Roatán · Honduras · Wall · Reef
Canyon Reef
Canyons and swim-throughs on a wall bottoming out at 16 m
Area photo: Luis Alfredo Romero · CC BY-SA 4.0
Canyon Reef is the stretch of reef near the Mangrove Bight buoy, cut through with canyons, swim-throughs and gaps to explore. The wall bottoms out at about 16 m, which is what makes the site useful: the kind of structure that usually comes with depth is all here inside open water certification limits.
Where it is and how deep
16.3152° N, 86.5905° WPublished position for this site.
The dive
The dive is a matter of picking your way through structure rather than swimming a line. The reef near the Mangrove Bight buoy is broken up by canyons, swim-throughs and cuts, so you work along it taking whichever gaps look worth a look, dropping through one and coming back up onto the reef top through the next one along.
Because the wall bottoms out at about 16 m, depth never becomes the limiting factor: everyone can dive the whole site, even with only an open water certification, and the dive usually ends on gas rather than on no-decompression time. The swim-throughs still want care - go through one at a time, keep fins up off the coral, and look at the exit before committing, since narrow cuts are the easiest place on a shallow site to break something.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Fair | Fair | Good | Good |
Season follows Roatán: March–August is driest with the calmest seas; October–January brings the Bay Islands' rainier season and reduced visibility.
Sources
- Canyon Reef — Scubago
More dive sites in Roatán
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Wall
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Wreck
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Pinnacle
A coral spire off the wall, topping out at about 27 m
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