Trip Report Itza Resort. March 2022

[Guitarcrazy]

Great photos. Thanks for sharing. What is your camera rig?

 

[d^2b]

Great photos. Thanks for sharing. What is your camera rig?

Olympus EM5-II in Oly PT-EP13 housing, 2 x Sea and Sea YS-01 strobes. I think all of those are with the olympus 12-50 zoom, some with INON UCL165 wet lens (for close focus).

 

[Guitarcrazy]

Thanks for the info. I have a TG-5 with wide angle wet lens, and two YS-01s. My photos are decent, but I am on the fence about trying the EPL-10 and AOI housing. You have some great shots.

 

[VivaCaribe]

I was at Itza Resort in February. Good diving, great meals from Chef Douglas. We had a group of 7 and had the place to ourselves, with Elvis as our dive guide. A great trip overall.

 

[VivaCaribe]

We knew we wanted to try staying on Long Caye, but were not sure which resort. With a bit of trepidation, I let my dive buddy choose the resort, prioritizing being on the beach over the recommendations on SB for Huracan resorts. Overall staying at Itza was great and I would / will return. I'm not really a hang out on the beach person, but I did enjoy sitting in the restaurant / bar looking out at the ocean. I did find the mosquitos worse inland when walking past Huracan, but I didn't end up going in, so take that with a grain of salt.

Itza was not very busy during the two weeks we were there; it peaked at about 8-10 guests and for the last 5 days we were the only two guests. From my perspective this was great, but people who are more into a social scene might not appreciate it as much. Certainly it meant the dive boat was never crowded, and we often had a "private guide". Of course in the future business may pick up (hopefully for the resort to stay in business).

The dive operation was friendly and professional: very much into the "valet diving" concept. The rigs are in a rack at the back of the boat, so if you are an obsessive gear fiddler like me, you have to remember to go to the boat between dives. The divemasters were all great. Both Jeff and Chris were very laid back (which as a lazy photographer I appreciated). Elvis (the resort manager) was more ambitious in terms of covering ground, but it often paid off in terms of finding critters.

Diving was as good as any I've done in the Caribbean. I'll let my pictures stand in [1] for detailed descriptions. We did 3 dives most days, including a couple night dives. For the last 4 or 5 days we spent the morning doing exploratory diving, just the two of us, and two crew heading off to potential new sites. This was good fun, and added to the "adventure" feel. Most dives were single tank, due to closeness to the resort. We did head over to Half Moon Caye a few times. The visibility was not great, so we actually preferred diving Long Caye. It was cool to get up close to the feeding green turtles on Half Moon, and the nesting bird viewing platform is worth going to at least once.

Food was simple but good. Lots of seafood. There is nominally snacks between meals, but sometimes we had to stick our heads in the kitchen and ask.

Accomodations were a bit rustic, but overall fine. There is no AC, which I only really noticed on the last night when I _might_ have drunk too much rum. The "semi-composting" toilets were OK, but there was one or two occasions when there was some odour right around the toilet; it wasn't a problem in the rest of the room, or even on the other side of the bathroom.

[1]: Itza Resort, Belize, March 2022
EDIT: If that link doesn't work, try Itza Resort, Belize, March 2022

Nice pictures!

 

[Stoo]

Did you do Blue Hole? I found that dive a waste of good dive time. I would pass on it if I had the chance. However, I agree with you, the land tour of Half Moon Caye was worth the time. The Red Footed Boobies and Frigatebirds from the observation tower were magnificent.

Thanks again for the great report

I've posted about this before in reviews of Huracan, but I maintain that the ONLY way to have a quality dive the the GBH is to do it with Huracan (or possibly ITZA). Because Huracan is so close, our dive is finished before the hoards arrive from AC and elsewhere.

I've been to Huracan a dozen times, so I think this gets us some "leaway" but typically, we are the only 6 or 8 divers there. My buddy and I sneak in early so literally have the entire place to ourselves, which is amazing for shooting.

The other thing we do is rig a second tank so we're effectively diving doubles which beyond adding a significant amount of safety, it allows us to stay longer and safely complete deco. Town boats tend to be CFs in my opinion. Frightening to watch in some case...

Here are some shots as well as my profile from one of our dives.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @Stoo

We were the first boat at the Blue Hole the morning we did it. You appear to have had considerably better conditions than we did. We had 19 divers and two guides. Many of divers were not very skilled and obviously nervous about doing the deep dive. Of course, no deco off the Aggressor. I spent about 17 minutes less at depth than you did

I was on the Cayman Aggressor with Shirky in 2018

 

[Stoo]

Hi @Stoo

We were the first boat at the Blue Hole the morning we did it. You appear to have had considerably better conditions than we did. We had 19 divers and two guides. Many of divers were not very skilled and obviously nervous about doing the deep dive. Of course, no deco off the Aggressor. I spent about 17 minutes less at depth than you did

I was on the Cayman Aggressor with Shirky in 2018

I remember you commenting about Shirky before... My sincere condolences. ;-)

Conditions deteriorate in the Hole as more divers get down there. There's a lot to be said for getting up early for that dive. We did two there last year, and yes, we had pretty great vis for a big-ass hole...