West End, Roatan tide times

West End occupies the western tip of Roatan, the largest Bay Island off Honduras's Caribbean coast. It is a small town rather than a resort — wooden Caribbean buildings on either side of a single sandy lane, dive shops and small restaurants opening directly onto the beach, and the reef crest visible as a white line of foam from the porch. Half Moon Bay, on the north side of the West End point, is the main swimming and snorkelling beach: a short crescent of sand with calm, clear water and the reef accessible in a 5-minute swim.

The tidal regime is Caribbean microtidal: spring range 0.3 to 0.5 metres, mixed semidiurnal. Trade wind setup, Caribbean weather systems, and the interaction between tidal flow and the reef passage dominate water-level variation far more than the astronomical signal. The reef at West End runs parallel to the island's southwest shore and the dive sites cluster along the western reef crest — Sandy Shores, Spooky Channel, Hole in the Wall — at depths from 6 m on the shallow reef flat to 30+ m on the wall drop-off.

The primary activity out of West End is diving and snorkelling. The proximity of good reef to shore, the concentration of PADI dive shops in a 200 m stretch, and the price point (certification courses cheaper here than most Caribbean destinations) make West End one of the busiest dive training centres in the western Caribbean. Sandy Shores, immediately offshore from the beach, is the standard first open-water site: sandy bottom at 12 m, scattered coral heads, visibility typically 15 to 20 m, and gentle current. For more experienced divers, the deeper sites on the south wall — CoCo View Wall, Prince Albert Wall — involve some current on the predicted flood, running east along the wall.

Snorkellers at Half Moon Bay can reach the reef crest in less than 10 minutes from the waterline. The elkhorn and staghorn colonies at the crest are in partial recovery after past bleaching; brain coral, sea fans, and damselfish schools are dense even on the shallow sections. The best clarity is in the morning before afternoon trade wind chop reduces the surface visibility. Near the predicted slack at high water, current is minimal and the in-water experience is most relaxed.

For anglers, the passage between the West End reef and the deep water to the southwest holds barracuda, jack, and snapper on the reef edges. Small-boat anglers fishing the reef line on the predicted incoming tide find jack crevalle most active in the first two hours of the flood as baitfish are pushed against the reef face. Larger-game offshore fishing — mahi-mahi, wahoo, and marlin — runs from Roatan's main port at Coxen Hole, not from West End, which lacks the deep-water dock infrastructure.

Families find West End manageable: the lane is too narrow for significant vehicle traffic, the beach is short enough that children can be supervised easily, and the reef is accessible without a boat. Half Moon Bay is calm on most days; exceptions occur during north swell events in winter (November–March), when 0.5 to 1.0 m swell wraps around the headland and makes the bay rougher than usual. The incoming tide at those times pushes water directly into the bay mouth and can produce confused surface chop near the headland rocks.

Sunset from the western point of West End is directly over the Caribbean — the sun sets into open water with no land in the near frame. The low palm-fringed headland and the reef foam in the middle ground are a standard composition for photographers. The low tide exposes the rocky shelf below the headland and provides foreground texture in the last hour of light.

Predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine, a global gridded ocean model. Accuracy is ±45 minutes on timing and ±0.2 to 0.3 metres on height. For dive planning, combine the tide prediction with current local operator knowledge of the specific wall sites — current at the deeper sites runs stronger and has more site-specific variation than the broad tidal prediction captures.