bslaughter:
Whatever you do, do not dive with Aqua Dives on Ambergris Caye. they have had 3 boats sink in the last month. One was at the Blue Hole. Captain fell asleep during dive and boat broke the mooring line and drifted up on the reef at dive site named Aquarium near Long Caye. Boats are unsafe, oxygen and first aid kits are not available for every boat. Life jackets? Enough jackets? They are affilitated with Sun Breeze Hotel and Aqua Marina Suites. You will see those two advertised in virtually every scuba mag w/ advertisements for Belize. I would recommend Amigo's Del Mar if your staying in San Pedro. The best diving by far is on the Atolls and if you can afford it, I would advise diving there. The Blue Hole is a nice dive if you've never done it. It is a short dive with only 8min. of bottom time and total dive time of 20-25 min. You will see massive stalactites and stalagmites as well as Caribbean Reef Sharks most 6-9 ft. Very curious, but used to divers so just enjoy the dive. Enjoy your trip.
Actually, so far as I know they only lost one boat to sinking, and that suffered a hull defect that several from that manufacturer have experienced. Worrying to me, as I have a boat built by them, but I can't see any signs of cracks. They are one of the two biggest boat manufacturers here, used by pretty well every dive center. This was simply very bad luck, and not down to lack of maintenance.
The boat that ran aground did not sink, but it took over a week to be recovered back to the mainland (from Lighthouse Reef) and is a total loss.
AquaDives is indeed based at Sunbreeze, which is a classy mid-to-upper range hotel with an impeccable reputation. Please don't suggest there is anything wrong with Sunbreeze.
I hear many people say the diving at the atolls is great, and say nothing about the diving on the barrier reef. I'm not going to knock diving at the atolls, but it is "only" ocean wall diving which you can find in deeper water all over the world. No,no wall dives in the Florida Keys (so far as I'm aware).
Diving on the barrier reef is unusual, and superb in its own way. You have a gentle slope from the surface down to around 50', covered in green and brown soft corals. Hard corals can't really get a toehold here, as they're exposed and the occasional storm sweeps them away. The best diving here, and it is superb, is from there down to around 120', where you're swimming around a spur-and-groove coral formation which is very varied and offers deep narrow canyons, wide gentle valleys, undercuts, swimthroughs and caverns, all sheltered from severe water movement so holding many hard corals. For deep divers the fun continues in another gentle slope from there down to around 170', a largely sandy area with lots of coral outcrops. Then a drop off starts which becomes vertical and goes down at least 100' to another shelf, and thence down by shelves to thousands of feet.
I've dived in many places around the world, and this is the only place I've found these sorts of formations. I think they make for intrinsically fascinating diving regardless of what big game may be around. To me they are what diving in Belize is all about.
