of Cayos where underwater mountains rise from 110ft plus rise to 45ft and are bathed in sunlight. This provided a bit of excitement as we did a live drop and simply floated with the current through the schools of jacks, a few groupers, and a bearded toad fish. After this dive we head back to Roatan. We spend the rest of the afternoon on the west end of the island at Black Rock. This site is the favorite of several guests because of the unique swim throughs and getting very shallow near the breaks of the waves. After dinner, and after celebrating Kate’s big 5-0 birthday, the night dive here was filled with life. Divers encountered a big octopus, a really big channel clinging crab, and a gigantic pufferfish (biggest divers have seen before!).

February 27th, Tuesday:

Today we start the day early with a 3am departure headed towards Utila. After breakfast the first two dives of the day are spent at Cannery Bank. Two friendly nurse sharks came out to socialize with us as we went around the lovely site filled with the beautiful blue bell tunicates and hundreds of schooling blue creole wrasse and one hungry bearded toadfish. The final 2 dives are spent at The Pinnacle. This dive site is a particularly spectacular site with a 90ft pinnacle to swim around nestled into a plunging wall full of life. One very hungry spotted moray provided a little excitement when he was seen feeding. Also, a decorator crab was seen hanging out. After this dive, during dinner, we make our way back to Roatan.

February 28th, Wednesday:

A beautiful early morning cruise we find ourselves at the biggest wreck Roatan has to offer. The Odyssey, a sunken freighter was turned into an artificial reef in 2002 and sits 115ft. Divers explored the stern, the engine room, the pilot house, and the rest of the 300ft long ship. After leaving Odyssey, we make our way to Sandy Bay Wall. Turtles, turtles, turtles!!! Divers saw 4 turtles, cooperative hunting between moray eel and grouper, and a singing toad fish could be heard throughout the 2 dives. Next, we move to The Lighthouse. The beautiful sloping wall provides lots of nooks and crannies for divers to explore and find the hidden creatures, which included a net crab, an arrow crab, some red snappers, and an arrow crab on the first dive and squid, octopus, lobsters, and a measled cowrie on the night dive.

February 29th, Thursday:

Today starts with an early morning dive at El Aguila. “The Eagle,” was broken into 3 parts in 1998’s Hurricane Mitch leaving the stern on a angle, the center section bottomed out and the Bow standing up. This wreck has great swim throughs, and across from the bow is a wall with a shallow reef. We depart El Aguila and head towards Spooky Channel.  Living up to its name, this wall’s gloomy hue creates a unique diving experience unlike any of the other dives in Roatan. After lunch, we move to Half Moon Bay. These two dives had turtles, sting rays, and moray eels hunting with grouper. Lots of bigger critters on these 2 dives. For the final night dive, we spend the evening at Taviana’s Place. A few sting rays are seen trying to find their next meal along with several different types of crabs, 2 octopus, and quite a few macro nudis.

March 1st, Friday:

The final 2 dives of this trip are a wonderful way for guests to say goodbye to the island waters. Turtles, rays, morays, nudis, crabs, lobsters…. All the island animals came to say farewell to the guests. Upon returning to the dock, almost all the guests enjoy an excursion to see monkeys, sloths, and parrots, or enjoy a beer at the local Rainforest Brewery, or BOTH! One final joining of the group, crew and guests enjoy a Rum Punch at the farewell party on the sundeck before heading out for dinner at the Yacht Club. We congratulate 4 Iron divers, Gene, Jonelle, J.R, and Michelle, great work on doing every single dive offered! Also, a big congrats to Jen for completing her 100^th dive this trip! A sincere thank you to all for making this a memorable, safe week of Roatan style liveaboard diving.

Roatan Aggressor 2024