Where to dive on Caye Caulker

[shirtz]

Hi guys. Just arrived in cc last night and it seems like a cool place. I have booked in Blue hole for friday but im keen to do some other diving and am looking for suggestions. I picked up a leaflet from frenchies and it talks about turneffe north, turneffe elbow, esmeralda "local reefs" and spanish bay. Anyone have any favs from these? I keep hearing about elbow but it aint cheep! Any advise will be great. Ill post my report on the weekend.

As an fyi i have just been diving cozumel and tulum and loving it!

 

[jlevine]

It's going to come down to how much you want to spend on fuel and time. The Blue Hole trip takes roughly three hours each way. You'll pass near Turneffe on the way near the halfway point. Although a trip to Turneffe would be shorter, it would still take up most of another day of your schedule. You'll have to decide if the cost is worth it. I suggest doing some local dives from Caye Caulker. They often take people up to the Ambergris Caye area since the islands are very close. Tuffy Canyons, Esmerelda, and Cypress Tunnels are common dive sites. You'll spend less time on the boat and less money on fuel.

 

[Downing]

The Elbow has the potential to be the highlight of your trip, but sometimes there's not much happening there. You should really get a kick out of the two dives after the Blue Hole. I've dived around Turneffe a fair bit, and while the diving is there is pretty great I don't know if it would be any better than the diving around AC, which is closer.

So yeah, like jlevine said, it comes down to budget and time. Personally, I love riding on boats, but some others not so much.

Have fun! When you publish your trip report, feel free to include as many topside photos of Caye Caulker as you wish. We don't get a lot of trip reports from there.

 

[AWMIII]

It cracks me up that the CC ops go to Esmeralda and Tuffy.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Not to badmouth any dive op, but I have to say we had a bad experience with Frenchies several years ago. More than one dive op in Caye Slacker has been known to play the game of signing people up to do some specific dive site, and then when the morning comes and too few people have signed up they decide to cancel the trip without any advance notice--perhaps not even bothering to open up the shop on time--leaving it too late for you to go out with another dive op. Regardless of which dive op you are thinking of going with, I would encourage you to ask what happens if they don't have enough people signed up for the trip.

 

[bradells]

For 'local' reef dives, I prefer when the boat heads north to San Pedro (or further). Deeper canyons, lots of nurse sharks, eagle rays, and turtles. In front of CC, the canyons aren't as pronounced.

Turneffe is one of my favourite sites for 'further away' diving from CC (aside from Lighthouse). But if the currents aren't up, the big stuff doesn't come out.

BRad

 

[Downing]

It cracks me up that the CC ops go to Esmeralda and Tuffy.

AW, can you explain? Not a challenge, just wondering what you mean.

Not to badmouth any dive op, but I have to say we had a bad experience with Frenchies several years ago. More than one dive op in Caye Slacker has been known to play the game of signing people up to do some specific dive site, and then when the morning comes and too few people have signed up they decide to cancel the trip without any advance notice--perhaps not even bothering to open up the shop on time--leaving it too late for you to go out with another dive op. Regardless of which dive op you are thinking of going with, I would encourage you to ask what happens if they don't have enough people signed up for the trip.

This is one of the things I really like about Splash Dive Center in Placencia. In addition to the daily diving in the area, they do a couple of longer distance trips like Glovers Reef and the Blue Hole/Lighthouse/Elbow. But they'll tell you upfront that they need a certain minimum of committed divers to be able to make the longer trips. By "committed," I mean they ask for a deposit so even if someone(s) doesn't show Splash will still run the trip if they had the requisite number of deposits. You can check in with them the evening before and the morning of the trip so there are no surprises. And their policy is to always run at least one boat somewhere every day, in reality it's always more, so if they don't run the trip you wanted you can still dive somewhere even if you were to be the one and only guest going out on a boat. They want the local hotels to be confident that Splash goes out every day, weather permitting, so there's no chance a guest would be locked out and make the hotel look bad. In the relatively rare event that all diving is cancelled due to weather, the office staff will still be there running the place.

Sigh. June just won't get here fast enough.

 

[Lorenzoid]

This is one of the things I really like about Splash Dive Center in Placencia. In addition to the daily diving in the area, they do a couple of longer distance trips like Glovers Reef and the Blue Hole/Lighthouse/Elbow. But they'll tell you upfront that they need a certain minimum of committed divers to be able to make the trip. By committed, they ask for a deposit so even if someone doesn't show Splash will still make the trip if they had the numbers. You can check in with them the evening before and the morning of the trip so there are no surprises. And their policy is to always run at least one boat somewhere everyday, almost always more, so even if they don't make the trip you wanted you can still dive somewhere. And even if all diving is cancelled due to weather, the office staff will still be there running the place.

That's the difference between such a dive op and the dive ops on Caulker that are oriented toward budget-minded backpacker types.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Jlevine, when was the last time you went out to the Blue Hole and what kind of boat did you travel in to get there? As you may recall, I've made this trip numerous times over years and 2.5 hours is about the longest it's been taking with the bigger boats from Amigos del Mar.

 

[bradells]

Jlevine, when was the last time you went out to the Blue Hole and what kind of boat did you travel in to get there? As you may recall, I've made this trip numerous times over years and 2.5 hours is about the longest it's been taking with the bigger boats from Amigos del Mar.

Maybe 3hrs from leaving the dock and splashing in. That's the usual for BDS in their 46' Neuton. 2-1/2hrs travel and then 20-30 min for a briefing and getting people into the water.


BRad