Roatán · Honduras · Drift · Reef
Grape Escape
A shallow drift down a sand path scattered with wreck pieces
Area photo: Luis Alfredo Romero · CC BY-SA 4.0
Grape Escape is a drift at the tip of West End, run over the reef at an average depth of about 12-14 m. The route to follow is a sandy path between coral walls, and scattered along it are the pieces of a wreck that has broken up completely - no hull to swim into, just fragments turning up in the sand as the current takes you past.
Where it is and how deep
16.3117° N, 86.5944° WPublished position for this site.
The dive
This is an easy drift. You drop onto the reef at an average depth of about 12-14 m and let the water carry you, using the sandy path between the coral walls as the route. The depth barely changes over the course of the dive, which keeps the bottom time long and puts the attention on what is lying in the sand rather than on the computer.
The debris is the thing to watch for. The wreck has disintegrated completely, so what you get are pieces spread along the sandy path, passed one at a time as the drift moves you along and easy to swim over unnoticed if you are watching the coral walls instead. Treat it as a debris field rather than a wreck dive: there is no intact structure, just parts of a ship lying where the sand meets the reef.
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
- Grape Escape — Scubago
More dive sites in Roatán
Wall
Canyons and swim-throughs on a wall bottoming out at 16 m
Wreck
Three swim-throughs, and sometimes 15 to 20 groupers inside
Reef
A coral pillar standing in a square cut in the reef wall
Wall
Reef top at 5 m, wall dropping to about 46 m off West End
Steep cracked wall over sand that starts at 25 m and keeps going
Reef
Volcanic fissures lined with some of the Caribbean's largest black corals
Wreck
Stairwells, cabins and an intact mess table at 12 to 33 m
Pinnacle
A coral spire off the wall, topping out at about 27 m
Similar dives elsewhere
A light drift over a reef shaped like a figure eight
The inside start of the Dumbéa pass drift, 6 m to 14 m on sand
A tidal chute that drops you to 12 m then flushes you back to 4 m
A 30-minute tide-timed drift through an Exuma cut at 7.5 m