Dan
Contributor
Summary
This is an eight-day (6-13 February, 2021) diving trip to Belize. We stayed in Ramon’s Village Resort, Home - Ramon's Village Resort in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize. The itinerary, as shown in Table 1, includes 6 days of diving, 2 dives / day, in Ambergris Caye. We took 3-tank boat diving upgrade (for $242.50) to Great Blue Hole & Half Moon Caye. It was one of the best Caribbean diving I ever had. Also another 3-tank boat diving upgrade (for $132.75) to Turneffe Atoll.
Some of the special moments were diving into The Great Blue Hole, seeing the ice-age stalactites at 130-foot depth, getting very close encounters with very friendly Nurse Sharks in Ambergris Caye, with curious Reef Sharks and Nassau Groupers in Half Moon Caye, and curious Green Morays following us while diving in Turneffe Atoll.
Background
Belize is a near and convenient diving destination from Houston, especially in minimizing our exposure time in public area and travelling during this pandemic situation. We can fly nonstop for about 2.5-hour from Houston (IAH) to Belize City (BZE), as shown in red arrow, in Figure 1, below. From BZE, you can hop on a 14-passenger domestic-flight operated by Tropic Air, as shown in Figure 2, and enjoy a 15-minute low-flying, bird-eye view of Belize City and Ambergris Caye, as shown in Figure 3.
Once you arrive in San Pedro (SPR), Ramon’s Village crew would pick you up at the airport on Golf Carts and take you to the resort, 10 minutes away from the airport.
Figure 1: Our flight routes Houston (IAH) to Belize City (BZE) and San Pedro (SPR)
Figure 2: Airplane used for a 15-minute flight from Belize City (BZE) to San Pedro (SPR)
Figure 3: Bird-eye view of Ambergris Caye from the domestic flight to San Pedro (SPR)
Here is a short video of the highlight of what we saw during the 6 days of diving in Belize:
The water temperatures in Belize then were about 78-81 °F (26-27 °C), as shown in Table 1, above. I was comfortable with my 3mm full wetsuit.
Ramon’s Village Resort
This resort is styled after Tahitian cottages with its own restaurant (called Pineapple restaurant), dive shop (called Ramon’s Village Divers) and boats as shown in Figures 4-8, respectively.
Figure 4: Ramon’s Village Cottage, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 5: Ramon’s Village Cottage’s Bed Room, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 6: Ramon’s Village Cottage’s Bath Room, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 7: Ramon’s Village Bar & Restaurant, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 8: Ramon’s Village Divers & Boats, San Pedro, Belize
More detail resort info is available in Home - Ramon's Village Resort
Our group of 6 divers was guided by AC, DM of Ramon’s Village Divers for the whole week. They used a 48-foot boat, which was big enough to handle some big waves (4-foot?) as we passed the barrier reef (caye) to open sea. February is a windy season. The open sea could be choppy and requiring a special procedure to get back on the boat (see further discussion about this, below).
I was fortunate to be able to have a cabin alone without paying an additional single supplement, especially during this pandemic situation. There are plenty of closet space to store our belongings for 2 divers, as you see in Figures 5 & 6, above. The hosts did a great job of keeping my room cleaned and orderly.
Ramon’s Village Divers provided a locker to store our dive gears in the dive cabana, right next to the dive shop on the pier. All the dive sites are outside the barrier reef and we get there by boat. There are no beach diving. You could snorkel right off the pier, but the visibility was not good and nothing but sandy bottom.
Setting up our dive gears and handling them were pretty typical boat diving. Once we boarded on the boat for the first time, we picked a spot on the dive deck, installed our regulator and BCD on one of the available full tank stored on the rack behind the bench along both sides of the stern. Once we were on the dive site, we kit up our dive gears (fins on first before buttoning up the BCD) at our assigned stations in the dive deck. When we were ready to enter the water, the deckhand would help each of us standing up by lifting the tank straight up from the tank cylinder sleeve. Then carefully walked like a duck (with the fins on) and made a giant entry into the water. After resurfacing and signaling OK sign to the deckhand, he would then hand off our cameras. DM would enter the water last and lead the diving.
After the dive, getting back on the boat was a bit tricky, due to the choppy sea condition. I would hand off my camera and fins to AC, then he’d guide me to the ladder. The choppy sea would swing the bottom half of ladder up and down. So, as soon as I grab on the ladder side bars, I needed to lock down the swinging ladder by my boot before stepping up to the boat. Otherwise my body part (shin, chest or face, depending on my body position relative to the swinging ladder and the boat was also going up and down with the wave) would get banged up by the swinging ladder.
After we got back on the boat, the crew would take care of removing our BCD and regulators off the tank and setting them up to another tank for the next dive or washing / drying / storing in dive cabana overnight after the second dive of the day. We just needed to bring back our fins, mask, wetsuit back to our locker and camera to our cottage after each boat dive trip.
See next post about diving in Belize.
This is an eight-day (6-13 February, 2021) diving trip to Belize. We stayed in Ramon’s Village Resort, Home - Ramon's Village Resort in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize. The itinerary, as shown in Table 1, includes 6 days of diving, 2 dives / day, in Ambergris Caye. We took 3-tank boat diving upgrade (for $242.50) to Great Blue Hole & Half Moon Caye. It was one of the best Caribbean diving I ever had. Also another 3-tank boat diving upgrade (for $132.75) to Turneffe Atoll.
Some of the special moments were diving into The Great Blue Hole, seeing the ice-age stalactites at 130-foot depth, getting very close encounters with very friendly Nurse Sharks in Ambergris Caye, with curious Reef Sharks and Nassau Groupers in Half Moon Caye, and curious Green Morays following us while diving in Turneffe Atoll.
Background
Belize is a near and convenient diving destination from Houston, especially in minimizing our exposure time in public area and travelling during this pandemic situation. We can fly nonstop for about 2.5-hour from Houston (IAH) to Belize City (BZE), as shown in red arrow, in Figure 1, below. From BZE, you can hop on a 14-passenger domestic-flight operated by Tropic Air, as shown in Figure 2, and enjoy a 15-minute low-flying, bird-eye view of Belize City and Ambergris Caye, as shown in Figure 3.
Once you arrive in San Pedro (SPR), Ramon’s Village crew would pick you up at the airport on Golf Carts and take you to the resort, 10 minutes away from the airport.
Figure 1: Our flight routes Houston (IAH) to Belize City (BZE) and San Pedro (SPR)
Figure 2: Airplane used for a 15-minute flight from Belize City (BZE) to San Pedro (SPR)
Figure 3: Bird-eye view of Ambergris Caye from the domestic flight to San Pedro (SPR)
Here is a short video of the highlight of what we saw during the 6 days of diving in Belize:
The water temperatures in Belize then were about 78-81 °F (26-27 °C), as shown in Table 1, above. I was comfortable with my 3mm full wetsuit.
Ramon’s Village Resort
This resort is styled after Tahitian cottages with its own restaurant (called Pineapple restaurant), dive shop (called Ramon’s Village Divers) and boats as shown in Figures 4-8, respectively.
Figure 4: Ramon’s Village Cottage, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 5: Ramon’s Village Cottage’s Bed Room, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 6: Ramon’s Village Cottage’s Bath Room, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 7: Ramon’s Village Bar & Restaurant, San Pedro, Belize
Figure 8: Ramon’s Village Divers & Boats, San Pedro, Belize
More detail resort info is available in Home - Ramon's Village Resort
Our group of 6 divers was guided by AC, DM of Ramon’s Village Divers for the whole week. They used a 48-foot boat, which was big enough to handle some big waves (4-foot?) as we passed the barrier reef (caye) to open sea. February is a windy season. The open sea could be choppy and requiring a special procedure to get back on the boat (see further discussion about this, below).
I was fortunate to be able to have a cabin alone without paying an additional single supplement, especially during this pandemic situation. There are plenty of closet space to store our belongings for 2 divers, as you see in Figures 5 & 6, above. The hosts did a great job of keeping my room cleaned and orderly.
Ramon’s Village Divers provided a locker to store our dive gears in the dive cabana, right next to the dive shop on the pier. All the dive sites are outside the barrier reef and we get there by boat. There are no beach diving. You could snorkel right off the pier, but the visibility was not good and nothing but sandy bottom.
Setting up our dive gears and handling them were pretty typical boat diving. Once we boarded on the boat for the first time, we picked a spot on the dive deck, installed our regulator and BCD on one of the available full tank stored on the rack behind the bench along both sides of the stern. Once we were on the dive site, we kit up our dive gears (fins on first before buttoning up the BCD) at our assigned stations in the dive deck. When we were ready to enter the water, the deckhand would help each of us standing up by lifting the tank straight up from the tank cylinder sleeve. Then carefully walked like a duck (with the fins on) and made a giant entry into the water. After resurfacing and signaling OK sign to the deckhand, he would then hand off our cameras. DM would enter the water last and lead the diving.
After the dive, getting back on the boat was a bit tricky, due to the choppy sea condition. I would hand off my camera and fins to AC, then he’d guide me to the ladder. The choppy sea would swing the bottom half of ladder up and down. So, as soon as I grab on the ladder side bars, I needed to lock down the swinging ladder by my boot before stepping up to the boat. Otherwise my body part (shin, chest or face, depending on my body position relative to the swinging ladder and the boat was also going up and down with the wave) would get banged up by the swinging ladder.
After we got back on the boat, the crew would take care of removing our BCD and regulators off the tank and setting them up to another tank for the next dive or washing / drying / storing in dive cabana overnight after the second dive of the day. We just needed to bring back our fins, mask, wetsuit back to our locker and camera to our cottage after each boat dive trip.
See next post about diving in Belize.