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Beautiful beaches, crystal waters, and welcoming natives await you on the Bay Islands...
Roatan
Of the three islands, the largest, which has the most infrastructure and is more developed for tourism is Roatan. Roatan is a long island with a total land mass of 49 Square miles. The island has a mountainous backbone and is totally surrounded by coral reefs, offering superb diving as well as excellent fishing.
Roatan is an island that is just 4 miles at its widest and 26 miles long, situated between Utila and Guanaja in the Bay Islands 35 miles from the Northern Coast of mainland Honduras in Central America. Come and see for yourself where paradise is located just below the Yucatan Peninsula and neighboring Belize.
Imagine lush green paradise on a mountainous island with a living barrier reef surrounding it only 100 meters offshore. Beautiful beaches, crystal waters, and welcoming natives await you on the Bay Island of Roatan. There is a jet airport with direct flights from the United States and other routes via San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, the capital. Ferry service is available to travel to mainland Honduras or to Utila and Guanaja. There are plenty of land and water taxis to get around the island also.
A diver's heaven, Roatan offers spectacular walls, great visibility, and comfortable water temperatures year round. There are plenty of large fish and other wildlife to encounter diving off the wall just 100 yards from shore. The reefs are healthy and the fish life is abundant. One of more than 50 major dive sites, try not to miss Spooky Channel as a shore dive where you navigate from a dock on the beach through huge coral formations to end up outside the wall after swimming through the 'Spooky Channel'. For a real adventure, try this dive at night if you dare!
Utila The smallest of the Islands is also the flattest and closest to the mainland, and is famous world wide as one of the most inexpensive places in the world to get certified as a diver.
Guanaja The tallest of the islands has become the most elite oriented, with many of the better hotels on the Islands located here. Guanaja is a unique island, as it does not have any roads, and the largest community, known as Bonaca is not even on the island itself, but on a small cay a short distance from Guanaja. Guanaja has a paved runway as an airport, and is forested with the unique Caribbean pine that distinguishes it very much from its sister islands.
Christopher Columbus is reputed to have landed here on his fourth and last voyage to the 'Indies' and actually encountered canoes with Paya Indians. He also mentioned the excellent quality of the fresh water that he found on the Island, saying 'he had never tasted sweeter water of better quality'
The Bay Islands offer a unique experience, and the most interesting facet is that each of the three islands is so very different from the others. Don't even think that if you've been to one you've seen it all, nothing could be further from the truth. Take your time to visit and discover each of these jewels that are reputed to by one of the last true paradise islands in the western Caribbean.
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