Leejnd
Contributor
Belize Dive Reports
My husband Charlie and I took a trip to Belize a couple of weeks ago. These are my dive reports. (They are kind of wordy, but I write them up for my travel journal so there are lots of notes in here to help me remember the trip.) While we both were certified together about a year ago, Ive been fortunate to be able to do a LOT more diving than he has Im almost at 100, while he started this trip with only 24 dives. Hence youll see a few comments in here about how he was improving.
We stayed on Caye Caulker, at the Barefoot Beach Belize hotel, and dove with Belize Diving Services. BDS did a FANTASTIC job for us! We brought our own equipment, and the first day, one of the owners drove all the way down to our hotel (which is way at the south end of the island) to pick us up and bring our gear to their shop. Once we brought our gear there, we never had to worry about it again. They simply had it ready each day, on the boat, and at the end of each day they would tell us to just leave everything where it was on the boat, and theyd take care of it. They rinsed and hung it out in their locked gear shack, and then would have it all set up on the boat for us the next morning. They did all the changing of tanks. We are not used to this kind of deluxe treatment on the boats we take in Southern California! Everyone we dealt with at BDS was friendly and supremely professional. And on top of this: at the end of our trip, when we went to collect our gear from their shop, we accidentally left our weight pouches. When I emailed them about it, they immediately found them and dropped them in the mail to us, no charge. Now thats service!
Day One
Date: 6/30/07
Dive Location: Caye Chapel Canyon
Time In: 10:00 am
Bottom Time: 40 min.
Max Depth: 65
Vis: 80-100 ft
Surface Temp: 86
Temp at depth: 84
Comments: For our first dive in Belize, we headed out from BDSs dock to Caye Chapel, which is just south, only about a ten-minute boat ride away. We were told we would be exploring finger canyons. There were only three other people on the boat with us a young college student on his own, and couple, Rick & Pam, who apparently spend weeks on Caye Caulker every year and dive many days with BDS. I was a little surprised to see them diving in full 7-mil wetsuits with hoods and gloves! It made me a tad worried that the water wouldnt be as warm as I was hoping. So I donned a 3-mil shorty, in case the waters were a bit colder.
Our DM for this dive was Eugene, an affable fellow who was always smiling. He gave us a thorough dive brief, and we got ready to roll. The trip down to Caye Chapel had been inside the reef, but the dive location is just outside it. Once we passed outside of the reef, the waves picked up quite a bit, making for a pretty rocky ride. So we wasted no time doing backrolls off the boat, and quickly descended.
Just as Eugene described, the topography was small finger canyons covered with coral and sponges, with sandy strips in between. Right away we saw the most enormous sea turtle I have EVER seen! He must have been five feet long. We got right up to him. His head was a big as a basketball, and he was so old he had barnacles growing on his back. Looking at his head gave me the impression of looking at a dinosaur. A little bit further on we saw another, smaller turtle.
We saw a number of colorful fish, including an interesting durgon, which is all black with a thin white line at the base of his fins, and he swims with his dorsal and anal fins kind of like a mola mola.
Eugene was a good DM leader. He stayed close to the student, and just kept his eye on us, letting Charlie and me pretty much do what we wanted. He would come back to us occasionally to ask about our air. Pam and Rick are clearly well known to BDS I didnt much see them until the end. It was nice to do a resort-style, DM-led dive where we werent herded like cattle and treated like babies. These guys seemed to take into account each divers experience level, and treated us accordingly. We liked that.
For our surface interval, they took the boat back inside the reef so it wouldnt be so rocky. This was helpful, as I was starting to feel a wee bit queasy outside the reef. They passed around a container of very sweet watermelon.
Date: 6/30/07
Dive Location: Caye Chapel Canyon
Time In: 11:30 am
Bottom Time: 47 min.
Max Depth: 65
Vis: 60 ft
Surface Temp: 86
Temp at depth: 84
Comments: The site wasnt too far away from the first one, so similar finger canyons. The vis was a little worse this time there were more brownish-grey particulates in the water. This time I took the time to really look at the coral, which is abundant and really beautiful: huge elk horn, spiky staghorn & ivory bush, and tubular ivory tube coral. The scroll coral was particularly interesting, creating wild, strange shapes across wide ranges. There were enormous sea fans of varying colors and sizes. But the sponges were the most colorful of all. I loved the vivid purple vase sponges, and the HUGE bright barrel sponges, where you could often find arrow crabs and spindly little banded coral shrimps down inside. We saw a few more fish on this dive, including a four-foot grouper, bar jacks, four-eyed butterfly fish, sergeant majors, parrotfish, angelfish, blue chromis, and trunkfish.
For this dive, I decided to skip the wetsuit. The water was bathwater warm, and I cannot for the life of me get why Pam and Rick dive in full regalia! Thats what I wear for our dives at home in SoCal, where most of my recent dives have been in the 48-52 degree range. I guess they like to stay warm! Diving without a wetsuit was incredibly freeing. I felt like I was skinny-dipping or something. Charlie is doing better with his air consumption, but I am still coming up with 1200 psi each dive, to his 500 psi.
Initial impressions of Belize diving: the coral and sponges are spectacular! However, we were expecting more fish. Not that there werent any, but they were mostly onesies-twosies, not the big schools of colorful fish we were expecting, and definitely fewer than I saw on many of my dives in French Polynesia.
My husband Charlie and I took a trip to Belize a couple of weeks ago. These are my dive reports. (They are kind of wordy, but I write them up for my travel journal so there are lots of notes in here to help me remember the trip.) While we both were certified together about a year ago, Ive been fortunate to be able to do a LOT more diving than he has Im almost at 100, while he started this trip with only 24 dives. Hence youll see a few comments in here about how he was improving.
We stayed on Caye Caulker, at the Barefoot Beach Belize hotel, and dove with Belize Diving Services. BDS did a FANTASTIC job for us! We brought our own equipment, and the first day, one of the owners drove all the way down to our hotel (which is way at the south end of the island) to pick us up and bring our gear to their shop. Once we brought our gear there, we never had to worry about it again. They simply had it ready each day, on the boat, and at the end of each day they would tell us to just leave everything where it was on the boat, and theyd take care of it. They rinsed and hung it out in their locked gear shack, and then would have it all set up on the boat for us the next morning. They did all the changing of tanks. We are not used to this kind of deluxe treatment on the boats we take in Southern California! Everyone we dealt with at BDS was friendly and supremely professional. And on top of this: at the end of our trip, when we went to collect our gear from their shop, we accidentally left our weight pouches. When I emailed them about it, they immediately found them and dropped them in the mail to us, no charge. Now thats service!
Day One
Date: 6/30/07
Dive Location: Caye Chapel Canyon
Time In: 10:00 am
Bottom Time: 40 min.
Max Depth: 65
Vis: 80-100 ft
Surface Temp: 86
Temp at depth: 84
Comments: For our first dive in Belize, we headed out from BDSs dock to Caye Chapel, which is just south, only about a ten-minute boat ride away. We were told we would be exploring finger canyons. There were only three other people on the boat with us a young college student on his own, and couple, Rick & Pam, who apparently spend weeks on Caye Caulker every year and dive many days with BDS. I was a little surprised to see them diving in full 7-mil wetsuits with hoods and gloves! It made me a tad worried that the water wouldnt be as warm as I was hoping. So I donned a 3-mil shorty, in case the waters were a bit colder.
Our DM for this dive was Eugene, an affable fellow who was always smiling. He gave us a thorough dive brief, and we got ready to roll. The trip down to Caye Chapel had been inside the reef, but the dive location is just outside it. Once we passed outside of the reef, the waves picked up quite a bit, making for a pretty rocky ride. So we wasted no time doing backrolls off the boat, and quickly descended.
Just as Eugene described, the topography was small finger canyons covered with coral and sponges, with sandy strips in between. Right away we saw the most enormous sea turtle I have EVER seen! He must have been five feet long. We got right up to him. His head was a big as a basketball, and he was so old he had barnacles growing on his back. Looking at his head gave me the impression of looking at a dinosaur. A little bit further on we saw another, smaller turtle.
We saw a number of colorful fish, including an interesting durgon, which is all black with a thin white line at the base of his fins, and he swims with his dorsal and anal fins kind of like a mola mola.
Eugene was a good DM leader. He stayed close to the student, and just kept his eye on us, letting Charlie and me pretty much do what we wanted. He would come back to us occasionally to ask about our air. Pam and Rick are clearly well known to BDS I didnt much see them until the end. It was nice to do a resort-style, DM-led dive where we werent herded like cattle and treated like babies. These guys seemed to take into account each divers experience level, and treated us accordingly. We liked that.
For our surface interval, they took the boat back inside the reef so it wouldnt be so rocky. This was helpful, as I was starting to feel a wee bit queasy outside the reef. They passed around a container of very sweet watermelon.
Date: 6/30/07
Dive Location: Caye Chapel Canyon
Time In: 11:30 am
Bottom Time: 47 min.
Max Depth: 65
Vis: 60 ft
Surface Temp: 86
Temp at depth: 84
Comments: The site wasnt too far away from the first one, so similar finger canyons. The vis was a little worse this time there were more brownish-grey particulates in the water. This time I took the time to really look at the coral, which is abundant and really beautiful: huge elk horn, spiky staghorn & ivory bush, and tubular ivory tube coral. The scroll coral was particularly interesting, creating wild, strange shapes across wide ranges. There were enormous sea fans of varying colors and sizes. But the sponges were the most colorful of all. I loved the vivid purple vase sponges, and the HUGE bright barrel sponges, where you could often find arrow crabs and spindly little banded coral shrimps down inside. We saw a few more fish on this dive, including a four-foot grouper, bar jacks, four-eyed butterfly fish, sergeant majors, parrotfish, angelfish, blue chromis, and trunkfish.
For this dive, I decided to skip the wetsuit. The water was bathwater warm, and I cannot for the life of me get why Pam and Rick dive in full regalia! Thats what I wear for our dives at home in SoCal, where most of my recent dives have been in the 48-52 degree range. I guess they like to stay warm! Diving without a wetsuit was incredibly freeing. I felt like I was skinny-dipping or something. Charlie is doing better with his air consumption, but I am still coming up with 1200 psi each dive, to his 500 psi.
Initial impressions of Belize diving: the coral and sponges are spectacular! However, we were expecting more fish. Not that there werent any, but they were mostly onesies-twosies, not the big schools of colorful fish we were expecting, and definitely fewer than I saw on many of my dives in French Polynesia.
