Cayos Cochinos, Bay Islands, Honduras

Pelican 1

Pelican 1 is one of the most-frequented dives in the Cayos Cochinos Marine Reserve, a protected archipelago of small islands and cays between mainland Honduras and the Bay Islands. The site is a wall and slope on the eastern side of the reserve where divers descend through a healthy coral plateau at 8 to 12 meters and then onto a wall that drops past 35 meters. The reduced fishing pressure inside the reserve shows in unusually dense coral cover, large barrel sponges, deep-water gorgonians, brain coral, pillar coral and clusters of black coral on the lower wall. Reef life is consistently abundant: hawksbill turtle, queen and French angelfish, schooling creole wrasse and grunt, large midnight parrotfish, spotted moray and frequent spotted eagle ray fly-bys; lucky divers find Caribbean reef shark in the deeper blue. Conditions are usually calm with 25 to 30 meters of visibility and the site is reached by boat from Plantation Beach or Roatán.