Dive shop help for San Pedro, Belize
- Thread starter BrianJohnson
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Places I can recommend from personal experience include Caliente, El Patio, Mangos, Papi's Diner, Jambel Jerk Pit, Estelle's, Blue Water Grill & the "Park" in town, and Casa Picasso, Tastes of Thailand, Victoria House, El Divinos, George's Kitchen, Monkey Bites south of town. There are other places that I don't know which may well be excellent. I can't speak for places north of town simply because I don't eat there. These are subjective recommendations, and other people might suggest other places.
BoomerTC
Guest
carldarl:
Cardarl,
My wife and I just bought at Belizean Shores and we couldn't be happier. In my opinion it's the best place on the Island, but I'm bias now. The Penlands, who built and run the place, are great, upfront, honest people to deal with.
Buying land might be good, but I like the idea of having a place where people can look after your unit when your not there. And we get rental income to boot.
BoomerTC:
Now I am REALLY envious. We keep thinking property as my wife is into horticulture and I do a lot of woodworking. We are kind of looking down around Placencia where 5 acre plots with 200+ feet of beachfront run around $100k. At this point it is still dream time. Next year we'll go look a little more seriously.
texwasabi
Registered
YAHOO! We depart 12am wed morning!
The best dive operation I have found is Amigos Del Mar and they do pick up at any dock needed. They will also pamper you to the point of no return. I will be headed back to Ambergris on the 11 of march but will be using Aqua Dives a new for me but decided to try someone different. I have used Amigos Del Mar 5 times w/ gorups of 16 or more and never had a bad time.
Ayisha
Contributor
I didn't use Amigos del Mar, so I don't know what you're used to with them.
There were 2 things, though, that I found different with Aqua Dives than what I'm used to.
One was that the only thing they provide on the regular dives is water. They usually don't provide any snacks, fruit or anything.
They come back to their dock after each dive, and you either bring your own snacks, go back to your hotel, buy something around there (if you brought money) or don't eat anything. They usually do their dives at 9AM, 11AM, 2PM, and 4 PM, and you can choose your times. If you're doing 2 dives back to back, there's no time to go far, so bring snacks or money.
The second thing, which we had already read about before we went, was that the Aqua Dives boat was REALLY inadequate for the open sea. On the long excursions to Turneffe and the Blue Hole, the ride was extremely rough and nearly unbearable. We were crashing down hard in the waves, tanks were flying out from their ridiculous plastic-armed holders, so they put the tanks under the seats. A couple of people had bruises from tanks flying out from under the seats. Some part of the boat fell off near the top of the boat, and they reattached it. The seats were hard benches, so we grabbed life jackets to sit on - made it a little better. The boat we took to Turneffe (2 hours each way) did not even have a head on it. For the close local dives, though, the boat was fine.
We longed for the smooth boats of Cozumel, and the Amigos boat at the Blue Hole looked like one of the small to mid-sized boats in Coz - probably pretty comfy. We had wanted to choose Amigos, but we were on a group trip with an Aqua Dives package.
Maybe I've been spoiled, but whether here in Ontario or down south, until this trip, I've normally been given at least cookies and fruit between dives, and I'm used to pretty comfortable boats. So we were surprised, but we got pretty used to it. And the dives made up for it.
There were 2 things, though, that I found different with Aqua Dives than what I'm used to.
One was that the only thing they provide on the regular dives is water. They usually don't provide any snacks, fruit or anything.
They come back to their dock after each dive, and you either bring your own snacks, go back to your hotel, buy something around there (if you brought money) or don't eat anything. They usually do their dives at 9AM, 11AM, 2PM, and 4 PM, and you can choose your times. If you're doing 2 dives back to back, there's no time to go far, so bring snacks or money.
The second thing, which we had already read about before we went, was that the Aqua Dives boat was REALLY inadequate for the open sea. On the long excursions to Turneffe and the Blue Hole, the ride was extremely rough and nearly unbearable. We were crashing down hard in the waves, tanks were flying out from their ridiculous plastic-armed holders, so they put the tanks under the seats. A couple of people had bruises from tanks flying out from under the seats. Some part of the boat fell off near the top of the boat, and they reattached it. The seats were hard benches, so we grabbed life jackets to sit on - made it a little better. The boat we took to Turneffe (2 hours each way) did not even have a head on it. For the close local dives, though, the boat was fine.
We longed for the smooth boats of Cozumel, and the Amigos boat at the Blue Hole looked like one of the small to mid-sized boats in Coz - probably pretty comfy. We had wanted to choose Amigos, but we were on a group trip with an Aqua Dives package.
Maybe I've been spoiled, but whether here in Ontario or down south, until this trip, I've normally been given at least cookies and fruit between dives, and I'm used to pretty comfortable boats. So we were surprised, but we got pretty used to it. And the dives made up for it.
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