Central America Diving Advice Needed

[hogtin]

Great site - newly discovered. There is a lot of excellent info on diving in central america on here and I'm builing up a clear picture on the bests spots. Am leaving in mid Nov 03 for a months travel from Belize to Panama and would like to hit maybe the top five dive destinations..

So far am thinking:
Lighthouse Reef - Belize
Atila - Bay Islands Hond.
Little Corn - Nic
Pearl Islands - Pan

Could anyone offer any tips on specific dives? Is Utila better than Roatan? What are the best Belize spots (have been to Ambergris before and wasn't impressed with local sites)
Can you dive the 'spanish galleon' off Little Corn?
Any must-see wrecks?

All advice much appreciated!

Cheers

Martin (UK)

[fritzer]

I pretty much agree with you on the local diving but was impressed with Lighthouse Reef. There's the famed Blue Hole which was great as a novelty dive, but only because they chummed for shark. The wall diving afterwards made up for the short Blue Hole dive though. Have fun :)

[terrydarc]

Hmmm...maybe this is my grumpy day, but I'm put off by the idea of chumming for sharks. If that's the only way to see them, something's wrong. I know the resorts gotta make bucks out of divers, but interrupting the natural course of an fishes life has got to be a bad idea.

We were in Honduras last year and a BOW lady told us they took them into the blue holes. To 150' - this also does not seem like a really good idea, but again, a divemaster's gotta eat. Right?

You can see plenty of sharks (nurse and reef) at Little Corn. Great place to dive and relatively shallow - 70' and under. Nice quiet, peaceful place to dive and the Woz/Ellie Dive Little Corn operation is super! Combined with the Mango to stay at - very friendly and laid back.

Utila's a fine place to dive and (but?) I don't remember anyone putting out the idea of feeding sharks to see 'em swarm. They did, however, do this on Roatan 3 years ago. Sounded like a great way to see the sharks, but artificial and maybe not the greatest of ideas.
=Terry

[hogtin]

Thanks for the info chaps: will definately add little Corn onto the itinerary. Is it true that there is a Spanish Galleon at 30 meters off Little Corn??

It's when the sharks start chumming for humans we'll all have to worry....