Weather And Tank Air For Belize

[Doc]

The best of Belize diving is shallow. I have never found nitrox to be a required tool (except for the 5x a day liveaboards)

Like in the Bay Islands, Belize struggles to get newer visitors to understand the amount and diversity of unusual critters above 50fsw, making depth past that not all that necessary to see something new.

Many divers are predisposed by industry marketing to "need" nitrox. And, add to that, what's the #1 question you hear from people when you tell them that you're a SCUBA diver? "How deep do you go?", thus the second problem: many newer diver must go deep... because since they really hadn't trained themselves to see critters, that's the main option. Add to that the Jeckyll & Hyde dive of Belize: The Blue Hole. (It's a hole, it's dark, it might be blue) It attracts divers like a yellow porch light attracts skeeters. There is no scientific explanation. Belize is so much more than that.

Stick with a good naturalist DM. I don't care how many dives you have, if you aren't a local, you can't find squat. See how he finds things, ask him- it's all about locating the specific niche environments the critters gravitate toward. They are very selective about their soft and hard corals, shapes and formations, too.

August would have been a great month to go. Things can happen, but I wouldn't even buy trip insurance due to weather related concerns. From April>August, the water column is alive and buzzing with critters that are eating and being eaten, being born or gettin' some. It's busy season.

Enjoy.

 

[Downing]

I've stayed at TIR twice, the first time for two weeks in June/July and the second for one week in late July. Overall, we had very good weather. Our first night was a monsoon, but by the next morning the rain had tapered off and it only occasionally rained after that, never enough to interfere with diving. And we were rained on hard coming back to the mainland after our second stay.

TIR offers both nitrox and nitrox certification (the latter so you'll buy the former, I'm sure). I got my nitrox certification in the middle of my first stay and dove with nitrox thereafter except for the Blue Hole. They use only the standard mix of 32%.

You certainly don't "need" nitrox at TIR, and most of the other divers when I was there presumably weren't EAN certified and didn't use it. But you are doing a lot of dives in a short amount of time, which was my main reason for wanting to do it. Your dive guides will be using it, btw.

I recommend that you do the course before you go. Doing it there worked well for me since I was staying for two weeks and was able to do it on a Saturday, which is TIR's transfer day so there's no diving. But if you're staying only a week, you'll be burning up some valuable vacation time with your nose buried in the manual. One of the other guests managed to knock it out over two nights, but I couldn't stay awake so I gave up until Saturday when I could sit at a table at the lodge and study with plenty of coffee and without distraction.

And you don't get to keep the manual if you do it there. I bought one when I returned home.

You'll have a fantastic time! TIR's one of my all-time favorite places to vacation, and we're probably headed back in the near future.

 

[lostcajun]

We will be in Belize most of July. We will dive with Sea Sports out of Belize City when we arrive and the Belize Aggressor III mid-July. We are really looking forward to it.

 

[peterbj7]

I disagree with some of what has been said above. Firstly, nitrox is not a gas for going deep but for extending available no-deco bottom time, particularly useful in the 60' to 100' range but also useful shallower. I can think of no reasons for not using it in that sort of range and several in favour of it.

And trip insurance is valuable at any time of the year, and especially in the official hurricane season. It can be quite cheap and can save an enormous amount of money. Similarly dive insurance. Get bot. Get the trip insurance well ahead of time so it's already in place by the time storms start getting reported. If you leave it until they start you may find you can't get cover.

 

[Shazza252]

And trip insurance is valuable at any time of the year, and especially in the official hurricane season. It can be quite cheap and can save an enormous amount of money. Similarly dive insurance. Get bot. Get the trip insurance well ahead of time so it's already in place by the time storms start getting reported. If you leave it until they start you may find you can't get cover.

Didn't think of the insurance part for diving cheers I'll have to start looking into that

 

[peterbj7]

If you're in the Americas the best diving insurance is DAN Americas. Get the top-of-the-range product, which still only costs about as much as two dives for a year's cover. Go to their website and buy it directly.

 

[Downing]

Although I used to get trip insurance, I don't any more. Too expensive and too speculative. It's a personal choice, and I'm willing to run the risk. Someday the law of averages may catch up to me but in the meantime I've saved enough money over the years to pay for an (uninsured) trip or two. As long as the trip isn't just flat out cancelled, I can live with pretty much anything.

But diving insurance is a must. DAN has three plans: Standard for $30, Master for $40 and Preferred for $70. You have to be a DAN member, so add on either $35 for a single or $55 for a family. Per Dandy Don, a SB member who spent some time analyzing the plans, the Standard is a "dog." He thought the Master was minimally adequate but strongly recommend the Preferred.

 

[Shazza252]

Although I used to get trip insurance, I don't any more. Too expensive and too speculative. It's a personal choice, and I'm willing to run the risk. Someday the law of averages may catch up to me but in the meantime I've saved enough money over the years to pay for an (uninsured) trip or two. As long as the trip isn't just flat out cancelled, I can live with pretty much anything.

But diving insurance is a must. DAN has three plans: Standard for $30, Master for $40 and Preferred for $70. You have to be a DAN member, so add on either $35 for a single or $55 for a family. Per Dandy Don, a SB member who spent some time analyzing the plans, the Standard is a "dog." He thought the Master was minimally adequate but strongly recommend the Preferred.

Yeah I always get travel insurance and for good reason. I went travelling in Africa a few years ago, and my first week there I ended up in hospital for a week with a type of blood poison in my foot and leg from a stiletto going about an inch into my foot fun times thank goodness I'd gotten travel insurance hospital bill was a fortune so no matter were I go now I always get it for the next high heel thats wanting to stab me.