Aragorn
Guest
We're back from Paradise and recuperated from our trip 
Wow! I don't know where to begin. How does one describe SCUBA diving on the largest Barrier Reef in the Northern Hemisphere? Not to mention the personalized and friendly service one recieves at Gaz Cooper's Playa Blanca Resort. Anyway, I'll try. Here goes.
We arrived on Ambergris Caye at 6PM on the 14th. Believe it not the owner himself, Gaz Cooper, was at the airport to greet us! We got a short tour of the town of San Pedro, did a little grocery shopping, and were promptly "whisked off" by boat to Playa Blanca on the beach 5 miles north of town. For the next 10 days we did nothing but SCUBA dive on the Barrier Reef. 2 tank dives per day that were incredible! 3 of us, my wife Jemma, my son Christian, and I got our Advanced certification while we were there(dove to 117ft!!). The diving was superb! We logged 16 each in total to various locations. Hol Chan, Love Tunnels, M&M caverns, Mexico Rocks, Renegade, Cypress Gardens to name a few. We saw dolphins, Hawksbill Sea Turtles, Eagle Rays, beautiful Angels, Triggers, Pseudochromis, Groupers, Barracudas, soft corals galore, Gorgonians etc. The reef itself was riddled with big, deep canyons that started at 50-60ft and bottomed out at 80-120ft! Awesome walls, caverns, caves, tunnels!!
Meanwhile the staff at Gaz' resort pampered us completely. Karen and Raul catered to us tremendously. So much so that we felt kinda guilty. Karen cooked our meals whenever we wanted and Raul took us into town(via boat) and escorted us whenever we desired. The dive staff took care of all our equipment and made certain that each dive was different.
One day when the water was too choppy to dive, Gaz made sure that we were entertained with a boat excursion up a river into the jungle on the mainland to a resort for lunch. We toured the Altun Ha Mayan ruins and were treated to a nice lunch at the Maruba Resort and Jungle Spa.
The evenings were spent "kicking it" on the beach while the boys befriended Marcus and Ricardo(2 members of the staff) who took them fishing almost every evening up and down the beach.
The resort is small and personable. They have 4 "suites" currently and Gaz is pretty much the only "game in town" up the coast away from town as far as dive operators go. All the other resorts on the Caye refer to him for diving. As a result, we got to know our neighbors well, dived with them everyday and had lotsa fun. Karen's cooking is "da bomb" and she'll even cook you stuff not on the menu if she has the food items.
The weather was exceptional...dry, warm, pleasant breeze and the waters of the Caribbean were a nice 80-82 degrees with clarity in excess of 100ft daily.
I don't know what else to say except that this trip exceeded our expectations and was better diving(in our opinion) than the Cook Islands.
Anyway, thought you folks would like to see a few pic's. I'll be updating my website w/ about 90+ photos if you'd like to see them all. Check out my website this evening or tomorrow morning. Hope you like them. Here they are:
Wow! I don't know where to begin. How does one describe SCUBA diving on the largest Barrier Reef in the Northern Hemisphere? Not to mention the personalized and friendly service one recieves at Gaz Cooper's Playa Blanca Resort. Anyway, I'll try. Here goes.
We arrived on Ambergris Caye at 6PM on the 14th. Believe it not the owner himself, Gaz Cooper, was at the airport to greet us! We got a short tour of the town of San Pedro, did a little grocery shopping, and were promptly "whisked off" by boat to Playa Blanca on the beach 5 miles north of town. For the next 10 days we did nothing but SCUBA dive on the Barrier Reef. 2 tank dives per day that were incredible! 3 of us, my wife Jemma, my son Christian, and I got our Advanced certification while we were there(dove to 117ft!!). The diving was superb! We logged 16 each in total to various locations. Hol Chan, Love Tunnels, M&M caverns, Mexico Rocks, Renegade, Cypress Gardens to name a few. We saw dolphins, Hawksbill Sea Turtles, Eagle Rays, beautiful Angels, Triggers, Pseudochromis, Groupers, Barracudas, soft corals galore, Gorgonians etc. The reef itself was riddled with big, deep canyons that started at 50-60ft and bottomed out at 80-120ft! Awesome walls, caverns, caves, tunnels!!
Meanwhile the staff at Gaz' resort pampered us completely. Karen and Raul catered to us tremendously. So much so that we felt kinda guilty. Karen cooked our meals whenever we wanted and Raul took us into town(via boat) and escorted us whenever we desired. The dive staff took care of all our equipment and made certain that each dive was different.
One day when the water was too choppy to dive, Gaz made sure that we were entertained with a boat excursion up a river into the jungle on the mainland to a resort for lunch. We toured the Altun Ha Mayan ruins and were treated to a nice lunch at the Maruba Resort and Jungle Spa.
The evenings were spent "kicking it" on the beach while the boys befriended Marcus and Ricardo(2 members of the staff) who took them fishing almost every evening up and down the beach.
The resort is small and personable. They have 4 "suites" currently and Gaz is pretty much the only "game in town" up the coast away from town as far as dive operators go. All the other resorts on the Caye refer to him for diving. As a result, we got to know our neighbors well, dived with them everyday and had lotsa fun. Karen's cooking is "da bomb" and she'll even cook you stuff not on the menu if she has the food items.
The weather was exceptional...dry, warm, pleasant breeze and the waters of the Caribbean were a nice 80-82 degrees with clarity in excess of 100ft daily.
I don't know what else to say except that this trip exceeded our expectations and was better diving(in our opinion) than the Cook Islands.
Anyway, thought you folks would like to see a few pic's. I'll be updating my website w/ about 90+ photos if you'd like to see them all. Check out my website this evening or tomorrow morning. Hope you like them. Here they are:
KC_Scubabunny 
