Belize Report -April 28-May4, 2018
All in all Belize was a fun trip with some unique diving opportunities.
GETTING THERE- We flew Southwest-OKC, Houston, Belize City. No issues. When you land in Belize City, the puddle jumper terminals are right there. We flew Maya air with a max capacity of 12 or 13 people. So we had our own plane. A quick 15 minute flight and you are in San Pedro. The hotel is literally right across the street from the airport. We drug our bags to the hotel since it was less than a block walk. The hotel arranged to have our bags taken to the terminal for us when we left. No travel drama whatsoever on Southwest..
The duty free shops in the Belize city airport have the best prices on liquor. Our group stocked up there.
SUNBREEZE HOTEL- Nice place. Clean rooms with great AC and our little dorm refrigerator. We had 2 double-ish beds, some had a king. We were upstairs but maybe the nicer rooms are downstairs. Resort is very clean, beds were comfortable and not the usual bricks you seem to find around. Blue water Grill was good, but a little pricey (relative term). If you get in late, the Brisket Pizza is actually fantastic. The pool is nice, drinks are typical resort drinks at about $8us a pop. Belikin beer is about $3 each. (You can drink any beer you want in Belize…as long as its Belikin (Belikin Light, Belikin Stout, and Belikin Regular.) No issues with the hotel, nicer than some, and completely fine as a dive hotel. Lots of airplanes overhead, but the rooms are quiet and the planes are not that loud.
AMBERGRIS DIVERS- The shop is located at the hotel so it is easy to get to. Divemasters were competent, Ira was great. Nice boats with heads. Two ladders on the back and giant stride entry. Divemasters will remove your fins as you hang on the tow line. The "Package" dives we had were not transferable and operated as a group. If someone did not want to dive that day with the group, they lost their dives. We were not told that until we got there, but I’m not sure it would have made a difference for me since I would dive 5 times a day if available.
Dives were typical Caribbean dives and the visibility sucked (by Cozumel standards) while we were there. 32% nitrox ran $15us per tank and tested within 1%. I had one 2800 psi tank but most ran 3000 or over. Tanks were warm so pressure dropped about 200 psi quickly after dropping in. Lots of tank o ring and Reg-to-Tank- oring leaks. Those looked worse than they were pressure loss wise, but I’d hate to see a blown tank oring on a dive.
Sharks, sharks, and more (nurse)Sharks- The DM will drag a PVC pipe stuffed with fish guts and the nursesharks are all over it. That was pretty cool. The green morays tend to come out as well for a snack. Dives tended to run right at an hour and the group pretty much surfaces together unless you have someone that blows through their air. Most dives were in the 40-60 foot range, with one deeper swim through exiting around 100 feet deep. They put 2 DM’s in the water so one DM can bring a group of airhogs up if needed.
Nightdive- The night dive is at Hol Chan Park which requires an additional $10 park fee collected at the park. The dive sucks. The first 30 minutes are spent in 5 feet of water finning into mild current over a barren seagrass bed. Then it drops off to 25-30 feet and there are lots of sleeping stingrays but that is about as interesting as it gets. We managed a 78 minute dive, but I would clarify the type of dive you want to do and if a 5 foot dive finning into mild current is not on the list, make that known. They tried to cancel our dive because of severe current….the current would not even be a slow drift dive anywhere else and one finger in the seagrass would hold you in place. If you do a night dive, clarify what you want to do.
Lionfish Hunt- Bring your slings, you can "upgrade" to a 3 tank dive day that will take you on their "Lionfish Safari". It was $117us each and they went to reefs where the LF aren’t pressured as much. I think we killed 30 or so. They will clean them and several restaurants will prepare your fish. We meant to…it just did not happen. Don’t know what happened to our fish but it was no big deal. The boat ride is long, and sometimes rough, but it was fun. The third dive on this day was with 2 manatees and 2 pods of dolphins. This dive alone made up for the ****** night dive and poor visibility. A manatee…a friggin manatee with dolphins to boot. Absolute unplanned bucketlist dive. Did you hear me??? A Manatee!!!
Bluehole- We had arranged with Ambergris to do the BH trip on Thursday. We set it up when we got there Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon, the girl at the shop said they were not going because not enough of us wanted to go at that point. Ambergris charges $350us for the trip or so. This is not uncommon and other shops will put you on an Amigos Del Mar boat (who charges $260US, plus $40 reef fee, plus 16% tax) but ADM’s boat was in for service on Thursday. She didn’t seem to care if I went or not. She called Ramon’s but downplayed it like they were not going to have enough divers either. I walked to Ramon’s (2 resorts away) and got on their list. We did our 3 dive lionfish trip Wednesday and I made it to Ramon’s Wednesday afternoon and the trip was a go. It was $331 total and Rick through in free Nitrox for me. Rick had also left a message for me at the hotel. Great service by Ramons!
You show up at 5:30 am but really don’t leave until after 6. All but 3 divers were late by at least 15 to 20 minutes. Breakfast of fruit, sweet breads, and coffee is provided. The breads were great! It’s a 2 ½ hour boat ride and it was rough at points. Their benches are padded so I was able to sleep for about an hour both ways. Boat is nice and set up like Ambergris’. It does have a head as well…but you would have to be really talented to use it during the open water crossings.
The Bluehole dive was not that overwhelming. The highlight for me was getting a little narced at 138 feet. I forgot to set my computer to air from nitrox so it basically was telling me I was dead. I knew what it was doing so no big deal. Visibility was poor by Caribbean standards. You’re limited to about 5 minutes at depth and the actual dive is spent swimming through huge stalactites hanging from a large cavern-like indention in the wall. The pack of new divers clumped together and it was kind of amusing to watch. I just stayed away and did my own thing.
Half Moon Kaye- Lunch is at Half Moon Kaye which make the Corona commercials look like a bad part of Houston. Beautiful island with nice outhouses and a bird sanctuary. Great place for a surface interval. The next dive is among some huge pillars that make the Cozumel Columbia Reef Pillars look small. The final dive is at a reef called Aquarium and the reef condition and variety of small fish is simply breathtaking. .
FOOD!!!!!
There are several places to eat close to the hotel. Elvi’s is by far the best we found. Great food, reasonable prices. Don’t miss the Mayan fish. They wrap a piece of snapper in a banana leaf and cook it with a tomato based chili sauce with onions and peppers. It was so good I had it twice. I could have eaten at Elvi’s everynight.
Ramon’s- Nice restaurant, touristy pricing, but good food. 2 or 3 resorts down from the hotel to the South I believe. Just look for the thatched huts roofs. Part of the restaurant is not open air, make sure you sit where you can catch the breeze if it is warm.
Blue Water Grill- at the hotel, touristy pricing but good food. The Pizza was really good. Other than the Pizza and maybe the Key Lime Pie, everything else was good….just not memorable.
Bakery by the airport- Across from the airport is a white building with the "Flight Café" or something like that. There is an alcove with a bakery in it. They will put out a sign by the street that basically says $5 sandwiches. The cinnamon rolls were $4us and maybe the best I had ever had. They had other pastries as well for $3us and were great. Their sandwiches are light on the meat, but the bread is so good you don’t care. They are also huge.
Boomer- Being an Oklahoma Group, we were kind of obligated on this one. When you walk out of the hotel to the street, turn left and walk about a block. Its across the street and is just a small building with open air seating. Good breakfast but takes a long time.
Hidden Treasure- I did not eat here but a couple in our group did. They will send a golf cart to pick you up and they said the food was excellent. Marc was craving steak and said the filet was as good as he had had anywhere.
El Fagon- 2 short blocks from the hotel, easy walk. Traditional grilled Belizean food. I had grilled snapper and it was good. I should have done the Mayan style, or Belizean stew. Great service but the keyboard player was a little loud. Reasonable prices.
Convenience stores- There are 2 convenience/grocery stores across from the airport. They have Cokes and juices as well as typical other items. I would suggest ¼ pineapple nectar, 1/3 Mango Nectar, and 1/3 dark spiced Belizean rum. Add ice in your YETI knockoff cup and go sit by the pool. Repeat as often as necessary until you feel slightly narced until dinner time.
RECAP-
Belize was nice and the group we were with made it great. The diving was mediocre due to poor visibility. Water was warm 80-82 and all I needed was a skin. Boats left at 8:30 normally, 3 tank dive left at 7:30, and Blue hole left at 5:30. Like Roatan, I would go back for the right deal. Its no secret we love Cozumel, but based on 1 trip to Roatan, 1 trip to AC, Belize, and probably a dozen trips to Cozumel, we prefer Coz. The reefs in Belize and Roatan are in much better shape. If you love coral, it’s the place to be.
All in all Belize was a fun trip with some unique diving opportunities.
GETTING THERE- We flew Southwest-OKC, Houston, Belize City. No issues. When you land in Belize City, the puddle jumper terminals are right there. We flew Maya air with a max capacity of 12 or 13 people. So we had our own plane. A quick 15 minute flight and you are in San Pedro. The hotel is literally right across the street from the airport. We drug our bags to the hotel since it was less than a block walk. The hotel arranged to have our bags taken to the terminal for us when we left. No travel drama whatsoever on Southwest..
The duty free shops in the Belize city airport have the best prices on liquor. Our group stocked up there.
SUNBREEZE HOTEL- Nice place. Clean rooms with great AC and our little dorm refrigerator. We had 2 double-ish beds, some had a king. We were upstairs but maybe the nicer rooms are downstairs. Resort is very clean, beds were comfortable and not the usual bricks you seem to find around. Blue water Grill was good, but a little pricey (relative term). If you get in late, the Brisket Pizza is actually fantastic. The pool is nice, drinks are typical resort drinks at about $8us a pop. Belikin beer is about $3 each. (You can drink any beer you want in Belize…as long as its Belikin (Belikin Light, Belikin Stout, and Belikin Regular.) No issues with the hotel, nicer than some, and completely fine as a dive hotel. Lots of airplanes overhead, but the rooms are quiet and the planes are not that loud.
AMBERGRIS DIVERS- The shop is located at the hotel so it is easy to get to. Divemasters were competent, Ira was great. Nice boats with heads. Two ladders on the back and giant stride entry. Divemasters will remove your fins as you hang on the tow line. The "Package" dives we had were not transferable and operated as a group. If someone did not want to dive that day with the group, they lost their dives. We were not told that until we got there, but I’m not sure it would have made a difference for me since I would dive 5 times a day if available.
Dives were typical Caribbean dives and the visibility sucked (by Cozumel standards) while we were there. 32% nitrox ran $15us per tank and tested within 1%. I had one 2800 psi tank but most ran 3000 or over. Tanks were warm so pressure dropped about 200 psi quickly after dropping in. Lots of tank o ring and Reg-to-Tank- oring leaks. Those looked worse than they were pressure loss wise, but I’d hate to see a blown tank oring on a dive.
Sharks, sharks, and more (nurse)Sharks- The DM will drag a PVC pipe stuffed with fish guts and the nursesharks are all over it. That was pretty cool. The green morays tend to come out as well for a snack. Dives tended to run right at an hour and the group pretty much surfaces together unless you have someone that blows through their air. Most dives were in the 40-60 foot range, with one deeper swim through exiting around 100 feet deep. They put 2 DM’s in the water so one DM can bring a group of airhogs up if needed.
Nightdive- The night dive is at Hol Chan Park which requires an additional $10 park fee collected at the park. The dive sucks. The first 30 minutes are spent in 5 feet of water finning into mild current over a barren seagrass bed. Then it drops off to 25-30 feet and there are lots of sleeping stingrays but that is about as interesting as it gets. We managed a 78 minute dive, but I would clarify the type of dive you want to do and if a 5 foot dive finning into mild current is not on the list, make that known. They tried to cancel our dive because of severe current….the current would not even be a slow drift dive anywhere else and one finger in the seagrass would hold you in place. If you do a night dive, clarify what you want to do.
Lionfish Hunt- Bring your slings, you can "upgrade" to a 3 tank dive day that will take you on their "Lionfish Safari". It was $117us each and they went to reefs where the LF aren’t pressured as much. I think we killed 30 or so. They will clean them and several restaurants will prepare your fish. We meant to…it just did not happen. Don’t know what happened to our fish but it was no big deal. The boat ride is long, and sometimes rough, but it was fun. The third dive on this day was with 2 manatees and 2 pods of dolphins. This dive alone made up for the ****** night dive and poor visibility. A manatee…a friggin manatee with dolphins to boot. Absolute unplanned bucketlist dive. Did you hear me??? A Manatee!!!
Bluehole- We had arranged with Ambergris to do the BH trip on Thursday. We set it up when we got there Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon, the girl at the shop said they were not going because not enough of us wanted to go at that point. Ambergris charges $350us for the trip or so. This is not uncommon and other shops will put you on an Amigos Del Mar boat (who charges $260US, plus $40 reef fee, plus 16% tax) but ADM’s boat was in for service on Thursday. She didn’t seem to care if I went or not. She called Ramon’s but downplayed it like they were not going to have enough divers either. I walked to Ramon’s (2 resorts away) and got on their list. We did our 3 dive lionfish trip Wednesday and I made it to Ramon’s Wednesday afternoon and the trip was a go. It was $331 total and Rick through in free Nitrox for me. Rick had also left a message for me at the hotel. Great service by Ramons!
You show up at 5:30 am but really don’t leave until after 6. All but 3 divers were late by at least 15 to 20 minutes. Breakfast of fruit, sweet breads, and coffee is provided. The breads were great! It’s a 2 ½ hour boat ride and it was rough at points. Their benches are padded so I was able to sleep for about an hour both ways. Boat is nice and set up like Ambergris’. It does have a head as well…but you would have to be really talented to use it during the open water crossings.
The Bluehole dive was not that overwhelming. The highlight for me was getting a little narced at 138 feet. I forgot to set my computer to air from nitrox so it basically was telling me I was dead. I knew what it was doing so no big deal. Visibility was poor by Caribbean standards. You’re limited to about 5 minutes at depth and the actual dive is spent swimming through huge stalactites hanging from a large cavern-like indention in the wall. The pack of new divers clumped together and it was kind of amusing to watch. I just stayed away and did my own thing.
Half Moon Kaye- Lunch is at Half Moon Kaye which make the Corona commercials look like a bad part of Houston. Beautiful island with nice outhouses and a bird sanctuary. Great place for a surface interval. The next dive is among some huge pillars that make the Cozumel Columbia Reef Pillars look small. The final dive is at a reef called Aquarium and the reef condition and variety of small fish is simply breathtaking. .
FOOD!!!!!
There are several places to eat close to the hotel. Elvi’s is by far the best we found. Great food, reasonable prices. Don’t miss the Mayan fish. They wrap a piece of snapper in a banana leaf and cook it with a tomato based chili sauce with onions and peppers. It was so good I had it twice. I could have eaten at Elvi’s everynight.
Ramon’s- Nice restaurant, touristy pricing, but good food. 2 or 3 resorts down from the hotel to the South I believe. Just look for the thatched huts roofs. Part of the restaurant is not open air, make sure you sit where you can catch the breeze if it is warm.
Blue Water Grill- at the hotel, touristy pricing but good food. The Pizza was really good. Other than the Pizza and maybe the Key Lime Pie, everything else was good….just not memorable.
Bakery by the airport- Across from the airport is a white building with the "Flight Café" or something like that. There is an alcove with a bakery in it. They will put out a sign by the street that basically says $5 sandwiches. The cinnamon rolls were $4us and maybe the best I had ever had. They had other pastries as well for $3us and were great. Their sandwiches are light on the meat, but the bread is so good you don’t care. They are also huge.
Boomer- Being an Oklahoma Group, we were kind of obligated on this one. When you walk out of the hotel to the street, turn left and walk about a block. Its across the street and is just a small building with open air seating. Good breakfast but takes a long time.
Hidden Treasure- I did not eat here but a couple in our group did. They will send a golf cart to pick you up and they said the food was excellent. Marc was craving steak and said the filet was as good as he had had anywhere.
El Fagon- 2 short blocks from the hotel, easy walk. Traditional grilled Belizean food. I had grilled snapper and it was good. I should have done the Mayan style, or Belizean stew. Great service but the keyboard player was a little loud. Reasonable prices.
Convenience stores- There are 2 convenience/grocery stores across from the airport. They have Cokes and juices as well as typical other items. I would suggest ¼ pineapple nectar, 1/3 Mango Nectar, and 1/3 dark spiced Belizean rum. Add ice in your YETI knockoff cup and go sit by the pool. Repeat as often as necessary until you feel slightly narced until dinner time.
RECAP-
Belize was nice and the group we were with made it great. The diving was mediocre due to poor visibility. Water was warm 80-82 and all I needed was a skin. Boats left at 8:30 normally, 3 tank dive left at 7:30, and Blue hole left at 5:30. Like Roatan, I would go back for the right deal. Its no secret we love Cozumel, but based on 1 trip to Roatan, 1 trip to AC, Belize, and probably a dozen trips to Cozumel, we prefer Coz. The reefs in Belize and Roatan are in much better shape. If you love coral, it’s the place to be.
