Roatan Is Uniquely Situated For This Sort Of Diving With Depths Approaching 10,000 Feet

We at West End Divers are pleased to announce that we are the first dive center on Roatan to be offering the unique and exhilarating experience of Black Water Diving.

As strange as this concept seems, it is eclipsed by the bizarreness of the creatures we encounter. We are diving right in the middle of the largest animal migration on planet Earth, the Diel Migration. This is the vertical migration that occurs nightly, with zooplankton rising from the depths to feed in the warmer surface layers. It should go without saying that those organisms that find the zooplankton tasty are also there to take advantage of the situation, and those that find them tasty……

Roatan is uniquely situated for this sort of diving with depths approaching 10,000 feet deep just a stone’s throw offshore we are able to take advantage of this pelagic migration with a short boat ride. This is not true for most coastal areas of the world.

This is an entirely different environment with unique and strange denizens. Diving these same waters during the day has been compared to swimming in a bottle of gin. It is an experience of sensory deprivation with only the rarest sightings of marine organisms. But at night the water comes alive with strange residents rising in the pelagic water column, those living their entire existence in virtually bottomless water.

This dive is not for the inexperienced, the faint of heart, those subject to vertigo, or those who have issues with the dark. Only advanced divers with night diving experience are welcome on these expeditions.

The Black Water Dive expeditions start with a 6:00-ish PM meeting at West End Divers dive center. After a detailed briefing, getting the gear on-board and checking it twice, we depart to a deep water mooring we maintain in conjunction with the Roatan Marine Park called “Fiasco’s in Paradise”. Attached to an anchor 100 feet deep on the vertical outside face of the reef wall, the prevailing trade winds push the mooring ball into deeper water. Tying on an additional hundred feet of mooring line, the perpetual Trades push the boat over depths exceeding 1000 feet. In a few minutes the boat, the currents, and the winds find a happy medium stabilizing over the depths. With the boat positioned we deploy our unique tethering system in the water and the divers get geared up.

The tethering system consists of 6 lightweight anchors which the crew drops over the side equally spaced around the gunwale of the boat. These anchors are suspended at a depth of 60 feet, and their ropes form the foundation of the system. Each diver is issued a High Intensity dive light, and then the diver is clipped to a 10 foot lanyard (leader) and is escorted to the dive platform for a giant-stride entry. The Divemaster or deck hand will have a hold of the other end of the lanyard and follow the diver to their assigned anchor line and clip it on. The lanyard slides up and down the anchor line with the diver to a depth of 40 feet (where a stop is attached) allowing the diver to move up and down in the water column and in a twenty foot diameter circle. The diver is connected to the boat at ALL TIMES. Although this may seem restrictive, it has been our repeated experience that establishing neutral buoyancy and hovering in the water will bring as much, if not more opportunities to experience the marine life in this unique environment.

At West End Divers we take safety very seriously. Although our normal day dives are light hearted and focused on fun, all safety rules are followed and the proper equipment is on board in the way of first aid, oxygen, and communication. Given the logistics of the Black Water Dives, at night and far offshore, we have ramped up our safety protocols to also include mandatory use of personal flotation devices by the non-diving crew, and we carry life rings, sea anchor, flare gun, and redundant ship-to-shore communication.

What To Expect

This is a 60 minute dive (you are free to ascend at any time). After 55 minutes we notify the divers with our patented recall system, signaling an opportunity for them to turn off their lights for the next five minutes to experience the oceans bioluminosity, and overall dark creepiness. Another signal at 60 minutes and the dive is over. Divers slowly ascend, are unclipped and escorted to the ladder on the dive platform. With the divers on board, and the gear stowed for travel we head for shore.

The trip in is always different than the one out. The trip to the dive site is usually quiet, apprehensive, and seems long. Whereas the trip back is loud, and animated with high fives, picture bragging, laughter, and is over before you know it. I guess it’s all the anticipation of a post-dive beer.