Turneffe Flats
Registered
This week our weather was mostly sunny, with some clouds and passing showers out here at Turneffe Atoll. Southeasterly winds 15 to 20 knot winds prevailed for the first part of the week, switching to a northerly, and then back to a moderate easterly by the end of the week. Air temperatures were in the high 80’s in the beginning of the week, and cooling off to lower 80’s before the weekend as the northerly passed through, with water temperature remaining at 82 F.
The first 3 days of the week we had one diver whom had Divemaster Denroy as her dive buddy, with Carlton (aka Capt), as boat captain. South easterly winds kept diving activity to the northwest on the leeward side of the atoll for the first two days of the week. Dive sites in this area offer rugged relief of coral walls with thick soft and hard coral growth. The full range of grouper species seen here in Belize like Black, Nassau, Tiger and Yellow Fin Groupers, were all spotted in healthy numbers all week, together with large Dog, Mutton and Cubera Snappers. Other predators like Green Moray Eels were found on 8 different occasions during the course of the week, both from the safety of their reef holes, and free swimming seeming to follow divers.
Noteworthy sightings while diving the northwest were an Olive Ridley Turtle which was seen on two occasions this week in the same area, sightings of Hawksbill Turtles three times at different locations, and the Terrace’s resident Seahorse, who must have a mate hiding somewhere close by. Divers also came across two large Remoras, the larger one lying on the bottom, while the other swam around it erratically, as if trying to get its attention. It appears it was a mating pair in a courtship dance. A stop was made at a large Giant Star Coral head that was inhabited by an extended family of Neon Gobies who had staked out the coral head as a cleaning station. Divers held their hands over the coral, and the Gobies popped on, picking at their fingers with little exfoliating nibbles.
After close to 20 knots of southeasterly winds the seas were left quite rough to the east at end of day two. However, during the night, the wind died and then shifted to a gentle breeze coming from the northwest, and seas had calmed to a 4-foot high long, smooth swell. This was the window on Tuesday to make the crossing to Blue Hole and Lighthouse Reef before the wind picked up from the north, as was forecasted for the end of the day. Our single diver joined Denroy for the Blue Hole Dive, and a dive at Half Moon Caye Wall. Visibility below 80 feet in the Blue Hole was at a crisp clear 100 feet and a few Caribbean Reef Sharks were swam out in the blue not far from the divers. Denroy led our diver through several swim-throughs at Half Moon Caye Wall, and pointed out a number of mature Hogfish feeding on the wide sand bed there, and a large Permit swimming by. Because the wind started picking up out of the northwest at lunchtime on Half Moon Caye, Capt and Denroy decided to make the crossing early and do a third dive at Calabash on the southeastern side of Turneffe. That was a wise move as the wind slowly increased to a howling gale force out of the northwest by sunset, and blew until almost 3:00am before finally blowing itself out after the front had passed.
Our single diver left on Wednesday morning, and three new divers arrived that afternoon whom planned to dive in the morning and fly fish in the afternoon. With the northwesterly still blowing moderately on Thursday morning, dive sites on the southeastern side near Calabash were chosen. Special sightings in the area for that day were Spotted Eagle Rays, a Nurse Shark resting on a channel of sand, and a large school of Yellow Jack racing past divers in hunting formation. Divers were surprised by a male Loggerhead Turtle that was over 5 feet long pass by them with a ragged edge to its aged beak. The males are here, so let the Loggerhead Turtle mating season begin.
The wind swung around to the east again by the end of the day, so we took the group of three divers up to the northwest where we had started the week. They were amazed at Chasbow’s Corner which is a busy, vertical wall with large stands of Deep Water Gorgonian Sea Fans all along its steep face giving divers a beautiful view out to the limits of visibility. Terrace’s vertical drop on a wall healthy with green fronds of Black Coral growth provided these discerning divers with a spectacular underwater view and ended their diving for the week
