diverdowndh
Contributor
I started to reply to some posts, then decided I'll put my comments in a new thread.
I just got back from a 10 day stay on Caye Caulker, Belize. This is a tiny island just out from Belize City, south of Ambergris Caye. I had heard about the laid-back feel of the island and thought my girlfriend and I would give it a try. I'll break it down so that you can make up your own mind...
Hotel - Stayed at the Caye Caulker Condos, this turned out to be the best place on the island to stay. Barbara runs a tight ship and goes out of her way to make sure you have what you need. BIG water jug in the room, she has about 7 bikes that are free to use if you are staying there. There are no cars on the island so this was very cool.
Diving - used Belize Diving Services, kind of bittersweet about this one. They were very professional and fun on the boats. However, the first day diving, I checked my air and I had only about 2700lbs in the tank. I told my DM that I am a hoover and that wasn't a full tank. He looked at 4 other tanks to find one with 2900lbs... During the stay, the average air in the tanks was about 2750lbs. I tipped my DM after one day and asked him to get me a pair of full tanks for the next day - I got one with 2950 and the other had 2800... still not full imho (please let me know what comments anyone has here, I've been diving all over and this just seemed low to my GF and I....). Also, we dove the first full day, and they provided lunch and water on the boat. The lunch was awesome, but I noticed the water bottles were refilled, not new. No problem, figured a class act like this would only fill them with purified water. I got sick that afternoon, couldn't get more than 2 minutes from a bathroom for almost 3 days. Got better, did more diving, had a good time - on the next to last day we had dinner with a couple that we befriended and they said they went by the dive shop in the afternoon and saw a couple of the dive shop people filling up bottles from a spigot! My GF and I were trying to figure out where I could have gotten bad water from and that made TOTAL sense because I hadn't really had time to drink anything else. Anyway, I emailed the dive shop and got two interesting responses: 1) she said one in ten people who come to Caye Caulker get sick, and 2) her tanks are NEVER under 3000 and that I should have brought the issue up before I left the island... of course, I did, I even tipped my DM to get me a couple of full tanks.
Island in general - the island is VERY laid back, but we are wondering what that really means. You can hardly walk 10 feet without someone wanting to sell you weed. I get drug tested at work, have a job where that is totally unacceptable and got really tired of telling people NO, I do NOT want it! The restaurants are great, but my impression of the island is that it was a cheap, laid back place to go. It certainly wasn't all that cheap, so don't go there thinking you'll save money. The diving was as expensive as going to Grand Cayman...
In summary, I usually never use anything less than a PADI 5 star, but there isn't one on the island. I know that sounds snobbish, but every time I don't use a PADI 5 star I end up sick, or something strange ends up happening. I liked the island, but don't like being harrassed to buy drugs, it wasn't as isolated as I read it to be, and if they EXPECT 1 out of every 10 people to get sick, I think those odds suck... I do not think I'll go back to Caye Caulker. It has the resonance of a laid back place, but it is going thru some definitive growning pains and is trying to compete with Ambergris Caye to the north, which grew very busy since our original trip couple of years ago (we took a boat ride up there to see the changes, no more dirt roads, cars whizzing by at high speed, the restaurants almost made me feel like I should have on more than just shorts and sandals!).
Anyway, hope this helps. The reefs are still in fairly good shape, but you can even see Barracuda on the menus everywhere you go and guess what? I only saw one tiny Barracuda right off the dock - I have NEVER failed to see BIG Barracuda in the Caribbean.... and we never saw one while diving. Only a few lobsters, the Angelfish were smaller than I remembered. We had lunch with some other divers and wondered if they were simply fishing them too hard. Oh yeah, another thing: we dove the Hol Chan marine park one day (also called Shark/Ray Allley). Saw lots of nurse sharks, not a single ray. Several years ago when we were on Ambergris Caye there were more Eagle rays than you could point your camera at... I think the tourism board needs to read my post!
Hopefully this wasn't too much or too boring. Feel free to ask any questions, I would really, really think twice about going here again.
I just got back from a 10 day stay on Caye Caulker, Belize. This is a tiny island just out from Belize City, south of Ambergris Caye. I had heard about the laid-back feel of the island and thought my girlfriend and I would give it a try. I'll break it down so that you can make up your own mind...
Hotel - Stayed at the Caye Caulker Condos, this turned out to be the best place on the island to stay. Barbara runs a tight ship and goes out of her way to make sure you have what you need. BIG water jug in the room, she has about 7 bikes that are free to use if you are staying there. There are no cars on the island so this was very cool.
Diving - used Belize Diving Services, kind of bittersweet about this one. They were very professional and fun on the boats. However, the first day diving, I checked my air and I had only about 2700lbs in the tank. I told my DM that I am a hoover and that wasn't a full tank. He looked at 4 other tanks to find one with 2900lbs... During the stay, the average air in the tanks was about 2750lbs. I tipped my DM after one day and asked him to get me a pair of full tanks for the next day - I got one with 2950 and the other had 2800... still not full imho (please let me know what comments anyone has here, I've been diving all over and this just seemed low to my GF and I....). Also, we dove the first full day, and they provided lunch and water on the boat. The lunch was awesome, but I noticed the water bottles were refilled, not new. No problem, figured a class act like this would only fill them with purified water. I got sick that afternoon, couldn't get more than 2 minutes from a bathroom for almost 3 days. Got better, did more diving, had a good time - on the next to last day we had dinner with a couple that we befriended and they said they went by the dive shop in the afternoon and saw a couple of the dive shop people filling up bottles from a spigot! My GF and I were trying to figure out where I could have gotten bad water from and that made TOTAL sense because I hadn't really had time to drink anything else. Anyway, I emailed the dive shop and got two interesting responses: 1) she said one in ten people who come to Caye Caulker get sick, and 2) her tanks are NEVER under 3000 and that I should have brought the issue up before I left the island... of course, I did, I even tipped my DM to get me a couple of full tanks.
Island in general - the island is VERY laid back, but we are wondering what that really means. You can hardly walk 10 feet without someone wanting to sell you weed. I get drug tested at work, have a job where that is totally unacceptable and got really tired of telling people NO, I do NOT want it! The restaurants are great, but my impression of the island is that it was a cheap, laid back place to go. It certainly wasn't all that cheap, so don't go there thinking you'll save money. The diving was as expensive as going to Grand Cayman...
In summary, I usually never use anything less than a PADI 5 star, but there isn't one on the island. I know that sounds snobbish, but every time I don't use a PADI 5 star I end up sick, or something strange ends up happening. I liked the island, but don't like being harrassed to buy drugs, it wasn't as isolated as I read it to be, and if they EXPECT 1 out of every 10 people to get sick, I think those odds suck... I do not think I'll go back to Caye Caulker. It has the resonance of a laid back place, but it is going thru some definitive growning pains and is trying to compete with Ambergris Caye to the north, which grew very busy since our original trip couple of years ago (we took a boat ride up there to see the changes, no more dirt roads, cars whizzing by at high speed, the restaurants almost made me feel like I should have on more than just shorts and sandals!).
Anyway, hope this helps. The reefs are still in fairly good shape, but you can even see Barracuda on the menus everywhere you go and guess what? I only saw one tiny Barracuda right off the dock - I have NEVER failed to see BIG Barracuda in the Caribbean.... and we never saw one while diving. Only a few lobsters, the Angelfish were smaller than I remembered. We had lunch with some other divers and wondered if they were simply fishing them too hard. Oh yeah, another thing: we dove the Hol Chan marine park one day (also called Shark/Ray Allley). Saw lots of nurse sharks, not a single ray. Several years ago when we were on Ambergris Caye there were more Eagle rays than you could point your camera at... I think the tourism board needs to read my post!
Hopefully this wasn't too much or too boring. Feel free to ask any questions, I would really, really think twice about going here again.
