Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras, along the barrier reef that runs from the Yucatan south along the Central American coast. CocoView Resort, shown here, is on a barrier island off the main island.

We got to the resort on these boats, which more importantly serve as the dive boats.

A lot of CocoView diving is wall diving. The resort sits in an inlet formed by walls -- vertical drop-offs plunging hundreds of feet -- that lead to the resort on each side. The boats would take us out for the first dive, a boat dive at a traditional site, and then for the second dive drop us off on one of the walls for the return underwater to the resort.

Once we got to the area in front of the resort, we would swim over a shallow stretch of turtlegrass back to the shore. This is Paul Adler, our trip leader, on a swim back -- in about four feet of water.

There was actully a fair amount of marine life to be found in the turtlegrass area. Such as this bluestriped grunt, small trumpetfish, brain coral, sea plumes and fire coral.

We would surface at the dive platform, take off our fins....

...and wade back to shore along the pathway indicated by the lighter strip through the water. This was the view from our room.

This is the resort -- the dining hall to the left and lodgings to the right. Our room was on the second floor at the left of the center building.

Underwater, it's always important to look inside things. This is a yellowline arrow crab inside a tube sponge.

An arrowcrab hiding among some tube sponges.

Not to mention a bevy of brittlestars.

It's also important to look closely at stuff. I like to shoot patterns, and I didn't realize the tiny cleaning gobies were on this brain coral until I looked at the photo after the trip.

Or this coral. I haven't been able to identify it, but I liked its graphic effect.

Later I realized there was a tiny goby and a tiny crab resting on it.

Curt, our dive guide, was a genius at finding tiny, invisible little animals.

Like this tiny nudibranch on a sea rod.

These might be grape cluster nudibranchs. Might. They look like the have legs to me, so perhaps they are some kind of crustacean. But otherwise they (might) look like grape cluster nudibranchs.

Sponges, sea rods, stuff along a wall.

More sponges, sea rods, stuff along a wall. The strobe lit up these to reveal the sponges' true color. The bubbles in back are from other divers, who are lower on the wall.

Kurt found this large eye toadfish along a wall. They're called toadfish because they make a croaking sound.

He also found this juvenile trumpetfish on a sea rod.

We encountered a squadron of squids on one dive.

It was a very clean reef -- that is, there was a lot of cleaning activity going on, as in this green moray eel being cleaned by these gobies.

These are neon gobies on brain coral, waiting for a cleaning customer to come along.

These are creole wrasses being cleaned in mid-water by (I think) juvenile bluehead wrasses.

A three-spot damselfish patrolling the area around its little algae farm.

The damselfish Stare of Intimidation, telling me (and anyone or anything else) to stay away from the aforementioned little algae farm.

Juvenile spotted drums.

Yep. We saw lionfishes. Too many of them. They're not supposed to be there.

Stoplight parrotfish.

On one dive we swam through Calvin's Crack, a long, underwater passage.

No, I don't know who Calvin was.

Art Moy had an unusual way of entering the water.

Harlequin bass.

Squirrelfish.

Sharpnosed puffer.

Pipefish

Scrawled filefish.

Nurse sharks frequently are found sleeping under ledges, like this one. They're very docile and not intimidating.

I couldn't figure out what this guy was. He ought to be sand diver, except he doesn't seem to look like one. But that's what he did -- he saw me and disappeared right under the sand. I took a photo of the spot after he dived, but it looks just the same as this, except that they're no fish.

We saw this foot-or-more-wide crab on a wall dive.

This is either Graham's or Lamarck's coral. The only way to be sure is to take it home and cut it apart, which is frowned on these days.

Elkhorn coral. Elkhorn is much less abundant today than even when I started diving in the early '90s.

Vase sponge

Another vase sponge, with terrific coloration.

Sea fan.

Sea fan closeup. It's a colony of polyps, sort of like the ones that build coral. But different.

Polyps on a sea plume.

Sea rod polyps.

We did one dive to a spot where turtles are common. This is one of the guys we saw.

My favorite spot was actually on the sandy area just in front of the resort, just before you get up onto the turtlegrass. This was my little yellowhead jawfish friend.

And my garden eel friends. They were pretty friendly for garden eels, which usually drop back into their burrows before you get close enought to shoot a decent photo.

These are social featherdusters, a kind of worm. Their bodies are bored into the coral. These gills filter the water for food.

Only I would take this shot, but while we're on the subject of worms, I shot this (or these ?) spagetti worms. They live in cracks and extend these feelers.

This isn't a great shot technically but, on my last dive, in front of the turtlegrass, I encountered these guys engaged in a behavior called shadow-hunting. The bar jack on top is closely following the spotted goatfish hoping to gobble up any left-over morsels from its rooting in the sand.