I'm not going to give a dive by dive or even day by day report. That would take too long. Here is some general info, the high points, and some low points of the trip:
Stayed at the Aquamarina Suites in San Pedro Town, Ambergris Caye and dove with Aquadives. They are owned by the same person and sell a package deal that is pretty reasonable. We did 2 dives a day off their boats with SI back at the resort (the reef is so close, there's no reason to stay out there during the SI). Water temp ranged from 79-81 degrees F. Viz close to San Pedro Town was about 75'. We also did the Blue Hole/Half Moon Caye day trip, and viz down that way was at least 100'. We wore 3mm full suits over a polyolefin skin and were very comfortable. We averaged 60-80' depths on the dives. All dives were led by DMs, but as we found out, that's the way it's done there due to the current - almost all the dives were drift dives. Swells were 6-8' high, not the best conditions, but not too rough to dive - just had to make sure to have enough air to be the last one on the boat, not the first...
The diving was pretty good. The reef wasn't what we expected, but we were told the hurricanes 4 yrs ago did a lot of damage to it and it's still recovering. We did see quite a bit of marine life on every dive - nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles, green moray eels, black durgon, etc. - just to name a few. The 2nd dive of the morning always seemed to offer up the most to see and more variety. I'm not sure why this was. Lots of swim throughs off of San Pedro Town, some 40' or longer with not much room to manuveur. In fact, I was a little surprised that the DMs brought divers through them without checking experience or comfort level. They did advise that we could swim along the outside of the swim through if we preferred, but there was a brand new diver (1st trip since cert) that swam right through them. We did the Blue Hole option just to do it. The Blue Hole dive was...an experience...Very dark, nothing to see, but I did see (and so did other divers in our group) the outlines of a couple of bull sharks in the hole, which we were told might happen. I also had my first real narcosis experience on this dive. I've experienced narcosis before. I've dived this deep before. But for some reason, the narcosis was pretty intense this time. It eased up quite a bit by the time I ascended to 80' and was completely gone at 40'. The better dives of the day were at Half Moon Caye. The viz there was much better than off San Pedro and the walls were absolutely phenomenal. The vase and barrel sponges we encountered were worth the boat ride down there. I'll be posting photos as soon as I finish going through all of them. Next Belize trip will definitely be on a liveaboard that spends all of its time south. The one bad experience we had was a night dive we opted in for at Hol Chan Marine Reserve. The dive itself wasn't bad, but we were put on a boat with some less than desirable divers. One diver had 16#s of lead on and spent the first 5 minutes of the dive trying to get off of his tank. He looked like a beetle on his back. The entire area was silted out within minutes. We swam up ahead to stay out of the silting. I came across a crab about 1 1/2 feet across from leg to leg in the reef. I swam up, positioned my elbow on the sand next to the reef to take some photos. When I was done, I floated up a little and started to swim back away from the reef when all of a sudden I'm yanked back. It was none other than beetle diver grabbing my tank to pull himself towards the reef to get a better look. But after what I saw next, I didn't mind the tank grab. He was so buoyantly challenged that he ended up grabbing a coral head and completely shattering it. It was extremely sad to see the pieces of coral floating in every direction in the water. I could have strangled that guy for what he did! I did make some comments on the boat ride back, but I'm not sure he got it.
Overall, good dive trip.
Topside activities - San Pedro Town is a very small town. Roads are dirt. Transportation is by foot, bicycle, or golf cart. There are very few trucks and minivans on the island. But it's perfect for that. Everything is really close. We had 2 grocery stores within less than a minute's walk from the resort we stayed at. We had a kitchen in our suite, so we ate breakfast and most lunches in the room. Dinner was out almost every night. Great restaurants and not very expensive. If you like spicy food I recommend the Jamba Pit on Front St. Try the Jamaican Jerk Pasta. We went to one of the famous chicken drops - didn't see what all the excitement was about, yeah you win some money, but then you also have to clean the chicken poop up with your hand! We had Purple Parrots at Ramon's one night - those are good. I did get the recipe! Having some tomorrow, although I'm sure it won't be as good without the Caribbean breeze. On our last day we rented a golf cart and just drove around the island. We took the hand pulled ferry across to the north side and had lunch there. We stopped by Captain Morgan's (aka Temptation Island) just to look around.
Overall, great trip. Got to do some very good diving and some great diving and had a very relaxing time on the island every afternoon and evening. It was extremely laid back. I don't think they know the meaning of the word rush, unless they are driving a golf cart, though. The trip didn't seem rushed at all. In fact, it almost seemed to drag on...but in a very good way!
Stayed at the Aquamarina Suites in San Pedro Town, Ambergris Caye and dove with Aquadives. They are owned by the same person and sell a package deal that is pretty reasonable. We did 2 dives a day off their boats with SI back at the resort (the reef is so close, there's no reason to stay out there during the SI). Water temp ranged from 79-81 degrees F. Viz close to San Pedro Town was about 75'. We also did the Blue Hole/Half Moon Caye day trip, and viz down that way was at least 100'. We wore 3mm full suits over a polyolefin skin and were very comfortable. We averaged 60-80' depths on the dives. All dives were led by DMs, but as we found out, that's the way it's done there due to the current - almost all the dives were drift dives. Swells were 6-8' high, not the best conditions, but not too rough to dive - just had to make sure to have enough air to be the last one on the boat, not the first...
The diving was pretty good. The reef wasn't what we expected, but we were told the hurricanes 4 yrs ago did a lot of damage to it and it's still recovering. We did see quite a bit of marine life on every dive - nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles, green moray eels, black durgon, etc. - just to name a few. The 2nd dive of the morning always seemed to offer up the most to see and more variety. I'm not sure why this was. Lots of swim throughs off of San Pedro Town, some 40' or longer with not much room to manuveur. In fact, I was a little surprised that the DMs brought divers through them without checking experience or comfort level. They did advise that we could swim along the outside of the swim through if we preferred, but there was a brand new diver (1st trip since cert) that swam right through them. We did the Blue Hole option just to do it. The Blue Hole dive was...an experience...Very dark, nothing to see, but I did see (and so did other divers in our group) the outlines of a couple of bull sharks in the hole, which we were told might happen. I also had my first real narcosis experience on this dive. I've experienced narcosis before. I've dived this deep before. But for some reason, the narcosis was pretty intense this time. It eased up quite a bit by the time I ascended to 80' and was completely gone at 40'. The better dives of the day were at Half Moon Caye. The viz there was much better than off San Pedro and the walls were absolutely phenomenal. The vase and barrel sponges we encountered were worth the boat ride down there. I'll be posting photos as soon as I finish going through all of them. Next Belize trip will definitely be on a liveaboard that spends all of its time south. The one bad experience we had was a night dive we opted in for at Hol Chan Marine Reserve. The dive itself wasn't bad, but we were put on a boat with some less than desirable divers. One diver had 16#s of lead on and spent the first 5 minutes of the dive trying to get off of his tank. He looked like a beetle on his back. The entire area was silted out within minutes. We swam up ahead to stay out of the silting. I came across a crab about 1 1/2 feet across from leg to leg in the reef. I swam up, positioned my elbow on the sand next to the reef to take some photos. When I was done, I floated up a little and started to swim back away from the reef when all of a sudden I'm yanked back. It was none other than beetle diver grabbing my tank to pull himself towards the reef to get a better look. But after what I saw next, I didn't mind the tank grab. He was so buoyantly challenged that he ended up grabbing a coral head and completely shattering it. It was extremely sad to see the pieces of coral floating in every direction in the water. I could have strangled that guy for what he did! I did make some comments on the boat ride back, but I'm not sure he got it.
Overall, good dive trip.
Topside activities - San Pedro Town is a very small town. Roads are dirt. Transportation is by foot, bicycle, or golf cart. There are very few trucks and minivans on the island. But it's perfect for that. Everything is really close. We had 2 grocery stores within less than a minute's walk from the resort we stayed at. We had a kitchen in our suite, so we ate breakfast and most lunches in the room. Dinner was out almost every night. Great restaurants and not very expensive. If you like spicy food I recommend the Jamba Pit on Front St. Try the Jamaican Jerk Pasta. We went to one of the famous chicken drops - didn't see what all the excitement was about, yeah you win some money, but then you also have to clean the chicken poop up with your hand! We had Purple Parrots at Ramon's one night - those are good. I did get the recipe! Having some tomorrow, although I'm sure it won't be as good without the Caribbean breeze. On our last day we rented a golf cart and just drove around the island. We took the hand pulled ferry across to the north side and had lunch there. We stopped by Captain Morgan's (aka Temptation Island) just to look around.
Overall, great trip. Got to do some very good diving and some great diving and had a very relaxing time on the island every afternoon and evening. It was extremely laid back. I don't think they know the meaning of the word rush, unless they are driving a golf cart, though. The trip didn't seem rushed at all. In fact, it almost seemed to drag on...but in a very good way!
