BELIZE

Diving off the barrier reef of Belize for close to four years is enough to spoil most anyone and Belize is one beautiful place to spend your days diving. The reefs are still pristine and in places like my personal favorite, Seal Caye, at the bottom of the Sapodilla Cayes, almost unbelievable. If you anchor carefully, you can set your anchor in 8 feet of sand at the front of your boat and 80 feet at the stern, then slide off along one of the most beautiful walls you can imagine. And easy to dive. You can do a number of different profile dives here and end the dive in ten to fifteen feet of crystal clear water before surfacing.

The diving here is truly world class. You can head down to 80 plus feet if you want but from my experience diving this many times, I found the best marine life and coral above 65 feet, frequented by Eagle Rays who flew past just off to your left if you are travleing clockwise around the reef. For more information on where the best divng is in Belize, contact us here at Ocean's Edge and we'll glady give you a free guide to the best guides and places to dive in the country.

There are tube sponges as tall as a full grown man along the walls here. So, if you are in southern Belize, check this spot out.

Off Ranguana Caye towards the south, there is a difficult to find site called The White Hole. If you leave the island from the southern side and head towards the reef about five miles away, you will find three breaks in the reef and three sandy ravines which lead to the wall.

Travel along slowly enough and pay attention to what is on the bottom and you may be rewarded with a Scorpionfish, venomous yet beautiful.

It features a large canyon of gleaming white sand at 45 feet which runs down to a large opening and a lip which surrounds the sand as it settles at the top of the wall. As you swim to this lip at 55 feet and peer over, there is virtually no bottom. I brought many advanced divers that I was certifying there so they could experience the wonder of a true barrier reef wall dive.

Moving along the wall at 55 feet is a magical drift dive as you travel beside the wall on your left and the coral on your right.

To the north of Ranguana lays a garden of spur and groove formations just west of the wall that you can easily spend dozens of dives exploring. In between the grooves are home to resting Nurse Sharks and a wide variety of marine life too varied to list. Worth several dives.

The Silk Cayes

The Silk Cayes, particularly off the north end, have a wall dive where loggerheads visit regularly in March and April.

So often, in fact, that I named a couple of them I saw them so frequently. One particularly amiable guy I named Seven Barnacles. He would often show up out of the blue and literally come face-to-face with you before he slowly went about his way. A beautiful reminder of what the ocean offers divers.

During the spring months, whale sharks migrate through Gladden Spit. There is no guarantee you will see one but when you do, it will all be worth the wait. But make sure you watch out for the agrregating Doghead or Cubera Snapper. Sometimes there are literally thousands of them spawning below. Just watch your depth... chasing them can get you very deep.

Another way to find them is to watch for birds out on the distance. Sometimes they are chasing the schooling herring, which are usually being chased by some predators and on some occasions, whale sharks come in and swim through the schools for an easy meal. Just make sure you are with someone who knows the local waters. I have done this several times and on at least two occasions, there were at least three species of sharks in the vicinity also looking for an easy meal.

This is how we found them during our excursion with Stephen Frink.

Moho Caye

One of my other favorite spots in Belize was Moho Caye. It is a simple dive but there is a large coral pinnacle that starts in about 85 - 100 feet and makes it way up to within 20 feet of the surface and there are a large variety of critters to watch for while you circle this pinnacle. See photo of Moho Caye at right.

The nice thing about this site is that you can end your dive in fifteen feet of water and still be seeing lots of marine life, like anemones and feathered sea cucumbers.

There are numerous ways to dive Moho Caye. I considered the starting point just off to the left of the small spot of sandy beach you can see in center of the right photo. From there, you could head south towards the pinnacle or north, towards a more sandy bottom and round the tip at the northern-most point. where the reef forms a sort of mini wall... quite steep with an eighty foot maximum bottom depth.

You can see from the photo at right how much shallow area there is surrounding the island. Its hard to pinpoint it from here, but if you were to begin your dive approximately halfway on the top middle side of this photo and swim left, you would find the pinnacle I am referring to. If you really want to find it, I recommend finding a woman named Lloydia in Placencia Village (its not hard. Ask anyone in the center of town) and go with her. She loves this spot.

In March, if you are around visit the east side of the island where the Pelicans roost and build their nest. Its fun to wander the island at that time... you can literally walk up to the nest with albino white baby pelicans squawking away.

I can honestly say that this is one of the nicest dive spots I have ever spent time at. No matter how often I visited, I always enjoyed myself. Yim and I used to take one of the boats out on our off days

Laughingbird Caye

At Laughingbird Caye, Friends of Nature have sunk an old tug in 80 feet of water and the anchor line leads directly to the stern, offering a perfect place to do your first deep and wreck dive. Beware of sand flies ashore. Bring something strong, they can eat you alive.

On the windward side of the island, just in the center of the island, is a mooring. If you anchor your boat there and descend, you will get to the bottom in picture perfect clear water.

Usually there are feather cucumbers in this area. Head east fifty feet and then turn in either direction. To the north will lead you along a beautiful ridge of canyons along a sandy coral spectacled bottom, often occupied by eagle rays and upside-down jellyfish, before bringing you to a wonderful fifteen foot built-in safety stop.

To the south leads you along a sandy bottom where large coral formations crop up and several very unusual species can be found, for instance, the best-to-avoid scorpionfish, seen at right. Either way is worth the price of admission.

On-shore, watching the pelicans dive bomb the shallows is a great way to spend lunch, but my favorite was to take a piece of bread and throw it in the shallows on the west side of the island. See for yourself.

Our Favorite Shore Trip - The Blue Creek Cave.

This is an amazing adventure as you swim up the inside of a cave to an underground waterfall with spelunking helmuts on. On the way back out, we all shut off our lights and the inside of the cave was virtually pitch black. We floated towards the opening in this blackness until the opening allowed the light to penetrate it's way to where we were. Spooky, but exhilarating.

It also includes a wonderul trip through a rainforest to arrive, where you can visit groups of canopy reearchers from the Audobon Society as they climb their way up to the tops of these rainforests to study.

At right, Yim is kneeling with a young Mayan girl. This girl and her mother prepared us lunch on this trip by grinding corn in the river for fresh tortillas. We were invited in to their home and ate with them under a thatched roof.

Their hospitality was disarming.