Trip Report - Turneffe Island Resort

[deeper thoughts]

Thnx for the report

 

[Stoo]

Thanks for the replys... To answer some of your questions:

There is not any shore diving. The waters surrounding the lodge are very shallow and sandy. Having said that, a couple of bottlenose dolphins came in to the beach one day and swam around with the only two kids when we were there. I'd say they were pretty much the highlight of those kids' lives to date!

Visibility was generally awesome, but on occasion, the tide would bring a little "murk" in from the flats. Our dive guys were adept at recognizing this from the boat, and would sometimes just shift the boat 100 yards or so, which was all it took.

Regarding the Elbow, it lived up to its billing. Massive schools of fish, five Eagle Rays on one dive, great vis. I would have been happy to dive there all week, but this was one area that was affected by visibility on occasion, so we only dove there three times! ;-)

I neglected to mention our trip to the Blue Hole. This is about a 90 minute trip on the bog boat. We got away early, so when we arrived, the only other boat that was there was the Aggressor, and it was on the other side. Since we were the only people diving there initially, we were blessed with a school of reef sharks.. about 12 I think... circling around. We dropped down through these to about 70' where the viz opened way up and then eventually into the overhang. All in all a nice dive...

 

[redgym]

We spent a week at TIR last August and have a trip report on the board. Great place to spend a week diving. The visibility wasn't the greatest when we were there, but can't blame TIR for that.

 

[Ralph Capeling]

Belize is an incredible Place, once away from Belize City. My Wife is from there and i happen to have seen most not all of the the country. I have never been to the southern part of Belize though. The water is as incredible as your Trip Report. Thanks for the report made me feel i was there with you.

Stoo, reports like your really help put all of Belize on the dive and tourism map. Thank you.
Trewilly, your wife may have told you that 40% of Belize is protected by parks and reserves and that the majority of these are in the south. Placencia (the caye you can drive to) is a good base to explore these. There are lots of dive sites at Laughing Bird Caye (national park and Work Heritage Site), the marine reserves at Silk Cayes and Southwater Caye and Glovers Reef and of course we have the whale sharks. There is lots to do on land too. Monkey River is a fun 30 minute boat ride through mangrove forests before turning up the river where you see crocodiles, huge iguanas, turtles, lots of birds and pristine rain forest. You take short hike into the rain forest to see the howler monkeys and other flora and fauna. Cockscomb Basin Reserve (an hour drive away) has the world's highest concentration of jaguars and big cats and is a great place for hiking with or without a guide. The southern Maya ruins are an hour and half drive away.
I checked out most of Belize before I moved to Placencia from Canada five years ago and it has proven to be a very good decision. You can check it out at splashbelize.com. I became a partner in Splash last year after helping with the Splash Kids Club for a couple of years (program run by Splash were we teach local kids who cannot afford diving lessons free of charge.

 

[Stoo]

This was my second trip to Belize Ralph. The first time was about 15 years ago anyway, and I was at Ambergris Cay. There was very little development there at that time, but gather that has changed... hopefully to the benefit to the Belizian people.

For those that might not be aware of this, Belize is primarily English speaking and a member nation of the British Commonwealth. As a Canadian, I recognized Canadian banks in the city, and it was nice to be able to communicate in English when we went to the hospital. (The hospital is an affiliate of a Miami hospital. The care we got there was superb.)

 

[peterbj7]

after helping with the Splash Kids Club for a couple of years (program run by Splash were we teach local kids who cannot afford diving lessons free of charge.

I did that twice in San Pedro. The first time we went to the High School here and asked for the program to be publicised. To our astonishment we were refused, and told that "gringos shouldn't be bribing locals by giving free lessons". We went ahead anyway, recruiting students off the streets, and that first time was a great success. Though it must be said that the students valued the course at what it cost them - nil - and I have never seen any of them working in the dive industry here.

The second time was basically the same story. We had six students, three never turned up on the first day, and another dropped out after that first day. Neither of the two remaining student was certified as they couldn't be bothered to do any of the studying necessary to pass the exam. I never tried again after that. I might add that on both occasions the instructors and divemasters were all young locals, not foreigners.

 

[Ralph Capeling]

Peter, we have done 50 certifications to date from junior open water to junior rescue diver and are continuing our program. Patty and I think it is important to give back to the community. Patty is now a Belize citizen but was born in Honduras. I am Canadian. We both seem to be very welcome here as is our program. We also do other community support activities such as mooring masters (sponsored a buoy which Patty personally cleans when we go to Laughing Bird), assist the Rotary Club, donate prizes to Lobsterfest, BTIA functions. No complaints about gringos.

 

[Hank49]

Patty isn't a gringo.

 

[peterbj7]

Good for you, Ralph (and I mean that!). Up here it might be different now anyway, but I'm out of that business. I'll PM you with some titbits of info you might find interesting!

 

[Gaz]

Lol you have had it easy Peter, you should of been there when I first started a dive shop in San Pedro I got all sorts of storys that would make your hair curl from mass punch ups to being closed down repeatedly for nothing.

I will say over the years things settled down and eventually I felt a lot more welcome

These days its way less like it was and a lot easier for people to open dive shops without enduring what I did.

Gaz