Belize after Honduras (Utila & Roatan)

[Sodgaard]

Hi,

My wife and I are going to Honduras next week for 7-10 days.
Our intension was to continue up the coast to Belize and explore some sites there as well.

After browsing through the Belize suggestions of this board, it seems that diving in Belize is alot more expensive than Honduras, and being only a few houndred km away from each other, I started to wonder how different diving is at Utila/Roatan and eg. Placentia/Glovers/Turneffe/Ambergris.

One could argue that if there is not much difference the money is better spent staying in Honduras, but on the other hand coming all the way from Europe it would be a pity to miss out on some unique opertunities in Belize.

I hope you can come up with some good reasons to go there.

Thanks in advance.

Stephen

 

[Rev. Blade]

I've been to Roatan 3 times, and Ambergris Caye (popular Belize dive destination) twice. My vacations to Belize were only slightly more expensive than my trips to Roatan. Both my trips to Belize used the same dive operation. Our first trip tended to hit the same few dive locations. On my more recent trip, we'd mentioned our concerns before traveling, and I think each of our dives was on a different dive site. Despite being in a (slightly) different location for each dive, I found Belize to be more repetitive than Cozumel (slightly further north) or Roatan to the south.

Roatan has more sunken ships. (Mostly artificial reefs, intentionally sunk.) Belize seems to have a lot more Nurse sharks. If you decide to travel to the Blue Hole in Belize, it would be one more "famous dive site" to add to your dive log (if you care about such things). The Blue Hole is certainly not (in my opinion) a sufficient reason to go to a new countrry. It really isn't that interesting a dive. Many people mention their safety concerns about diving the Blue Hole on a sigle Aluminum 80 cylinder. Your profile says you have 50-99 dives, so I think you at least have the experience to decide if the dive is suitable for you.

I expect I'll be back to Belize, because the flight isn't very long for me, the diving is pretty good, and the prices are reasonable. If you only plan to hit two dive locations in the region, I'd suggest Roatan and Cozumel. If you expect to keep diving for years, and will be back to the region... I think you'd find Ambergris Caye to be enough different than Roatan to make it worth the extra flight (rather than another week on Roatan.)

If you do decide to try Cozumel, look at the deals offered By Dive Paradise teamed with Hotel Cozumel. I think you can still get a week of diving, hotel, food, and drinks (soft and hard beverages) for about $850-$950 USD. I had a great time. Perhaps my best vacation ever.

 

[Sodgaard]

Hi Blade,

Thanks for your comments. Im a little surprised of your lack of renewal during your Belize trips (sounds like you almost got bored).

One of the reasons we actually have choosen to drop by Belize, was a very experienced US navy diver we met in Fiji, who thought Fiji (Taveuni) was boring compared to Belize. And mind you we thought Fiji was fantastic with all its varity soft corals, which I guess he didnt care for.

So now we are in the vicinity we decided we need to go there to see what he an others are talking about.

Cheers

Stephen

 

[peterbj7]

The diving in Belize is certainly not more varied and interesting than in Fiji. Maybe the entire experience, the whole holiday, would be more varied here. What Belize needs is some wrecks, deliberately sunk as around Roatan, but the powers-that-be don't seem to be listening.

 

[bobby327]

Hello
Just a little FYI
Visit www.roatan.ws and you will find some nice articles about Roatan and diving.
The home page and in the archives (link at bottome of home page).
Bob

 

[Rev. Blade]

Hi Blade,

Thanks for your comments. Im a little surprised of your lack of renewal during your Belize trips (sounds like you almost got bored).

One of the reasons we actually have choosen to drop by Belize, was a very experienced US navy diver we met in Fiji, who thought Fiji (Taveuni) was boring compared to Belize. And mind you we thought Fiji was fantastic with all its varity soft corals, which I guess he didnt care for.

So now we are in the vicinity we decided we need to go there to see what he an others are talking about.

Cheers

Stephen

I spent a week on Maui last year, and made 8 dives at Molokini. Each dive seemed fresh. The dive master I was paired with, had an exceptional eye for finding critters. We traversed different paths around the site. It actually seemed like a different dive site on each dive. On my first trip to Roatan, one of the divers in our group had been a professional research diver (many years before the trip), and was giddy with excitement from the number of species of sponges he saw. To me, they mostly looked like 4 or 5 kinds of sponge, so the diving seemed a bit repetitive....

I Belize, I started recognising some of the rock and coral formations! That's really unforgivable when you're only making 8 "local" dives. Peter has mentioned that some operations stay closer to the break in the reef than others. From the posts of Peter's that I've seen, I'm prepared to accept his statements as pretty accurate information. If he said he was going to charge a fuel surcharge to get you to the "exciting spots", I would believe that he felt it was worthwhile. He doesn't seem prone to hype the diving in the region. He seems to tell it as he sees it. I put a lot of importance on being able to trust people. From what I've read, he seems trustworthy.

Try to find an outfit that will get you to a nice variety of dive sites. Consider Protech. I haven't dived with them, but I've read other posters (who have gone with Protech) say nice things about them.

 

[oceancat]

Hi. I have been to both the Bay Islands and Belize. I like the wall diving in Belize--out on the atolls. I think if you are going to just dive in Belize, staying at the atolls are the way to go. We have been to Lighthouse Reef Resort and we had a lot of problems with the resort, but the diving was awesome (just not the boat). We have also dove Glover's Atoll and that is amazing because it is relatively pristine--but WAY out in the middle of nowhere--which we loved, but not for everyone. On our Bay Is. trip, we split it and dove half the time in Utila and half in Roatan. We actually preferred Utila--there was a sea mount there that was phenominal. We liked the kicked back feeling of the town too. I didn' t care too much for the little town where we were in roatan--West End. I found the diving to be a bit repetitive in Roatan(we were at Bay Is. Beach or something like that), but we dove, I think, in a different area than where fanstasy is. or coco view are. There was a cool coral/lava? tube we dove through though and popped out at 122'. Cozumel, I haven' t dove--I have been to Playa del Carmen--so there was drift diving, lots of turtles. Belize also had a fair # of turtles. We saw a hammerhead in Utila and that was cool. Overall, that whole area is great and a lot of fun and the diving is varied. There are a lot of cool things to do on land in both Belize and Mexico (Tulum, Chichen Itza, etc). We didn't go inland in Honduras, so I can' t speak for that. Have fun!