Roatán, Bay Islands, Honduras

Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings is a north-shore wall dive on the eastern half of Roatán featured in the Aggressor live-aboard rotation and known for unusually large coral pillars that line the upper wall. The dive begins on a coral plateau at 10 meters with healthy stands of brain coral and barrel sponges, then drops to a wall that runs from 18 down past 40 meters. Towering pillar coral colonies, some over three meters tall, rise from the shoulder of the wall and give the site its name. The vertical face is decorated with rope sponges, deep-water gorgonians and black coral, and the open blue is reliable for spotted eagle ray, schooling horse-eye jack, midnight parrotfish, hawksbill turtle and Caribbean reef sharks during the cooler months. Currents are usually mild on this stretch; visibility averages 25 to 30 meters and the site is moored under the Roatán Marine Park's east-end network.