Shallow Divers: Blue Hole Trip or Turneffe Trip

[ajeagle6921]

There are 4 of us going next week to Ambergris Caye and we are trying to decide which trip would be best. My wife and I have done 6 dives and the couple going with us just got certified last week. We are wanting to do 1 day trip and can't decide which is best. If we do the Blue Hole we would only go to roughly 60 feet so we don't push our limits. Both trips are 3 dives each.

Would that still be a good dive or do you need to go to 130ft to get full experience. Which do you all recommend? Thanks!

 

[KeithG]

Not sure you can only go to 60 feet in the blue hole. All the dives I have witnessed have been group dives where everyone dives the same profile.

And at 60 feet the blue hole is a waste of time. Nothing to see. Not much at 140 except the stalactites. Google some images to get an idea.

At your experience level I suggest you skip the blue hole. You should also be aware that the transit time to the site may be more than 2 hours. So most of your day is spent bumping around in the boat to / from the dive site.

The second / third dive on half moon or long caye are excellent.

 

[SandPhantom]

Glovers is awesome.

 

[flots am]

There are 4 of us going next week to Ambergris Caye and we are trying to decide which trip would be best. My wife and I have done 6 dives and the couple going with us just got certified last week. We are wanting to do 1 day trip and can't decide which is best. If we do the Blue Hole we would only go to roughly 60 feet so we don't push our limits. Both trips are 3 dives each.

Would that still be a good dive or do you need to go to 130ft to get full experience. Which do you all recommend? Thanks!

Skip the blue hole. It's unsafe on a single tank 80 cubic foot tank, and you're not ready to juggle multiple tanks yet.

flots

 

[peterbj7]

At 60' in the Blue Hole you won't be past the lip, so will see nothing. You don't need to go down to the shelf at 145' to see what there is to see, though - 100' will do (if you can arrange for your own dive guide to accompany you).

I disagree that it's an unsafe dive. It is potentially unsafe but the way it's accompanied it becomes safe. Certainly sub-optimal, but not in practice dangerous.

 

[divin'dog]

Do the Turneffe trip. You won't regret one minute of it. Come back and do the BH when you have more experience if the urge is still there. The BH is not going anywhere.

 

[flareside]

Skip the blue hole. It's unsafe on a single tank 80 cubic foot tank, and you're not ready to juggle multiple tanks yet.

flots

I second this comment. New divers suck a lot of air and this is one trip where you can't simply surface when you start running low. My wife did this dive as a new diver and I had to keep an eye on her the entire time or she would have run both of us out of air.

 

[letterboy]

skip the blue hole, even if you are more experienced. . . .

 

[flots am]

I disagree that it's an unsafe dive. It is potentially unsafe but the way it's accompanied it becomes safe. Certainly sub-optimal, but not in practice dangerous.

It's completely safe as long as nobody runs out of air, or gets narced and heads towards the 400'+ bottom, or has a SAC rate of more than 1.0, or needs to share air and discovers that everybody else is also low on air, or has an equipment failure or gets freaked out and bolts for the surface, or descends too slowly and uses up too much gas getting there, or ascends too slowly and continues to accumulate deco time . . .

I'm actually qualified for the dive and I wouldn't do it on a single 80 with an OW diver for a buddy, regardless of how it's run or whether the DM will share air or there's a hang bar.

flots.

 

[Downing]

At 60' in the Blue Hole you won't be past the lip, so will see nothing. You don't need to go down to the shelf at 145' to see what there is to see, though - 100' will do (if you can arrange for your own dive guide to accompany you).

I disagree that it's an unsafe dive. It is potentially unsafe but the way it's accompanied it becomes safe. Certainly sub-optimal, but not in practice dangerous.

I second this comment.

And as has been said, you may not be able to arrange a trip to only sixty feet and even if you could all you would see is a muddy lip and the other divers going over the side as they continue their descent.