The Sandy Bay and West End / West Bay Marine Park Monthly Newsletter
August 2006 in Roatan, Honduras

Its that time once again having reached the end of yet another month for the update regarding what we have been up to here at the park. The busy month of August is now behind us and the slow months have arrived, along with lots of rain. August was a very active month for us at the Marine Park Office with Greg returning from Canada after tying up loose ends there. There are now 3 of us running the office which is now open 7 days a week between 8am and 5.30pm.

This month we have been shaking up our patrols and it seems it may be working some what. The boats have been going out at all hours to try and catch any poachers operating around our normal business hours. The hours are definitely antisocial 3am-6am, 4am-7am and 7pm-11pm, but we feel this is the only way we can prevent the further removal of our conch, lobster and other marine life. 2 weekends ago we had a very busy weekend and thanks to our staff, we apprehended a total of 8 poachers in 3 separate incidents.

We've also been putting out more dive moorings and improved some of the existing marine infrastructure. AKR however improved on some of the moorings down around the sandy bay area so we can not take credit for that. We are currently still waiting for the grant approval to begin our major infrastructure revamp which fingers crossed will be very soon. All major channels are now marked with 6 new regulatory channel markers which look impressive, we however have one set left and are looking for a channel to mark, any suggestions will be taken into account.

We bought 8 more garbage cans for Sandy Bay and West Bay which we have put out, but we still have 2 at the office which are looking for persons in Sandy Bay to take responsibility for . We also welcomed Enfield Ebanks onto our staff who will be on the West Bay beach during cruise ship days and weekends to supervise the area.

Attached is our accounts for the months and as you can see its been a costly month with the beginning of the slow season bringing reduced tag and t-shirt sales. As usual we are still on the hunt for new members, especially those owning dive shops and other businesses. We are currently looking into having articles in Honduras Tips, Bay Island Voice, Roatan Dive Guide and one or two others so those businesses wishing to join, we are offering links to your site on our website and advertisement in these magazines. Please email for more details

Other than that, we have yet again another busy month to look forward to in the office and hope all of you have a great month.

If anyone has any questions drop by any time, email us at roatanmarinepark@yahoo.com or give us a call at 349-4138.

Respect the Reef.
Greg, Nick and Lidia.

Relevant web sites:

If you want to know more about fish you see in the park, visit www.fishbase.org, which has an index of almost 30,000 species of fish.

If you want to know more about the reefs, go to www.reefbase.org which contains global information regarding coral reefs.