Qnape
Contributor
Three of us spent a week at TIR 8/15 to 8/22; my daughter (15) and I diving and my wife relaxing and snorkeling. Overall, our time there was as pleasant as we could have hoped for.
Practically, TIR is not as difficult to get to as its remote location might suggest. We flew direct from Newark, NJ to Belize City and easily found TIRs representatives who quickly arranged transportation to the dock at the Princess Hotel and Casino. As others have said, the Princess is not someplace we would want to stay, and we spoke with another guest who made that mistake. They were very disappointed and described a filthy swimming pool and other issues they observed. The high prices at the Calypso restaurant / bar did not stop us from enjoying a cool drink or two to pass the time, but a/c would indeed have been nice after traveling. Oddly, we learned that TIR is on its own time zone one hour different than Belize City.
Our transfer to the island on the Miss Bella was pleasant, and the ice cold towel and punch upon boarding was welcome and refreshing. The Miss Bella, like all TIRs boats, seemed well maintained and equipped, and well chosen for their tasks. It seemed to me that for such a small resort, their fleet was large and modern - a lot of $ spent here.
Most of our fellow travelers were divers; there were a few who combined fishing and diving and one couple who were there on the fishing package. My wife and a few other guests accompanying divers were beachcombers / snorkelers. Weather for the trip was pretty consistent; 92F with winds between 10 and 20 knots. We saw a few thunderstorms around, but only felt a few drops all week. Water conservation is important on the island, and we were told they had seen very little rain recently. The Resort Managers Karen and Jason were very helpful throughout our stay and briefed guests about the resort upon arrival. Jason participated on several dives, and is a very good kite-boarder! He joined us for several meals and was great company. We all felt the food was awesome; tasty, plentiful and fresh. Served family style, meals are announced with a ships bell and each is a friendly conversation filled experience. No-one had any significant complaints or ever felt hungry and snacks water and lemonade were nearly always available.
The accommodations are attractive and well cared for. We stayed in a two room building near the docks - very convenient for diving. While not as large as some we have seen, they are not claustrophobic with high ceilings. The a/c works well but can be a bit loud, especially as it cycles on and off in energy saver mode. I especially appreciated the large outdoor shower; it seemed awesome to me to sip coffee delivered to our doorstep at 6:30- a.m. in the shower while looking up at the palm trees. The resort is meticulously landscaped, with flowers and ornamental plants of all sorts everywhere you look. Everyday grounds keepers could be seen watering, pruning, planting, and raking the sand. Bugs were never an issue on the island - neither mosquitos or no-see-ums. The near constant breeze helps this, and keeps the high temperature bearable.
As described by others, the divers were assigned to a boat / DM for the week. My daughter and I were assigned to Daniel, and were pleased by his knowledge of the dive sites and their resident creatures, pretty good dive briefings and attentiveness. No-one on our boat dove with Nitrox except for the DM. He routinely checked remaining air for newer divers and reminded us during the briefings to be wary of our NDL during our second / third dives each day. Daniel tried hard to locate and point out more interesting creatures, including nearly perfectly camouflage scorpionfish, drums, and toadfish. One pair of divers who had some air consumption issues often stayed shallower through many of our dives, but all dives were done essentially as a group.
Many dives were on walls, some on highly structured sections of reef. We saw many healthy staghorn coral colonies, some larger than any Id seen before. Healthy elkhorn corals were seen in some areas. Similarly, many barrel and tube sponges were larger and more robust than Ive seen in Cozumel or Utila. That said, the visibility, especially during the first part of our week, was less than ideal, ranging from 40 to 60'. We changed dive sites on the fly a few times because Daniel felt the visibility was unacceptable. Fine particulates and small pieces of vegetation marred many photographs with backscatter, and in some cases had settled and coated the surface of large sponges. Jason could occasionally be seen at the rear of a dive group, carefully clearing off the surface of some of the largest sponges. I was told at some point that there may have been some dredging somewhere nearby resulting in the poor vis. In any case, conditions seemed to be clearing as our stay progressed and was best out at the Elbow and during the 2nd and 3rd dives on the Blue Hole trip.
The Elbow was particularly fascinating, with large schools of fish including game fish such as permit. Conditions were a bit challenging on one dive there - pretty big waves to make things exciting, but that was more than made up for by the number and variety of fish. Large tarpon were seen on many of our dives, along with barracuda. Spotted and green morays were abundant on many dive sites, along with juvenile and adult spotted drums, trunkfish and trumpetfish. I have never seen a hogfish even ½ the size of a few we saw there, and one more moderately sized individual posed nicely while being cleaned. We saw two smallish lionfish during our trip - Ive posted a photo. They were killed, but obviously they are in the area to stay. Our night dive was interesting, with decent visibility and some variety of critters about including lobster, crabs (and one of the largest hermits Ive seen), and a few basket stars. The blood worms swarmed white lights mercilessly, interfering with photography and being just generally annoying. I felt as though they were squirming into my wetsuit sleeve; my daughter told me she felt like they were trying to get into her ear - not a calming feeling at 60' at night. The timing of the night dive was immediately after dinner, at 8:00 p.m., so it was full dark on the way out. The weather was clear - so the stars provided quite a show for those of us from near big cities.
The Blue Hole Dive lived up to its reputation; dark, a quick bounce to 135'. About 3/4 of the two dive groups went all the way; the rest formed a third group that stopped at about 60'. All divers going deep were told to stay to 130' but most who went to the bottom actually went to 135' to 138' in order to comfortably swim through a few stalactites. There were plenty of sharks to accompany us on the way up and down - they seemed accustomed to divers in the water and swam to within a few feet of us. Daniel warned that if any appeared aggressive, we should form up in a circle, with him in the middle.
We arrived at the hole early, before the dive boats from Ambergris Caye and the Aggressor. We had finished our picnic lunch at Half Moon Caye and were visiting with the Red-Footed Boobies before the Aggressor and other boats joined us there.
My buddy (my daughter) made a possibly serious error on her last dive of the week. She is a fish, returning from every dive with in excess of ½ a tank of gas. I was approaching my NDL after 40 minutes or so (I had been a bit deeper than most early in the dive), let my daughter and the divemaster know and paired /buddied them up, and ascended to about 27' to shadow the group; I was joined by more divers as the dive progressed and more of us ran out of NDL but not gas. I was watching my daughter at about 50' and signaled her several times to check her computer - she repeatedly responded that everything was fine. Eventually I realized that she HAD to be at or over her NDL and got her attention to meet me half-way, vertically. I checked her computer, and sure enough, she had earned an 18 minute decompression stop with a ceiling of 10'. I smacked myself (and her) on the forehead. Gas was no issue at all for her, but I do not have her consumption and would not have been able to stay with her. I signaled her to 15" and got Daniels attention. After smacking his own forehead (he should have realized, as I did, that she HAD to be beyond NDL and at that point was buddied with her), he stayed down with her for the next 20 minutes playing tic-tac-toe and drawing caricatures on his slate, so that I could ascend. Thank you, Daniel. After explaining what was going on to the rest of the divers (already on board the boat), we waited and planned a fin gauntlet for my daughter. She still managed to ascend (after 82 minutes and more than a bit embarrassed) with 1300 psi. Go figure. As long as she remembers; dad won't always be her buddy.
That last evening we enjoyed a tasty beach BBQ (ribs, chicken, veggie ka-bobs, etc..). After the BBQ, TIR holds its hermit crab races, which proved to be amusing for all. There certainly is no shortage of the critters on the island - they can be found nearly everywhere after nightfall in groups and walking about. Watch your step! Aside from the crabs, watch for several types of lizard, frigate birds and a surprising number of hummingbirds attracted to the many flowering plants and the palm trees.
For those of you with landlubber SOs a few words about my wifes experience might be helpful. As a novice snorkeler, she was reluctant to go out on their daily trips at first, but gained confidence with the assistance of the snorkel guides. She eventually made it out on 7 snorkeling trips, and is more comfortable in the water and on boats than before our trip. If a novice snorkeler required some assistance, the staff supplied a tethered float and some fin power until they became more capable. The snorkeling sites are varied and close by, and generally inside the reefs so any wave action / current is mitigated for snorkeling. My daughter and I joined several of the snorkel trips after diving so we all had a great time together. My wife also enjoyed a massage during her stay, and was most pleased with that. She loved the layout of the resort, the relaxed atmosphere and camaraderie of the pool bar and dining room, and the many relaxing locations along the beach and resort she found to read and enjoy the sun. To use her words, there was a hammock or lounge chair at every turn, whenever she wanted one. No rush to reserve lounge chairs at 6:00 a.m. here! The morning coffee / tea service, excellent conversation filled meals, pleasant times at the pool and pool bar, evening turn-down service (and a poem on hand wax-sealed stationary each evening) - this resort has changed her opinions regarding a dive resort and made her more open to such locations for the future (hooray for me!). TIR stays on our short list for a return trip.
Practically, TIR is not as difficult to get to as its remote location might suggest. We flew direct from Newark, NJ to Belize City and easily found TIRs representatives who quickly arranged transportation to the dock at the Princess Hotel and Casino. As others have said, the Princess is not someplace we would want to stay, and we spoke with another guest who made that mistake. They were very disappointed and described a filthy swimming pool and other issues they observed. The high prices at the Calypso restaurant / bar did not stop us from enjoying a cool drink or two to pass the time, but a/c would indeed have been nice after traveling. Oddly, we learned that TIR is on its own time zone one hour different than Belize City.
Our transfer to the island on the Miss Bella was pleasant, and the ice cold towel and punch upon boarding was welcome and refreshing. The Miss Bella, like all TIRs boats, seemed well maintained and equipped, and well chosen for their tasks. It seemed to me that for such a small resort, their fleet was large and modern - a lot of $ spent here.
Most of our fellow travelers were divers; there were a few who combined fishing and diving and one couple who were there on the fishing package. My wife and a few other guests accompanying divers were beachcombers / snorkelers. Weather for the trip was pretty consistent; 92F with winds between 10 and 20 knots. We saw a few thunderstorms around, but only felt a few drops all week. Water conservation is important on the island, and we were told they had seen very little rain recently. The Resort Managers Karen and Jason were very helpful throughout our stay and briefed guests about the resort upon arrival. Jason participated on several dives, and is a very good kite-boarder! He joined us for several meals and was great company. We all felt the food was awesome; tasty, plentiful and fresh. Served family style, meals are announced with a ships bell and each is a friendly conversation filled experience. No-one had any significant complaints or ever felt hungry and snacks water and lemonade were nearly always available.
The accommodations are attractive and well cared for. We stayed in a two room building near the docks - very convenient for diving. While not as large as some we have seen, they are not claustrophobic with high ceilings. The a/c works well but can be a bit loud, especially as it cycles on and off in energy saver mode. I especially appreciated the large outdoor shower; it seemed awesome to me to sip coffee delivered to our doorstep at 6:30- a.m. in the shower while looking up at the palm trees. The resort is meticulously landscaped, with flowers and ornamental plants of all sorts everywhere you look. Everyday grounds keepers could be seen watering, pruning, planting, and raking the sand. Bugs were never an issue on the island - neither mosquitos or no-see-ums. The near constant breeze helps this, and keeps the high temperature bearable.
As described by others, the divers were assigned to a boat / DM for the week. My daughter and I were assigned to Daniel, and were pleased by his knowledge of the dive sites and their resident creatures, pretty good dive briefings and attentiveness. No-one on our boat dove with Nitrox except for the DM. He routinely checked remaining air for newer divers and reminded us during the briefings to be wary of our NDL during our second / third dives each day. Daniel tried hard to locate and point out more interesting creatures, including nearly perfectly camouflage scorpionfish, drums, and toadfish. One pair of divers who had some air consumption issues often stayed shallower through many of our dives, but all dives were done essentially as a group.
Many dives were on walls, some on highly structured sections of reef. We saw many healthy staghorn coral colonies, some larger than any Id seen before. Healthy elkhorn corals were seen in some areas. Similarly, many barrel and tube sponges were larger and more robust than Ive seen in Cozumel or Utila. That said, the visibility, especially during the first part of our week, was less than ideal, ranging from 40 to 60'. We changed dive sites on the fly a few times because Daniel felt the visibility was unacceptable. Fine particulates and small pieces of vegetation marred many photographs with backscatter, and in some cases had settled and coated the surface of large sponges. Jason could occasionally be seen at the rear of a dive group, carefully clearing off the surface of some of the largest sponges. I was told at some point that there may have been some dredging somewhere nearby resulting in the poor vis. In any case, conditions seemed to be clearing as our stay progressed and was best out at the Elbow and during the 2nd and 3rd dives on the Blue Hole trip.
The Elbow was particularly fascinating, with large schools of fish including game fish such as permit. Conditions were a bit challenging on one dive there - pretty big waves to make things exciting, but that was more than made up for by the number and variety of fish. Large tarpon were seen on many of our dives, along with barracuda. Spotted and green morays were abundant on many dive sites, along with juvenile and adult spotted drums, trunkfish and trumpetfish. I have never seen a hogfish even ½ the size of a few we saw there, and one more moderately sized individual posed nicely while being cleaned. We saw two smallish lionfish during our trip - Ive posted a photo. They were killed, but obviously they are in the area to stay. Our night dive was interesting, with decent visibility and some variety of critters about including lobster, crabs (and one of the largest hermits Ive seen), and a few basket stars. The blood worms swarmed white lights mercilessly, interfering with photography and being just generally annoying. I felt as though they were squirming into my wetsuit sleeve; my daughter told me she felt like they were trying to get into her ear - not a calming feeling at 60' at night. The timing of the night dive was immediately after dinner, at 8:00 p.m., so it was full dark on the way out. The weather was clear - so the stars provided quite a show for those of us from near big cities.
The Blue Hole Dive lived up to its reputation; dark, a quick bounce to 135'. About 3/4 of the two dive groups went all the way; the rest formed a third group that stopped at about 60'. All divers going deep were told to stay to 130' but most who went to the bottom actually went to 135' to 138' in order to comfortably swim through a few stalactites. There were plenty of sharks to accompany us on the way up and down - they seemed accustomed to divers in the water and swam to within a few feet of us. Daniel warned that if any appeared aggressive, we should form up in a circle, with him in the middle.
We arrived at the hole early, before the dive boats from Ambergris Caye and the Aggressor. We had finished our picnic lunch at Half Moon Caye and were visiting with the Red-Footed Boobies before the Aggressor and other boats joined us there. My buddy (my daughter) made a possibly serious error on her last dive of the week. She is a fish, returning from every dive with in excess of ½ a tank of gas. I was approaching my NDL after 40 minutes or so (I had been a bit deeper than most early in the dive), let my daughter and the divemaster know and paired /buddied them up, and ascended to about 27' to shadow the group; I was joined by more divers as the dive progressed and more of us ran out of NDL but not gas. I was watching my daughter at about 50' and signaled her several times to check her computer - she repeatedly responded that everything was fine. Eventually I realized that she HAD to be at or over her NDL and got her attention to meet me half-way, vertically. I checked her computer, and sure enough, she had earned an 18 minute decompression stop with a ceiling of 10'. I smacked myself (and her) on the forehead. Gas was no issue at all for her, but I do not have her consumption and would not have been able to stay with her. I signaled her to 15" and got Daniels attention. After smacking his own forehead (he should have realized, as I did, that she HAD to be beyond NDL and at that point was buddied with her), he stayed down with her for the next 20 minutes playing tic-tac-toe and drawing caricatures on his slate, so that I could ascend. Thank you, Daniel. After explaining what was going on to the rest of the divers (already on board the boat), we waited and planned a fin gauntlet for my daughter. She still managed to ascend (after 82 minutes and more than a bit embarrassed) with 1300 psi. Go figure. As long as she remembers; dad won't always be her buddy.
That last evening we enjoyed a tasty beach BBQ (ribs, chicken, veggie ka-bobs, etc..). After the BBQ, TIR holds its hermit crab races, which proved to be amusing for all. There certainly is no shortage of the critters on the island - they can be found nearly everywhere after nightfall in groups and walking about. Watch your step! Aside from the crabs, watch for several types of lizard, frigate birds and a surprising number of hummingbirds attracted to the many flowering plants and the palm trees.
For those of you with landlubber SOs a few words about my wifes experience might be helpful. As a novice snorkeler, she was reluctant to go out on their daily trips at first, but gained confidence with the assistance of the snorkel guides. She eventually made it out on 7 snorkeling trips, and is more comfortable in the water and on boats than before our trip. If a novice snorkeler required some assistance, the staff supplied a tethered float and some fin power until they became more capable. The snorkeling sites are varied and close by, and generally inside the reefs so any wave action / current is mitigated for snorkeling. My daughter and I joined several of the snorkel trips after diving so we all had a great time together. My wife also enjoyed a massage during her stay, and was most pleased with that. She loved the layout of the resort, the relaxed atmosphere and camaraderie of the pool bar and dining room, and the many relaxing locations along the beach and resort she found to read and enjoy the sun. To use her words, there was a hammock or lounge chair at every turn, whenever she wanted one. No rush to reserve lounge chairs at 6:00 a.m. here! The morning coffee / tea service, excellent conversation filled meals, pleasant times at the pool and pool bar, evening turn-down service (and a poem on hand wax-sealed stationary each evening) - this resort has changed her opinions regarding a dive resort and made her more open to such locations for the future (hooray for me!). TIR stays on our short list for a return trip.
