A few years ago, the head politician of Roatan (mayor?) made moorings illegal there and all the gear was removed. Conveniently, he owned the only marina in the area. However, the whole thing backfired on him because the cruising community simply left West End completely. It was a ghost anchorage the first time we were there.

A couple of years later, someone put new gear on about a third of the moorings. We came back to West End right when this happened. We were told that somebody would be charging a nominal daily fee for the moorings, but nobody approached us about that for the week we were there.

I never trust moorings - particularly ones not associated with a quality marina. In this case, the moorings there are in 10' of crystal clear water. There is no excuse for not inspecting the one you grab. We always run our own line in these cases.

But anchoring there is difficult due to the grass like Jon mentioned, as well as all the closely spaced moorings throughout most of the harbor.

Mark