Glover's Reef Belize for new divers?

[coraldream]

Hi everyone,

We have signed up for some dives on Glover's Reef for an upcoming trip to Placencia. In checking out a dive travel book I noticed most of the depths of the dive sites there at Glover's are quite deep & are considered intermediate. Do you think Glover's will be a good destination if one of our divers is a beginner? In general I'm wondering where the operators take people & how deep the dives go there? Thanks!!

[sdigel]

Hi There:

We just returned from a couple of days on Glovers (April 2 - 4) and, while we were there, arranged a dive with Isla Marisol. My son is 11 and is a newly certified Jr Open water Diver. My wife and I aren't experts either. The dive (Gorgonian Gardens) we did was terrific and featured a beautiful wall (we stayed near the top) and flats at about 40'. The divemasters (Kitty and Philip) were very attentive. Highly recommended! Beautiful coral, great visibility and lots of sea life. We would definitely dive with them again. Unfortunately we only had a couple of days out there and had to fit in some sea kayaking too!

[Ralph Capeling]

At least one resort at Glover's teaches diving including open water so should be fine for new divers.

[daniel1948]

I got certified at Off the Wall dive resort, on Long Caye, Glover's Reef, while staying with Slickrock on the same island. There are places where the wall begins at 40 feet, so a dive to 50 feet (well within the certification level of an Open Water diver) is fabulous, and the only real reason for going deeper is to experience even more of the wall.

The only caveat would be that if the group is going to 80 feet and the beginning diver is not comfortable with that, you might want to make sure that the beginner has an experienced buddy willing to stay within OW limits, or pay for a DM to accompany the beginner. A dive to 60 feet on Long Caye Wall is an absolutely fabulous dive (though I am not familiar enough with the entire wall to know if there are some places where the wall starts deeper. You might want to ask the dive operator.)

I would describe the diving I did there as easy. Especially compared to Cozumel, which was my next dive trip after I got certified.

[coraldream]

Thanks everyone for the excellent info.! Much appreciated. We can't wait to get to Belize to check out Glover's. We're staying in Placencia, so it will be interesting to see were the dive operators take us there at Glover's. Thanks!