I came to the island of San Pedro (also called Ambergris Caye) in Belize to dive. And, as you can see in the videos below, dive I did. It was one of the best series of concentrated diving I’ve ever done. There’s a lot to see in the videos below. Enjoy!
The Appetizer: Hol Chan and Shark Ray Alley
Hol Chan means “little channel” in Mayan and is Belize’s oldest marine park. It’s named after a small channel that cuts through the main reef just off the island. It’s a nice shallow dive where people also snorkel.
Shark Ray Alley got its name because it was an easily accessible location for local fishermen to clean their catches, which provided perfect morsals for the bottom feeding nurse sharks and rays. Now local dive shops take over providing these morsals as waves of snorkelers descend into the waters to see these harmless but fascinating animals.
The First Act: Turneffe Atol
At 30 miles long and 10 miles wide Turneffe Atoll is the largest atoll in the Mesoamerican Reef System (which runs from near Cancun down south past Belize). It’s about a 2 hour boat ride from San Pedro, and I was picked up on a pier near my Airbnb at 6:30am and returned at 4:30pm. We were able to do 3 very beautiful dives at Turneffe that highlighted the rich, healthy coral and abundant sealife.
The Main Event: The Great Blue Hole and nearby dives at Half Moon Wall and Aquarium
The Great Blue Hole is one of the top dive spots in the world. It’s not as dramatic as some of the cenotes I’ve been to, and it doesn’t have extensive marine life, but it is definitely one of the most unique and wonderful dives that I’ve done. And it was a long day. I was picked up near my place at 5:30am and dropped off at 5:30pm; it’s about a 3 hour boat ride from San Pedro.
The facts from Wikipedia: “The hole is circular in shape, 318 m (1,043 ft) across and 124 m (407 ft) deep. It has a surface area of 70,650 square metres (760,500 sq ft). It was formed during several episodes of quaternary glaciation when sea levels were much lower. Analysis of stalactites found in the Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000, 66,000, 60,000, and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the cave was flooded.”
What the facts don’t describe is how incredibly beautiful it is from the air.
The views from our boat in the following two pictures aren’t as dramatic as the aerial view, but you can still get a sense of the tropical charm of this site.
First, we descended down 130 feet to a series of stalagtites. As you can hear in the video, my dive computer was not very happy about this descent. It was 10 feet deeper than any dive I’ve done before.
Then we used our 9 minutes of bottom time to glide through these stalagtites.
Our dive guide, Santiago, had a habit of yelling “squirrel” to get people’s attention when we were above water. Of course he couldn’t help doing it at over 100 feet underwater as I was doing a 360 degree spin enjoying my brief and enjoyable bout of nitrogen narcosis.
Most dive professionals I talked to in San Pedro said their favorite dive wasn’t the Blue Hole, but the one that usually comes after that: Half Moon Wall. As you can see below it’s a feast of coral and reef sharks.
A friendly grouper who just wants some love!
A local reef shark swings by to say hello
A shark swims by to provide a primeval backdrop against the lush coral formations.
Another attention seeking shark comes by for its close up shot
And what would a world class reef be without a gorgeous pass through?
Our final dive was at Aquarium, which was just as amazing as Half Moon Wall.
The lush view as we start our descent down the side of the reef
This time we are above a shark
An eel popping out of a rock in the middle of the picture
Wonderfully unique coral formations
A lone eagle ray glides gracefully through the blue abyss
Just floating peacefully above the coral forest
In the immortal words of Dr. Suess: “One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish. Black fish, Blue fish, Old fish, New fish.”
Dessert: Taco Box and San Pedro Canyon
San Pedro had unusually high winds the first few days I was there and the dive shops were unable to do any local dives outside of the nearby reef. Finally, the last day I could dive, the winds died down and I was able to do two really peacefull dives just off the island at dive sites called Taco Box and San Pedro Canyon.
A friendly nurse shark checking us out.
The coral is not nearly as spectacular as my earlier dives, but it’s still very healthy.
A groups of sharks joined us as we first descended from our boat into the dive.
A peaceful dive drifting over the waving coral
More coral and another shark in the distance
San Pedro
I had a very peaceful Airbnb about 1.5 miles south of town.
