ScubaERDoc
Contributor
- Messages
- 194
- Reaction score
- 89
- # of dives
- 100 - 199
Here is little background about my diving experience to put this review in perspective. I am a relatively new diver (2 years experience, AOW) who has gradually become more and more obsessed about diving. My girlfriend is extremely new and recently got certified in Hawaii. We own only masks, fins and computers and rent the rest of our gear (this is changing soon though). I completed my 32-49th dives on this trip and my girlfriend completed her 7-24th dives. This was our first trip to Belize
Getting to San Pedro was much easier than we expected. SF to Dallas to Belize city was a short trip and fly Tropic Air from Belize City to San Pedro which is a 16 minute ride in a very small plane, you can actually sit in the copilot seat!
We stayed at Paradise Villa which was very convenient, the manager sent us a cab for the short 5 min ride from the airport. PV is in a great location on the northern end of the town and a quick walk to all the restaurants and attractions along the beach. Rooms were clean and you get a kitchen and living room. Pool for post-dive soaking. You could throw a baseball from PV and hit our dive operator, Reef Adventures.
Reed Adventures is a small dive op. Literally a small one room structure at the beginning of a short pier (on the end of which is Wet Willies bar). One DM and on instructor, no actual dive shop for gear but they have equipment to rent. We used 2 small boats for this trip Bubbles and Bigga Bubbles. Both Ched and Mike were super laid back. Mike dives with a BC with no inflators and big holes in it, saying I really dont need anything other than something to hold my tank Seriously, the easy going Caribbean attitude may fool you but I was impressed by how quickly they identified the skill levels of the divers on their boats. No credit card required for deposit, Ched (part-owner) told us to just settle up before you leave.
The local diving was very good. 4-7 min boat ride to most sites on the reef. Always hit a few waves going out and the swell may make entry/exit kinda fun. The topside weather was hot and sunny for our 11 days there, not a drop of rain. The water temp was 81 F. Visability was better than what I have experienced in Koh Tao, Kona, and Cabo, but not as good as Roatan. Something about sponge spawning season made the vis a little cloudy at times. For the most part there was minimal surge and with the notable exception of Ho Chan, there was not much current around Ambergris Caye. Around AC, there are not much wall diving, but instead there were mostly finger and groove formations on the reef, which are cool because you feel like you are about to drop a torpedo into the Death Star. The majority of dives are to depths of 60-80 feet, but can be as shallow as 25 ft at Ho Chan and as deep as 130 ft at the Abyss sites. We did 15 local dives so there was some repetition in what sites we visited (went to Ho Chan 3 times which was more than I would have liked).
Sealife was very good and variable. Pretty much saw a good variety of wildlife on every dive, including large loggerhead turtles, eagle rays, a ton of nurse sharks (one reef shark), goliaths, big stingrays, adventurous morays swimming out of their holes, and pesky lionfish.
The boat loads with Reef Adventures were small and no more than 8 divers max on any of our dives. The majority of the divers were very very good and I dove with Mahjong from this board. We had 2 full days where we were the only 2 divers and had the boat to ourselves. We did have one day, however, where we went with a bunch of snorkelers to Ho Chan, but still did not feel croweded. Dives started around 8:30-9, back to Paradise villa around 10 for our surface interval by the pool, then out again for the second dive at 11 and back a little after noon.
After hearing so much about the Outer Atolls, we wanted to do at least one long range trip. Unfortunately it was hard to find a boat out to Turneffe Atoll as there is not much demand for this trip, but there were many boats out to the Blue Hole. After much debate, we ended up booking a trip out there. RF sent us out with Amigos. This trip was a pretty expensive day. With gear and park fees, it came out to $300 per person (the rest of our 8 days of diving was about $450 a person with everything). Amigos sent out a small boat to pick us up with our gear (which we rented from RF) at 5:30 AM, very early! Their main boat is rather large and there were more than 20 divers on board, but pretty spacious and comfortable. The trip out takes 2.5 hours and the first dive is the Blue Hole. Once the group is in the water and together at the edge of the Hole, there is a brisk descent to 130-140 feet where you spend a few minutes swimming along the stalagmite formations. I found this really cool and otherworldly, but many other divers did not feel the same and were disappointed with the short deep dive and the lack of wildlife. My girlfriend get very mildly narced but it felt very controlled and safe. The other two dives were Halfmoon Caye and the Aquarium which were wall dives. I heard a lot of good stuff about these sites but the vis and wildlife honestly were not as good for us and we felt we had seen better on our AC local dives. Also had lunch on a very pretty atoll caye. With the 2.5 hour trip back, we were home by 6 PM. In retrospect I enjoyed this long day and was happy I dove the Blue Hole, but would not do it again given the expense and the length of the trip.
San Pedro itself is a nice laid back town. Seafood was fresh and good, but a little repetitive. Had very good ceviche every day. Prices along beach are US prices however and occasionally San Francisco prices. A very good place was called Hidden Treasure which is a little way out of downtown. Make a reservation and they will send you a free cab. Also DandEs frozen custard is a must try. One thing which was annoying about walking on the beach were the rasta guys next to Big Daddys who asked me if I wanted to buy drugs every single time we walked past them. Otherwise the people of Belize were extremely friendly. People on golf carts would ask us if we needed a lift routinely and there seemed to be no threat of crime on surface at all.
Would we come back to AC. Absolutely. And definitely we would dive with Reef Adventures again. Cool laid back crew. Make sure you going Chucky and Ched at Wet Willies for a beer in the evenings!
Getting to San Pedro was much easier than we expected. SF to Dallas to Belize city was a short trip and fly Tropic Air from Belize City to San Pedro which is a 16 minute ride in a very small plane, you can actually sit in the copilot seat!
We stayed at Paradise Villa which was very convenient, the manager sent us a cab for the short 5 min ride from the airport. PV is in a great location on the northern end of the town and a quick walk to all the restaurants and attractions along the beach. Rooms were clean and you get a kitchen and living room. Pool for post-dive soaking. You could throw a baseball from PV and hit our dive operator, Reef Adventures.
Reed Adventures is a small dive op. Literally a small one room structure at the beginning of a short pier (on the end of which is Wet Willies bar). One DM and on instructor, no actual dive shop for gear but they have equipment to rent. We used 2 small boats for this trip Bubbles and Bigga Bubbles. Both Ched and Mike were super laid back. Mike dives with a BC with no inflators and big holes in it, saying I really dont need anything other than something to hold my tank Seriously, the easy going Caribbean attitude may fool you but I was impressed by how quickly they identified the skill levels of the divers on their boats. No credit card required for deposit, Ched (part-owner) told us to just settle up before you leave.
The local diving was very good. 4-7 min boat ride to most sites on the reef. Always hit a few waves going out and the swell may make entry/exit kinda fun. The topside weather was hot and sunny for our 11 days there, not a drop of rain. The water temp was 81 F. Visability was better than what I have experienced in Koh Tao, Kona, and Cabo, but not as good as Roatan. Something about sponge spawning season made the vis a little cloudy at times. For the most part there was minimal surge and with the notable exception of Ho Chan, there was not much current around Ambergris Caye. Around AC, there are not much wall diving, but instead there were mostly finger and groove formations on the reef, which are cool because you feel like you are about to drop a torpedo into the Death Star. The majority of dives are to depths of 60-80 feet, but can be as shallow as 25 ft at Ho Chan and as deep as 130 ft at the Abyss sites. We did 15 local dives so there was some repetition in what sites we visited (went to Ho Chan 3 times which was more than I would have liked).
Sealife was very good and variable. Pretty much saw a good variety of wildlife on every dive, including large loggerhead turtles, eagle rays, a ton of nurse sharks (one reef shark), goliaths, big stingrays, adventurous morays swimming out of their holes, and pesky lionfish.
The boat loads with Reef Adventures were small and no more than 8 divers max on any of our dives. The majority of the divers were very very good and I dove with Mahjong from this board. We had 2 full days where we were the only 2 divers and had the boat to ourselves. We did have one day, however, where we went with a bunch of snorkelers to Ho Chan, but still did not feel croweded. Dives started around 8:30-9, back to Paradise villa around 10 for our surface interval by the pool, then out again for the second dive at 11 and back a little after noon.
After hearing so much about the Outer Atolls, we wanted to do at least one long range trip. Unfortunately it was hard to find a boat out to Turneffe Atoll as there is not much demand for this trip, but there were many boats out to the Blue Hole. After much debate, we ended up booking a trip out there. RF sent us out with Amigos. This trip was a pretty expensive day. With gear and park fees, it came out to $300 per person (the rest of our 8 days of diving was about $450 a person with everything). Amigos sent out a small boat to pick us up with our gear (which we rented from RF) at 5:30 AM, very early! Their main boat is rather large and there were more than 20 divers on board, but pretty spacious and comfortable. The trip out takes 2.5 hours and the first dive is the Blue Hole. Once the group is in the water and together at the edge of the Hole, there is a brisk descent to 130-140 feet where you spend a few minutes swimming along the stalagmite formations. I found this really cool and otherworldly, but many other divers did not feel the same and were disappointed with the short deep dive and the lack of wildlife. My girlfriend get very mildly narced but it felt very controlled and safe. The other two dives were Halfmoon Caye and the Aquarium which were wall dives. I heard a lot of good stuff about these sites but the vis and wildlife honestly were not as good for us and we felt we had seen better on our AC local dives. Also had lunch on a very pretty atoll caye. With the 2.5 hour trip back, we were home by 6 PM. In retrospect I enjoyed this long day and was happy I dove the Blue Hole, but would not do it again given the expense and the length of the trip.
San Pedro itself is a nice laid back town. Seafood was fresh and good, but a little repetitive. Had very good ceviche every day. Prices along beach are US prices however and occasionally San Francisco prices. A very good place was called Hidden Treasure which is a little way out of downtown. Make a reservation and they will send you a free cab. Also DandEs frozen custard is a must try. One thing which was annoying about walking on the beach were the rasta guys next to Big Daddys who asked me if I wanted to buy drugs every single time we walked past them. Otherwise the people of Belize were extremely friendly. People on golf carts would ask us if we needed a lift routinely and there seemed to be no threat of crime on surface at all.
Would we come back to AC. Absolutely. And definitely we would dive with Reef Adventures again. Cool laid back crew. Make sure you going Chucky and Ched at Wet Willies for a beer in the evenings!
