Welcome to CoCo View
I recently returned from a great trip to CoCo View Resort, located on the island of Roatan, Honduras. This place was founded in the early ’80s, so there has been a lot of time to tweak it and make it sing. And it does. This is a diver’s resort — nothing too fancy, but a very logical and user-friendly dive program. There are several levels of accommodation to choose from at the resort — including the very cool over-water bungalow that we bucked up for. CoCo View also has the food thing really worked out. The seven-day rotating menu plan means if you stay for more than seven nights, you can look forward to repeating some of your favorites, including the steak and lobster extravaganza on Friday nights! All meals are served buffet style, and they do offer options for vegetarians.

I had visited and dived in Roatan previously, back in 1997, when I was still a relative newbie, and I enjoyed it, other than the bugs. Roatan, for some reason, appears to have more than its share of sand fleas and no-see-ums — and it is imperative that visitors bring a good supply of serious bug juice to deter them, as well as some anti-itch cream for the almost inevitable bites. The islanders apparently become immune to the insect bites over time, so don’t seem to be bothered by these tiny critters, but it is common to see other divers covered with red welts that were inflicted by these little b*stards.

Many other destinations have called me since my last visit to Roatan, but when a reunion group trip for a bunch of folks who "met" on Scuba Diving Magazine’s Diver to Diver (D2D) Forum was organized by one of its longtime members, Saudio, we jumped on. We numbered 42 in all — a very large group, and we came close to filling the entire resort! It was great fun catching up with people I had been diving with over the years, as well as meeting some great new folks. Several of our group were "regulars" at CoCo View, having visited on several previous occasions. These people are fondly known as CoCo Nuts.

I’ve been lucky enough to stay at several resorts that offer shore diving on house reefs, including Sunset Waters Resort in Curacao (sadly, no more), Divi Flamingo Resort & Casino in Bonaire, Wakatobi Resort in Indonesia, Scuba Seraya Dive Resort in Bali, and now, CoCo View Resort in Roatan. I am also looking forward to an upcoming trip to Bali, where we will stay at a small dive resort that has the Liberty wreck in its front yard. The freedom that comes from house reef diving is welcome — go when you want, stay as long as you want, dive it as many times as you want — of course following the limits imposed by your computer or dive tables. I’ve logged some of my longest dives on resort house reefs.

All of the resorts above offer great shore-diving programs, and CoCo View is no exception. I would give it very high marks for ease of access, variety of terrain, special features (including the wrecks of a small freighter and an airplane), and its interesting denizens. I never got bored diving in CoCo View’s front yard — partly because of its impressive size, but also because there were lots and lots of cool things to see and photograph. In fact, a couple of people in our group saw a hammerhead shark swim by in 20 feet of water!

CoCo View has not one but two steep and beautiful walls that are accessible (with a bit of swimming) as shore dives. Newman’s Wall and CoCo View Wall are covered in sponges, sea fans and corals — so there is a lot of color, texture and cool critters living either on the reef or visiting it to find dinner. The terrain in the bay between these two dramatic walls is sloping sand with coral outcroppings, which starts very shallow and runs out into the deep. There is something for everyone here, including snorkelers.

CoCo View requires all new guests to attend a resort and dive operation orientation, as well as complete a guided shore dive to become familiar with the house reef and navigation back to the resort. After those are checked off, the pool is open — 24/7!

This gallery is going to feature some of the stuff that I photographed while diving on the house reef. I am planning on doing a future gallery for the boat access reef diving that we did, as there are some great dives on Roatan to share.

If you look back up at he opening image of this gallery, you will see a light colored sand channel to the left of the charming over water gazebo at the resort. That is the path that divers wade out to a small floating wooden platform where fins are donned. From there, it is a very shallow dive out over eel grass to get to the drop off, where the reef begins.

Here is a diver swimming out over the flats to get to the reef. It is quite a long swim, but super easy to navigate as the resort has very kindly laid out a chain with a series of PVC floats that mark the route. Once you get to the reef, they’ve got a few more indicators including some large diamond shaped markers that show you where the channel is to return to the resort at the end of your dive.

This is a pretty damselfish. These things are relatives of the anemonefish that I love so much in the Indo Pacific, and they are equally frustrating to photograph, as not only do they flit about just like anemonefish, they can also can be quite belligerent, especially if nesting, and they have been known to nip divers.

The reefs in front of CoCoVIew Resort are in a protected "no take" marine park, and as a result, there are a whole lot of lobsters hanging out. I have never seen so many of these weird crustaceans out during the day as we saw at CoCo View.

This large jawfish has managed to make his home pretty much right on the path that shore divers swim to get out to and back from the reef. I feel pretty sure that this fish has been photographed more times than any other on the house reef. This is a banded jawfish, and it was quite large — its head was approximately 1 inch in diameter. I saw him on every several shore dive I did, and I nicknamed him Jabba the Hut ;^)

This is an Indigo Hamlet. These fish grow to be about 6 inches in length. They appear to be somewhat territorial, and are very shy, so getting a shot like this requires some patience, and luck. There is a healthy population of these beautiful fish in Roatan.

I saw this huge green moray eel in two different locations on the house reef, on two separate dives. On the first occasion, it was actually free swimming down the CoCo View wall, which was quite thrilling to see, given its large length and girth.

This was an exciting find — a Gaudy Clown Crab. This was the first time I’ve seen one of these gorgeous little crustaceans, that grow to be a maximum of one inch across their carapace. This one was quite a bit smaller than that — maybe a half inch across. They tend to live in holes in sponges and crevices in corals, so I was very lucky to see one out like this, and to get a shot. As soon as I took this photo, it scurried back into a divot in the long finger sponge on which it was perching.

This is a Peacock Flounder. These are quite common fish. When not lit up, they blend in very well with the sandy bottom, and so are easy to miss. I stalked this one for a while, waiting for it to turn and swim into the frame. This fish was about 12 inches in length.

These are tiny Damselfish eggs. As I mentioned above, Damselfish tend to behave quite aggressively when they are nesting, and will go at divers who get close to their eggs. These particular eggs look to be getting pretty close to hatching out — the eyes of the many tiny fish are clearly visible. They look a lot like batches of anemonefish eggs that I have photographed in Asia.

This was another exciting sighting, and this squid hung out around the house reef for at least a couple of days, so many people had a chance to see and photograph it. Squid, like their octopus and cuttlefish cousins, are really fascinating animals. They can color change in a flash, and they seem to be highly curious. I actually think this squid quite liked my strobes going off — which is highly unusual, as most fish beat it as soon as I take a shot.

It is still strange to me to see lionfish in the Caribbean. When I first started diving in Asia, I was thrilled to see these beautiful fish, and to try to photograph them. But since then, the lionfish population has exploded in the Caribbean, where these fish are not endemic. Being an (accidentally) introduced species, they have no natural predators. Their unwelcome presence is having a serious negative consequence on many other species, as they hoover up juvenile fish with alarming appetite. This is a baby lionfish, and it was about an inch and a half in long. Lionfish grow up to about a foot in length.

I shot this wide angle image on Newman’s Wall. As I mentioned above, both the walls adjacent to CoCo View Resort are very pretty, with many varieties of colorful sponges growing on them.

This is a pretty common fish, a sand diver, which is a member of the lizard fish family. These are bottom dwelling fish, that typically lay out on the sand. They would seem to be easy to photograph, but not so much, as they are very skittish, and tend to scoot and resettle somewhere nearby as divers approach. They are ambush predators and can open their mouths very wide, to snatch small fish as they swim past them. I love their iridescent eyes. This fish was about 8 inches in length.

There are quite a few of the beautiful yellow headed jawfish that can be found on the sandy bits of the house reef. The shot I am always hoping for is to get one of these pretty fish with a mouth full of eggs. Like all jawfish, these little guys (because it is the male fish that do this) are mouth breeders. The males keep the eggs in their mouth, occasionally spitting them out and then sucking them back in to aerate them, until the eggs hatch out. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a jawfish with eggs on this site.

This is a big grouper lurking on the top deck of the Prince Albert wreck. The wreck, which was purposely sunk as a dive feature, is quite encrusted with cool stuff, including sponges and sea fans. As such, it has created a nice habitat for fish and other creatures, which makes it interesting to explore.

This is a huge hermit crab that was marching around on the sandy bottom, occasionally churning through the sand digging up munchies. On its back it wears an abandoned conch shell.

I saw quite a few of these Arrow Crabs on the house reef. They grow to be about three inches in length. A good place to look for them is near anemones, under coral overhangs, and inside sponges. They use those big blue claws (they’ve got two of them) to pinch food and bring it to their mouths. Check out the crazy eyes. Alien creatures…

This is a pair of Golden Tailed Moray eels that I shot in about 15 feet of water, right near the entrance to the sand chute that leads back to the resort.

This is fireworm that crawled across a sponge I was photographing, in which another little gaudy clown crab was hiding. Beware, these things, which look a lot like caterpillars, are highly venomous to touch!

Here is the final picture in this CoCo View Resort house reef gallery — a diver over the wreck of the Prince Albert. We did not have stellar visibility on our trip, due to some unseasonably wet weather and high winds, so the water is a bit greener and murkier than it could be in better conditions.

Judy G is a traveling underwater photographer and regular contributor to scubadiving.com. Follow her travels on her blog on her Facebook: Judy G Diver and on her Instagram @Judy_G_Diver.

Find all of Judy G's photo collections here