Looking for Placencia / Gladden Spit dive advice or anecdotes!

[lemon]

Planning a trip to Placencia for a week in april to coincide with the whale shark migration through the gladden spit area and could use some advice. i've tried a number of searches but trip reports are scarce on this subject...

1. currently planning on diving with sea horse. i've heard both good and not so good about them from various sources. any experiences to share?

2. is there decent diving local to placencia that doesn't require a prolonged hours long boat ride? not sure i wanna do 6 straight days of whale shark dives. might be nice to do a day or two at other sites while i'm there.

3. does anyone know if any of the dive shops even send any of their boats anywhere other than gladden spit when the whale sharks are supposed to be around?

4. does anyone have any recs for mid-range to decent budget places to stay or eat...or booze in the placencia area?

thanks in advance everyone!

I'll be sure and post a detailed trip report and review of Sea Horse Dive Shop and the whole Placencia / Gladden Spit experience when I return.

 

[Hank49]

Placencia is about 20 miles from the reef, at the nearest point. There are some decent dives around Laughingbird Caye, which is about half way there. Not deep but lots of marine life because it's well protected.
I don't know of any other spots where they go to look for whale sharks. Some get lucky and spot them in other places, but rarely. I actually almost ran over one about 8 years ago way up near Bacolar Chico on the northern part of Ambergris Caye.
Right now I hear Placencia is "dead", I guess due to the slow economy. You may be able to show up and bargain for a cheap place.

 

[Avadon Divers]

Hi Lemon....again. I know we're in touch, but I feel compelled to answer Hank's posting so that other people may not be misguided by it. It doesn't seem as if Hank has dived anywhere other than Laughing Bird Caye when he was in Placencia. This is not considered one of the better dive locations down here. However, it's not a bad site. It's a faroe reef inside the main barrier reef, and there are many of this kind of formation down here: pinnacles that come up from sea floor inside the barrier reef, and sometimes form islands like Laughing Bird Caye.

Yes, it's true that the barrier reef is about 20 miles off shore from the Placencia peninsula. If you choose to dive from Placencia, choose an operation with a large comfortable boat. There is some incredible diving accessible from Placencia like the South Water Caye Marine Reserve, Glovers Reef atoll and north Sapodilla Cayes.

Whale shark diving is something that people from all over the world come to Placencia to experience. Whale sharks congregate at Gladden Spit, a promontory along the barrier reef directly east of Placencia, to feed on the spawn of thousands of schooling snapper. This is the only spawning aggregation site in the world where you can scuba dive with whale sharks. The times for diving are 10-day full moon periods from March to June.

That should shed some light on the subject.

 

[NWDiverBob]

We were in Placencia in July and dove with Sea Horse. It was a well run operation and I would recommend them. They had the largest dive boat (at least that I saw) and it was in great shape. I would go down there for the Wale Sharks but that would be it. It's just too far from the reef for me. Placencia is a nice little town and the people are very friendly. We saw lot's of construction going on there.

 

[Hank49]

Hi Lemon....again. I know we're in touch, but I feel compelled to answer Hank's posting so that other people may not be misguided by it. It doesn't seem as if Hank has dived anywhere other than Laughing Bird Caye when he was in Placencia. This is not considered one of the better dive locations down here. However, it's not a bad site. It's a faroe reef inside the main barrier reef, and there are many of this kind of formation down here: pinnacles that come up from sea floor inside the barrier reef, and sometimes form islands like Laughing Bird Caye.

Sorry for the confusion. My mention of Laughingbird as a dive site was to point out that there are sites INSIDE the reef nearer to Placencia that are good.
I have dived and free dived many....most of the button reefs from between Crawl Caye to Baker's Rendezvous to Mojo to Laughingbird and just about everything in between Placencia out to Gladden, north through the Badlands and south towards Ranguana. I'm very familiar with this area.

 

[Avadon Divers]

Thanks Hank, and sorry if I misunderstood you. Just wanted to inform others that there is other great diving accessible to Placencia, and thanks for mentioning that.

 

[Avadon Divers]

There have been some changes in Placenca lately. There are a few operations now with larger boats. Seahorse has a new 42-ft that they just put in operation last Dec. Turtle Inn has a 40-ft boat on the way for whale shark season. Robert's Grove has had a Pro 48-ft for ages. Our dive shop here in Placencia (Avadon Divers), has a 46-ft Newton Dive Special. All of us operators here understand that we have long distances to travel to be able to offer the great diving available here along the southern barrier reef. Being able to provide a comfortable ride out, even in choppy weather is a must. Everyone is now stepping up to the plate. So, for those people who don't mind going the distance (in relative comfort) to explore great Belizean southern barrier reef diving, the operators in Placencia are ready to take you there.

 

[Thatch Caye Belize]

I would make a recomendation for folks considering Placencia as their sole base for going out to dive in southern Belize and that would be to break up their trip into possibly two or even three parts. One would be to do some diving up at San Pedro and do Lighthouse Reef from there. Then head to south central Belize and dive the walls of the South Water Caye Marine Reserve, do the south Turneffe Elbow and Glovers, and do the whale sharks at Gladdens Spit. The whale sharks are the same distance from Placencia as they are from several islands clustered in the South Water Caye Marine Reserve (South Water Caye, Tobacco Caye, Coco Plum Caye, and Thatch Caye), so one could choose where to go from based on that information. Then one could do the faro dives down south, including the Silk Cayes and Laughinbird Caye, and that would pretty much be a great week to ten days of diving showcasing the entire range of what Belize has to offer.

 

[kalekainxx]

There have been some changes in Placenca lately. There are a few operations now with larger boats. Seahorse has a new 42-ft that they just put in operation last Dec. Turtle Inn has a 40-ft boat on the way for whale shark season. Robert's Grove has had a Pro 48-ft for ages. Our dive shop here in Placencia (Avadon Divers), has a 46-ft Newton Dive Special. All of us operators here understand that we have long distances to travel to be able to offer the great diving available here along the southern barrier reef. Being able to provide a comfortable ride out, even in choppy weather is a must. Everyone is now stepping up to the plate. So, for those people who don't mind going the distance (in relative comfort) to explore great Belizean southern barrier reef diving, the operators in Placencia are ready to take you there.

Do any of the places you mentioned offer diving packages? Like whale shark, glover's reef, etc? Also what is the avg price for a 2-tank reef dive?

 

[ericdiver]

I'm new to diving so I can't offer any opinions there, but I've been to Placencia a few times. Omar's (on the sidewalk) and Wendy's (at the end of the road) are places we like to eat for good reasonable local food. The Barefoot Beach Bar is our standard Placencia watering hole (live band usually on Sundays). And for a special dinner we like La Dolce Vita (the Italian place above Wallen's Market). This is not meant to exclude other places - there's others I plan on trying!
As for lodging, I'd check with Seahorse for a package if that's who you're diving with - they advertise several options on their website. I haven't stayed actually in the village for a while: we generally have a vehicle and stay a few miles outside. If you're interested I can suggest a few places outside the village.
Enjoy the trip - the Belizean beer and run are excellent!