Ambergris in June

[Deankel]

My husband and I will be in AC for a week in mid-June. This Belize forum has been so helpful with our trip planning. I'm pretty sure we'll be booking with Victoria House tomorrow and have had some e-mails with Eco Divers for the dives/excursions we envision for the week.

ScubaERDoc's trip report was great - but I have a question after reading that thread. Eco wasn't mentioned as one of the Ops that do the Blue Hole or Atoll trips themselves - I think they do, right?

It's hard to plan everything we want to do in the 5 days we have to work with (excluding our travel days) - but this is what we've thinking:

Hol Chan/Shark Ray Alley
Blue Hole trip
Zipline/cave tube day
Turneffe Atoll trip
Lamanai Jungle River Trip

Does anyone think this schedule is overly ambitious for most reasonably fit people in their mid-40's? Also, does anyone have any insight/preferences between Lamanai vs. Itun Ha ?

We get one dive trip a year and our diving in La Paz last June was so terrible, we really feel like we're due for a great one this year!

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[Downing]

Wow, you're going to need a vacation to recover from your vacation.

I don't know enough about AC to comment on the schedule but thought I would chime in on Lamanai vs Altun-Ha as I've been to both.

Lamanai is an all day commitment. From Belize City it's about an hour drive up the Northern Highway to the boat dock on the New River. Then it's about a 45-minute boat ride down river to the ruins. If you don't like riding with strangers and want more control over when you go, you can reserve a private boat for about $100 more. Going at a leisurely pace, you can walk the grounds, clamber the ruins and admire the views in about three or four hours, tops. Most people probably do it in about two hours. Lamanai is very much in a jungle with the various buildings spread throughout.

Altun-Ha is much smaller and more open. Again, from Belize City take the Northern Highway about 20 minutes past the airport and another fifteen minutes on a secondary road. You can see it all in about an hour. A-H's proximity to the airport makes it a great way to kill a morning if you have an afternoon flight out.

The two experiences are different enough that it makes it hard to prefer one over the other. I suppose if I could do just one and all other considerations aside I'd go to Lamanai. But if I were pressed for time and just wanted to get my Mayan ruins fix, then I'd choose A-H.

Have a great trip!

 

[peterbj7]

Hol Chan/Shark Ray Alley
Blue Hole trip
Zipline/cave tube day
Turneffe Atoll trip
Lamanai Jungle River Trip

I think having two atoll trips in five days is too much. I'd just do one, and if you've never done either then I'd suggest the BH day. Not for the BH dive itself, but for the two that follow. And I'd do this after two days of local diving, not one. Not that you may have much choice anyway.

I wouldn't devote a day to Hol Chan/SRA. I'd do some diving outside the reef in the morning, then maybe go to HC/SRA that afternoon.

I wouldn't do two inland trips in five days. I'd suggest Lamanai as your only trip.

So I'd suggest local dives outside the reef in the mornings of days 1 & 2, a trip to HC/SRA on whichever afternoon has the better weather, BH on day 3 (if possible, otherwise day 4). Local diving day 4, then Lamanai on the last day (travelling by boat) when you shouldn't be diving anyway.

Most people who try to cram as much in as you're proposing either cut it back or regret it.

As to whether Ecologic Divers do atoll trips - they do from time to time. It's more likely that Amigos del Mar will be going on any particular day, and they have a substantially bigger boat anyway (big = smoother ride).

 

[mahjong]

Based on my recent trip to AC I can second Peter's suggestion regarding HC/SRA and the local reef. If you're going to spend only one day diving locally (vs the outer atolls), I certainly would not recommend a full day at HC/SRA. In fact, if only one day is local, I might just skip HC/SRA altogether and spend morning and afternoon diving deeper at different sites along the local reef, which happens to be the largest reef in the Western Hemisphere and 2nd largest in the world. So "local" can be misleading. HC/SRA is really just a snorkel trip. There certainly is lots of fish life--4 absolutely enormous grouper perched themselves beneath our boat and we just snorkeled around watching them--but the environment is more aquarium-like than anything else. You can dive it, but it's overkill and you'll see as many snorkelers as sharks and rays. Diving the reef really is spectacular, for more than just the marine life that you'll see.

Hol Chan/Shark Ray Alley
Blue Hole trip
Zipline/cave tube day
Turneffe Atoll trip
Lamanai Jungle River Trip

I think having two atoll trips in five days is too much. I'd just do one, and if you've never done either then I'd suggest the BH day. Not for the BH dive itself, but for the two that follow. And I'd do this after two days of local diving, not one. Not that you may have much choice anyway.

I wouldn't devote a day to Hol Chan/SRA. I'd do some diving outside the reef in the morning, then maybe go to HC/SRA that afternoon.

I wouldn't do two inland trips in five days. I'd suggest Lamanai as your only trip.

So I'd suggest local dives outside the reef in the mornings of days 1 & 2, a trip to HC/SRA on whichever afternoon has the better weather, BH on day 3 (if possible, otherwise day 4). Local diving day 4, then Lamanai on the last day (travelling by boat) when you shouldn't be diving anyway.

Most people who try to cram as much in as you're proposing either cut it back or regret it.

 

[Deankel]

Thanks very much for the feedback everyone. Peter, I knew you'd have excellent insight regarding our plan, and I did think that we might be overdoing it.
Changing course entirely, I looked into Chabil Mar a bit today, and they offer a 7 night stay-dive package that includes: Glovers Reef Atoll and South Water Caye, Blue Hole & Lighthouse Reef, Silk Cayes, and an inland excursion. Are they closer to Glovers and Blue Hole?


Thanks again.

 

[peterbj7]

I had to look up Chabil Mar as I've never heard of it. I see it's in Placencia. A good place to combine diving with inland trips, as you're already "inland". But the reef is a long way away and all your dive trips outside the reef will be long, probably whole day affairs, with long expensive boat rides. There are also some dive sites inside the reef, but I haven't been there. If you do want to stay there there are several excellent dive centers - Ralph from Splash is often here, and there's Avadon and the original whale-watching center, Seahorse. I haven't looked up the dates of the full moon in June, but Placencia is an ideal spot to go out to Gladden Spit to see them. A few days either side of the full moon is best.

If you want to dive South Water Caye and Glover's, I'd look into staying in Hopkins at Hamanasi and diving with their in-house operation (called Hopkins Divers). They're also on the mainland so inland trips from there should be quite easy. Another place I used to recommend is Thatch Caye, but I've rather lost touch with it. They used to run their own inland trips, and Southwater Caye is local diving for them.

Don't ignore Tranquility Bay (TBR) here on Ambergris Caye. It's 12 miles from San Pedro tho'r they usually have several boats a day going to and fro. The diving up there is superb and quite different from that down in San Pedro, and extremely close - if it weren't for the reef to cross you could easily swim out to the local dive sites. They have a small and highly personal dive center that will essentially do what you want to do when you want to do it. And you can still do atoll trips from there, at least to the two northern atolls. TBR is actually just inside the Bacalar Chico National Park, and trips into the park (by boat) are extremely rewarding. I don't know anyone who's stayed there who's felt "isolated".

 

[Deankel]

I think we've gone full circle with researching options for our week, and one mention was Thatch Caye, which we're really excited about after looking into it. We have a tentative trip planned to stay with Caves Branch Jungle Resort for the first few days and then head to Dangriga to be picked up by Thatch Caye for the remainder of the week. We're really looking forward to Thatch Caye now, with one lingering doubt before making the deposit -- no air conditioning in the room. Island breezes and fans would have to take care of the heat at night in mid-June. Does anyone have any input on how uncomfortable it can be at night in June in Belize, especially for people not used to sleeping without air conditioning in the heat??!!

 

[Downing]

Probably depends on your comfort level more than anything. My wife and I've spent three weeks over two vacations (June into July and July into August) in a beach front cabana on the Turneffe Atoll. I was comfortable sleeping with no a/c but with the windows and the front and back doors open to catch the breeze. My wife, on the other hand, insisted on running the a/c.

So I'd wait until she was asleep, then turn off the a/c and open the doors and windows. The breezes plus the ceiling fan were plenty enough for me.

While in Placencia last year I heard a story about an Itaiian millionaire and his family who had booked a stay at Francis Ford Coppola's Turtle Inn, a high end resort there. They didn't discover there was no a/c there until they were bedding down for the night. They immediately left in a huff and moved into an air-conditioned budget hotel down the beach.

 

[AWMIII]

I have found summer in Belize to be about the same or better than summer in PA. AC is nice as it is great to feel some dry air once in a while. You will aclimate after a day or so. We were quite comfortable at Caves Branch, but we have only been there at the end of March. I have no idea how hot it is there in the summer. A nice cool shower before bed coupled with a ceiling fan seems to be great for us. One other concern is security if you will be sleeping with open windows. I don't think ti is an issue at Caves Branch as it is REALLY remote. I do not know about your other choice, but it is probably okay if thats what they are marketing. We have no AC is our house outside Philadelphia. It can get pretty hot here. I am very rarely uncomfortably hot in Belize.

 

[Deankel]

Well AMWIII hats off to you for being able to tolerate philly weather in the summer with no AC !! I'm probably close to you in location and I know that I can't tolerate it. We moved our search over one caye to Coco Plum Island Resort (right next to Thatch Caye but with AC) and had our hearts set on it after all of our research only to find that they're booked solid for most of June. So we gave up the idea of any mainland tours and checked into TIR and Blackbird Caye Resort and have now settled on Blackbird. We won't pay a deposit for 2 more days and would love to read a dive report/review here from someone who stayed at Blackbird but can't seem to find any...