How the First Cruise Ship Came to Roatan

The Methodist Church damaged and weakened by Hurricane Francelia and Hurricane Fifi once stood nearby. The church’s congregation moved to a new worship building up the hill and a few hundred feet away.

The first cruise ships began coming to the island in 1980s. This pioneer was the 500 foot long Ocean Spirit, and by far the biggest ship to visit Roatan to that date. She ended up visiting the island on regular basis.

While Coxen Hole was a quaint sleepy town, in the 1980s the dive industry had already discovered Roatan. Ocean Quest International, the world’s largest diving operation at the time, was eying Guanaja and Roatan, both known for their pristine coral and tall dive walls. The company wanted Ocean Spirit, their live aboard flag ship, to make regular stops in the Bay Islands on a week-long dive cruise from Florida.

One of the people who helped in creating a welcome environment for international divers was Alejandro Monterroso. In the 1980s Alejandro lived on Roatan and had his own dive shop in Coxen Hole, next to Key View Hotel. It was called South Shore Divers. “This was the Waldorf Astoria of Roatan,” remembers the seaside hotel Alejandro.

Alejandro remembers that one day a man named Laurence August knocked on the door of his dive shop. August was an executive for Ocean Quest, an international company that operated Ocean Spirit and was looking to come to Roatan and Coxen Hole in particular.

On September 5, 1989, Ocean Spirit visited the island.

Mr. Allan Hyde was chosen to be the port agent for Ocean Spirit. An appropriate spot was chosen in Coxen Hole and a roughly 12” by 12” square cement bollard was poured that helped to secure a rope that tied the ship to land. This would prevent Ocean Spirit from spinning as she discharged her dive boats from her stern.

On September 5, 1989, Ocean Spirit, the biggest ship that has visited the island until then, came to anchor off Coxen Hole. At 20,000 tons Ocean Spirit was the easily the biggest dive ship in the world. The vessel was over 110 feet high and had ten deck levels.

The dive and excursion cruise ship accommodated 360 passengers, 198 crew and 32 diving staff. Ocean Spirit even had its own decompression chamber and carried 10 dive boats that could be launched with a special high speed overhead crane.

Roatan along with Guanaja were placed on a regular schedule for visits by Ocean Spirit based in Southern Florida. Every week the boat would leave New Orleans, head for stops in Guanaja, Roatan, then for Belize, and Cozumel before returning.

These were different times. Back then Honduras was a military dictatorship and as there was a CIA sponsored civil war going on in Nicaragua, nearby Roatan was a place to take a break from the action for American GI and CIA company men.

Eventually, in 1990s Honduras’ Empresa Nacional Portuaria built a cruise ship port near the site. In 2008 Royal Caribbean took over the management of the port from Empresa Nacional Portuaria. In 2018, ITM Group, a Mexican conglomerate that operates cruise ships all over eastern Caribbean: Costa Maya in Mexico, Taino Bay in Dominican, took over operation of Port of Roatan.

In 2020 a second birth was added so two cruise ships could disembark their passengers at the same time.
Sheltered from wind and currents, and with ample enough room to maneuver Coxen Hole became one of the safest terminals for cruise ships in the Caribbean. Many cruise ship boat captains consider Port of Roatan as one of the easiest to enter and leave ports in the Caribbean.

Maneuvering La Ceiba Harbor has become a Risky Gable for Roatan Vessels

On November 10 Roatan based cargo boat Monica sank exiting La Ceiba harbor. Much of its cargo of animals and goods bound for Roatan was taken by looters. On November 24 the 75 foot Capt. Bambino got stuck on the sea floor leaving La Ceiba harbor and heavy swell pushed her further aground and onto Monica’s wreck. “Sometimes they [the boats] touch [the bottom] and they push through, this time they stuck. When they have dead swell it’s most dangerous,” said about boats leaving La Ceiba harbor Sharon Carter, owner of Captain Bambino. “They have to take chances when the tide is high. We keep risking our boats and risking lives.”

In order to have the La Ceiba port accessible its entrance needs to continually dredged. “It was shallow before, but the two hurricanes made it worse,” said Carter. The trade winds, and stormy weather, move sand into the port’s entrance to the point where it is now only 7 feet deep. The channel depth that is advertised should be 36 feet.

“They have to take chances when the hide is high. We keep risking our boats and risking lives.”

To make things worse the La Ceiba port has no dredger and no tug boat to pull out vessels that find themselves in distress. This is a recipe for disaster and four boats sank in the last three years: Captain Duggy sunk in 2017; in 2016 Captain Sanchez sunk and in 2020 it was Monica’s and Captain Bambino’s turn.

Carter says that instead the needed channel working depth of 15-18 feet, the dredging is done only to a depth of 8-9 feet. “They never dredge it to depth they supposed to,” said Carter, who’s two boats: Captain Bambino and Captain Bambino II have been carrying cargo between la Ceiba and Bay Islands for 15 years. The two boats pay a hefty fee to the Port of La Ceiba for the service: between Lps. 8,000 and 12,000 per week for each boat. Little of that money goes towards maintaining the entrance at a safe depth.  

In the last few years it became less clear who is actually in charge of the La Ceiba port that serves as commercial access hub for Bay Islands and Misquito coast. In 2016 La Ceiba Municipality took over operations of the port from Honduras’ Empresa Nacional Portuaria, but La Ceiba’s mayor Jerry Sabio says that the city’s debt of $50 million doesn’t allow it the expense to dredge the port.

The La Ceiba port has no dredger and no tug boat. 

Private companies approached the La Ceiba port management to solve the crisis several times. Both Galaxy and Island Shipping offered to dredge the port in exchange for reduction of their docking fees. “We offered the city of La Ceiba to buy a dredger and dredge the port ourselves (…), but they refused,” said John McNab, owner of Galaxy. “The port of La Ceiba estimated it could be a three-million-dollar dredging operation.”

The situation at the port entrance has gotten so bad that some boat captains are looking at moving operations to the Municipality of El Porvenir, Atlantida, just west of La Ceiba. “We have been pleading and asking for help, but they have been ignoring us,” said Carter. Some boat owners using La Ceiba port are now looking at suing the La Ceiba municipality and the La Ceiba port for negligence and reckless endangerment.

While Hondurans have gotten used to the idea that they can’t count on their government to keep them safe from crime, alert them of imminent flooding, or providing their children a decent education now they are finding out they can’t count on government to keep one of its biggest maritime ports safe for navigations either.