Belize Trip - just got back...ROCKS!

[Mo2vation]

Had the best time.

Went to Turneffe Island Lodge (www.turneffelodge.com) for a week, then spend another couple of days in Belize City.

We slipped in between Dennis and Emily. It was a little un-nerving hearing Turneffe being boarded up in the middle of the night that Friday (our last night) as Emily was still on a course for us - but it missed and all is good.

I can't say enough great things about the resort. Its a tiny private island, very clean, very private. The dive sites receive very little pressure, and are almost exclusively dived by divers on the island - so all are pristine and within a few minutes of the place. The food was excellent, the staff friendly and attentive. They had the 3-volume "The Reef Set" in the dining hall / bar (Humann / Deloach) and I sat for hours looking up stuff I saw and shot. What an unreal set of reference manuals. Anyway, I highly recommend the place.

Mid week we dived the highly overrated Blue Hole. Kinda lame. However, the dive on Half Moon Caye wall was the dive of my life. Quite simply the best viz, the most colorful wall and the most eye-popping dive I've ever been on.

Belize City was a little different. Of course, everyone was nervous about Emily. People were great, but the place wasn't so much. We took a day trip to Lamanai - up the river into the jungle. That did not dissapoint. Ruins, jungle, river trip with birds, monkeys and bats and stuff.

Met some great people on this trip - my first to the Carrib. I'm smitten and will be back to the Carrib very, very soon. I don't think this will be our last time to Turneffe, either. Loved every moment of it.

Here are some pics in a mini-gallery with some commentary. Belize 2005

Enjoy.

Ken


PS: a member of ScubaBoard gave us the lead on Turneffe. I love this place.

 

[RICHinNC]

the Carib has always been my favorite just because I live on the East coast and its cheaper to fly there than out your direction !!

Glad your trip went well and wasnt blown away.

rich

 

[tx.lakerats]

Nice pictures~~ brings back alot of memories!!

 

[SueMermaid]

I am green with envy. Belize does, indeed, rock. I have been there a couple of times, and nothing really compares. Thanks for the report and the great photos!

 

[detroit diver]

Ken,

I don't mean to hijack your post, but can anyone recommend a dive op in Belize City? I'll be jumping off a cruise ship for the day and would like to get some dives in.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[rpodos]

Your first Carib trip was to Turneffe Island Lodge? Nice place to start!!

The Elbow and Half Moon are prolly my two favorite sites in the Caribbean, so far.

Didn;t you see any sharks at the Blue Hole? The one time I went, there was a thermocline at about 120 feet, and right below it there were sharks *everywhere*. Something about oxygenated seawater, IIRC.

 

[Mo2vation]

Your first Carib trip was to Turneffe Island Lodge? Nice place to start!!

The Elbow and Half Moon are prolly my two favorite sites in the Caribbean, so far.

Didn;t you see any sharks at the Blue Hole? The one time I went, there was a thermocline at about 120 feet, and right below it there were sharks *everywhere*. Something about oxygenated seawater, IIRC.

Jaye (wifie) had a catastrophic second stage failure the day before the overrated Blue Hole dive. I'm talking we're at 55 FSW, and the deathtrap Trident swivel she was using exploded - so its a big loud jacuzzi and she has essentially no gas.

After we dealt with our first ever real OOA, she wasn't really keen on diving to 130 the next morning. Much to our surprise, several others in the group sheepishly mentioned they weren't too keen on it either - so the DM put together a guppy dive (60-ish) for Jaye and some of the others. It was one of the coolest things. I mean, its a big DUH, and a no brainer, but they've simply never offered a guppy dive at the overrated Blue Hole before... and to have like 1/3 of the group on it - well., it showed me something about the crew, and it showed them that they need to be offering this alternative each time they are unfortunate enough to return there.

To their surprise, nobody sat out that dive... now that there were TWO choices.

Back to your question - on the guppy dive we saw a couple of sharks. And tons of grouper, and I followed around some wacky reef fish I still haven;t identified yet. On the deep dive to the OBH, the group (with all of 6 minutes of bottom time) said they saw many - at least they think they did (as the viz there is really poor.... )

I'm telling you, the guppy dive kicked over the OBH dive - as far as I can tell. They did a bounce to 130 and saw some cool structure and lots of sharkes to be sure, and we're done. All of us did over an hour and saw lots more!

Yeah - Turneffe was amazing. Exceeded all expectations.

---
Ken

 

[mjnansen]

Ken,

I don't mean to hijack your post, but can anyone recommend a dive op in Belize City? I'll be jumping off a cruise ship for the day and would like to get some dives in.

Thanks,

Jack

Belize is the one port that is probably worth going with the ship's excursion- it looked like it was quite a ways out to the dive sites and if your excursion runs late the cruise line will either wait for you or get you to the next port. Roatan or Cozumal is no problem to book your own trips- Cayman depends on the time you have in port. I don't know about other stops you may be making- have fun!

 

[rpodos]

On the deep dive to the OBH, the group (with all of 6 minutes of bottom time) said they saw many - at least they think they did (as the viz there is really poor.... )

Yeah, I was lucky in that I had arrived on a Wednesday for 10 days and thus got the heads up on the deep dive from that week's divers before they left.

I convinced one of the DMs to shoot down to the bottom depth of the dive with me at max speed, and we both brought big-mofo UK lamps with us... so we had some extra time down there, and the rest of the group said it was very cool coming through the thermocline and seeing a "shark light show".

 

[rpodos]

BTW, for anyone that lives in the NYC area, the NY Aquarium has a great exhibition on Glover's Reef:

http://nyaquarium.com/426022/12273454