Ha ha. We used to have some royal battles here over the "Is the Blue Hole worth it?" question.
I've done it three times and am firmly in the "yes it's worth it at least once" camp for two reasons. First, it's a unique dive and if you get lucky you'll also see some hammerhead sharks fairly close and personal. Second, it's just the first dive of a great day of diving.
The BH dive really isn't all that exciting. As noted above, you can't see it from the surface like you can from the air. It just looks like the rest of the ocean. You dive down to the lip, about 50 feet, gather your group together and over the lip you go. You go through a, um, whatchamacallit when the vision gets blurry for a few seconds and quickly make your way down to 130. You hang out for about five minutes, looking for hammerheads and at the big stalactites, then it's time to ascend. Hang out at the lip again for stop number one, then at fifteen feet for stop number two, and then it's over. Your dive op should look after you like a mama bear.
If it was the one and only dive of the day then I'd change my thinking. But you'll spend two surface intervals and lunch at Half Moon Caye, which is God's gift to man to those who make the trip. And the diving around Half Moon is the best Belize has to offer.
I was staying on the Turneffe Atoll the three times that I made the trip so it was only about an hour each way. Each time, some of the divers sat out the BH. Some had done it before and didn't think it was worth getting wet again. Others were relatively new and/or just weren't comfortable doing that dive. So that is an option if you think you'd like to make the trip. These days I dive out of Placencia and if my dive op ever goes to the BH while I'm there, I'd go in a heartbeat.
I'm about to make my 3rd trip to Belize and still don't have Blue Hole on my agenda. My gut instinct is that it would be an overcrowded site with not much to see. I would also like to hear what people who made the dive thought.
