Diving on Ambergris Caye

[Chaseh]

I had an amazing excursion from Ambergris out to the Blue Hole with Amigos del Mar, really beautiful diving all day, but I wouldn't expect the strict DIR and PADI laws to be followed while diving with them.

While I loved the Blue Hole, 2 of the divers in our group were doing their first dive since getting their C-Cards. My max depth on that dive was 156ft (there's was within at least 15 ft of that) and while doing a very cool shark feeding during a deco stop, one of the newbies was corking and blew a blood vessel in his eye, which flooded his mask red.

These two new divers made various other mistake during the day (yes he kept diving) including bashing lots of coral (new divers shouldn't have cameras), but I don't blame them as much as Amigos for not screening the diver's experience for such a profile.

Amazing diving, but third world standards of rules, safety, and liability. Which isn't too say it's not better in many ways than the American litigious format, but buyer beware and look out for yourself, don't assume someone else is.

 

[riverdiver]

We stayed at Baylon Bay, was one of the nicest places on the island, very good resturant I did some diving with Protech, 2 to 3 divers on the boat, was able to pick my own dive sites. also used Ambergris Divers where very good. If go to the Blue Hole go with Raymos they have the best lunch.
Ed

 

[Dive-aholic]

I had an amazing excursion from Ambergris out to the Blue Hole with Amigos del Mar, really beautiful diving all day, but I wouldn't expect the strict DIR and PADI laws to be followed while diving with them.

While I loved the Blue Hole, 2 of the divers in our group were doing their first dive since getting their C-Cards. My max depth on that dive was 156ft (there's was within at least 15 ft of that) and while doing a very cool shark feeding during a deco stop, one of the newbies was corking and blew a blood vessel in his eye, which flooded his mask red.

These two new divers made various other mistake during the day (yes he kept diving) including bashing lots of coral (new divers shouldn't have cameras), but I don't blame them as much as Amigos for not screening the diver's experience for such a profile.

Amazing diving, but third world standards of rules, safety, and liability. Which isn't too say it's not better in many ways than the American litigious format, but buyer beware and look out for yourself, don't assume someone else is.

I agree. I think that's pretty much their standard. Aquadives made us do our initial "check out" dive to assess our skills, but after that it didn't matter. We had a new diver along with us too, but it didn't change the dives we did. Fortunately we didn't do the Blue Hole until day 4 so I think he was a little more at ease with the diving by then. And, they didn't monitor what we did either. I'm not sure anyone on the dive complied with the 130 fsw profile.

 

[Dive Bunny]

We went to Ambergris in Oct and stayed at the Banana Beach Resort. It was nice and the people were great. It was not pricey, and had about everything you need. We did most of our diving with Amigos Del Mar and Blue Hole dive shop. Both places were very good. The diving however wasn't as good as it is off the Atolls. The vis was only about 30 -40 ft at best. We did see several Nurse sharks and turtles, but the fish life was not comparable to somewhere like Cozumel. The Blue hole trip with Amigos Del Mar was great, but on these trips they really should put people together according to their skill levels. We had a bunch of people in our group that shouldn't have been there at all. Hope you have a great trip!

How is the diving and looking for a nice place to stay on Ambergris Caye and any other info.
Thanks,
Scuba Boy

 

[Deus]

I agree. I didn't originally plan to do the whole depth of the Blue Hole. I was only going to go 80 ft with a couple of other people. Befor we knew it we were at 100ft. I have been to 100ft before so I wasn't worried. I felt comfotable once down there so I went for it. I did feel narcosis though. I got really goofy. We were told that we would go 130ft but I remember hitting 140.

I do not think that this is a dive for novice divers. Just because I did it doesn't mean I could have handled it if something went wrong. Another thing for newbies (like myself) need to remember is that just because I handled narcosis this time at 140 does not mean I will be safe handling it at a 120 next time.

Dive safe

 

[Dive Bunny]

The dive master that we had was really good about keeping up with everyone, but there was a group of girls that were really freaked out by the whole thing and I had to stay far away from them, they were kicking and waving their arms around like they were in a fight...haha! The dive master took us to 146 ft which I too felt narcosis set in, but luckily it wasn't bad enough where I couldn't still think about what I was doing and I went up about 10 ft and it gradually went away. I just felt that was way too deep for new divers. I looked over and the group of girls were clinging on to the dive master, I felt bad for him, but they shouldn't have been down that far. The next day when we were diving with the Blue Hole dive shop, we were told a few stories on how some people have died in the Blue Hole because they went down too far, got narcosis and just kept going down...down...down. The kind of stuff you don't want to hear about...yikes!

I agree. I didn't originally plan to do the whole depth of the Blue Hole. I was only going to go 80 ft with a couple of other people. Befor we knew it we were at 100ft. I have been to 100ft before so I wasn't worried. I felt comfotable once down there so I went for it. I did feel narcosis though. I got really goofy. We were told that we would go 130ft but I remember hitting 140.

I do not think that this is a dive for novice divers. Just because I did it doesn't mean I could have handled it if something went wrong. Another thing for newbies (like myself) need to remember is that just because I handled narcosis this time at 140 does not mean I will be safe handling it at a 120 next time.

Dive safe

 

[Chaseh]

Yeah, a few have gone to the depths and not come up there. What about the shark experience there for you all? Were they fed for you like they were on our dive? May not be PC, but pretty wild!

If you do goto the Blue Hole, and have 2 wetsuits with you, choose the thicker one that day. It's cold down there. '

The walls on the atolls in that area are unbelievable!

 

[Dive-aholic]

They weren't chumming when we dove, but a few of us did see the faint outline of what we think were a couple of bullsharks at depth. We couldn't really tell because it was so dark. I only had a 2 degree change in temp when I went - 79 at depth. I agree about the walls!

 

[peterbj7]

Interesting point several of you have raised. The BH dive certainly isn't for everyone, and I spend more time dissuading people from doing it than I do persuading others. If anyone who patently isn't ready is determined to do it I strongly suggest a couple of days diving the barrier reef first, with progressively deeper dives starting each day. No point in my saying I won't take them because there are lots of operators only too happy to step in.

I hope Christine will see this post and contribute, because she is a prime example. She wanted to do the BH, but didn't have many dives and none below 80'. So I built up to it slowly, with deep dives to 100', 130', and 150'. She was happy at 100', but the next day at 130' she indicated (quite calmly) that she wasn't happy, so we went up a bit and then she was. So the third day I said I'd take her back down to 130', and this time she was fine. We stopped on the sand for a few minutes and did a puzzle or two, before gently swimming back up the slope. The barrier reef at AC is superb at that depth.

Only I made sure she didn't look at her depth gauge and couldn't see mine, because I actually took her to 150' that dive. If she had known she might have been very uneasy, so I didn't tell her. I had already recognised her innate diving ability as well above average, and the problem was solely in her head. Back on the boat I showed her my computer, and said that the BH dive (which was to be the next day) would be shallower, so she need have no fears about it. And she didn't - I went down with her and she loved it down there. If I recall correctly we saw about 25 big bull sharks on that dive - they came to within 30' of us and stayed - and she loved that too. Two days earlier I hate to think what she would have done.

The point I'm trying to make is that a dive that deep should be worked up to. If you are inexperienced and it's way deeper than your previous deepest you probably won't die as there'll be lots of people there looking out for you, but you won't enjoy it and probably won't learn a lot from it either.

The alcove with stactites and stalacmites that everyone goes to see starts at about 125' and ends at about 145'. Most people go to the bottom (of the alcove!) so get to around 145'. Assuming a good group with no problem divers, the ascent starts at around run time 11 minutes. So on grounds of both depth and time it goes beyond recreational limits, though some operators will insist on calling it a recreational dive. The last time I dived it my computers (Suunto and DiveRite) both indicated 8 minutes of decompression before we started back up. Again, most operators insist it is a no-decompression dive. Impossible, on the depth and time reached. But not a problem either.

It's a grey and gloomy dive at 9:30 in the morning, with the sun a long way from being overhead, and there's no colour down there. And although there's no guarantee, you may well be accompanied by numbers of large sharks - bull, grey reef, and sometimes oceanic black tip. At depth (200'+) I have seen copious hammerheads, but I've never heard of them being sighted shallower, and several of the local dive guides will swear there are no hammerheads in the Hole. It's not uncommon for hammerheads to keep well away from people.

My recommendation for anyone unsure about diving the BH is to seek advice and appropriate training locally beforehand, and not to plan on the BH trip until after at least three days of diving. Otherwise, don't do it. I am increasingly steering people who want to dive Lighthouse Atoll away from a BH dive towards doing three open ocean wall dives instead. These are magnificent. Not many operators send dive boats to do this though, so it can't always happen.

 

[Chaseh]

Great description of the dive.

I had heard that back when Belize was British Honduras, that the Brits has killed off most of the Hammerheads in the hole. Thin story though, with no confirmation as of yet.