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Belize My first, and likely only, trip to Belize for diving. - (110) more edit 2007-05-05 - rec# 491

It was time for me to renew my visa (one does that by leaving the country for three days) and I've always heard that the diving in Belize was really good. So I booked a trip to San Pedro, Belize, packed my dive gear and flew out last Sunday, leaving at 4am. Just a short hop to El Salvador, where airport security confiscated my bottle cap, the bottle was OK, the water was OK, but the bottle cap was not allowed, and then to Belize City. From there a charter plane to San Pedro. This is the low season. So low it would seem that I was the only person on the plane going to San Pedro. I've been in several places in Costa Rica where I've felt like I was in a surf bum paradise. In San Pedro I was in a SCUBA bum paradise. No question. There was a dive operation every 100 feet or so along the beach. The sand was pristine white and raked every morning. Water was the clearest I've ever seen, no tide, to current, no chop. It was the type of diving you see in dive movies where they're trying to get you to sign up for classes and buy equipment. It DOES exist! I arrived Sunday morning at about 10am. There was a dive going out at 2pm, so I had lunch, got my gear together and took the trip. Getting to the reef from San Pedro is about a 5 minute boat ride. At that point the reef is 40 to 60 ft down. The water was a bit rough on the surface, but below all was calm and clear. We immediately dropped on some nurse sharks and quickly discovered there was a Moray Eel close by. The sharks mostly ignored us, but the eel was very unhappy that we were down there and was striking at us. Morays are not something to play with, so we moved on. This was the clearest water I have ever been in, the greatest variety of coral and most colorful fish I have ever seen. This must be where they take the pictures for the dive books! We took a second dive at another site and found very much the same sort of life. The reefs in the area of the town are usually in the form of long fingers. Formations like valleys. The bottoms (60ish feet) were all this very white sand. The walls of the fingers were filled with life. The best of both worlds! Wall diving (my favorite) and coral diving. We ended the dive by playing with a couple of dolphins that found us and kept buzzing us. They would swoop by and then click at each other (laughing at us?) then take another run. We were their willing toys for about 10 minutes. By 5pm I had gotten up at 3, been in three countries, done two dives, was on a pristine beach and was looking for supper. Not bad for one day. On Monday I did three dives on the reef. My only regret is that I didn't make one of them a night dive. I set up a dive for Blue Hole on Wednesday, planning to make Wednesday a shorter day in preparation for the big dive. Tuesday I only did two dives. One of them we made a point playing in the valleys of the reef looking for holes and tunnels to go through. Life is hard! As readers of this blog know I lost my camera in December. Hopefully I'll have a replacement in June. I was delighted to discover that the Ecologic Dive Shop sent it's master divers out with cameras and they were continually snapping pics of us and the sights. So I did come back with some pics to share! These guys, by the way, are the best dive operation I have ever used anyplace. What pros! The Blue Hole is a formation that was created above water. When the waters rose after the ice age it became submerged. You drop down to the edge of this perfect hole, then go over the edge down to 130 ft where there are some really huge stalactites. At that depth the dive was short. We returned to the mouth of the whole and boarded the boat. There were several Caribbean reef sharks in the hole with us. The crew on the boat now started to throw fish scraps into the water. This started a feeding frenzy by the sharks and other large fish that were in the area. And we were in the water with those sharks! We ate lunch (great chicken, rice and beans) at Half Moon Caye, home of the Red Footed Boobie. A short walk down the beach took us to an observation tower where we could get up at the level of the tops of the trees and see all the birds. Every tree within a couple hundred yards were filled with Boobies...and the smell! If I understand it correctly this is the only island they nest on. Deb would have loved it. I have a new best dive. Our next dive was at Turneffe. This has to be the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Water perfectly clear, vis forever, about every form a coral and sponge I have ever seen and filled with fish of all sizes and colors. I could easily spend a couple of weeks diving just this one site and would be very happy. We ended the day at the aquarium. Everybody has a dive site called aquarium. The next day I just bummed around town...well yes, I was off gassing too. Took a long walk up North along the beach and saw how the rich folks live. Had an easy flight back. Didn't even have any bottle caps confiscated this time. Got back to San Jose to see my first rain in a week. This was an idyllic trip for me. San Pedro is a place I will surly return to. Perhaps I can get some people from the my dive club interested.