TremayneJohnson
Registered
My wife and I spent last week at TIR and were exceptionally pleased with the place and the diving on offer. Especially so, considering the battering hurricane Richard gave the place.
Getting there is easy enough and they will collect you from either of the Belize City airports. It's then a boat ride to the Island - perhaps 1hr 3/4. Something like that.
The island itself isn't huge but has some lovely beach front and is big enough for a five minute stroll. All very picturesque - palm trees, lovely white sand and blue sea.
Our Cabana was great - actually much nicer in the flesh than any photo could do justice to. I saw their pics and thought they looked a little dated but they are actually really nice. Didn't need the air-con overnight but it was there to take the heat down a little when we needed.
Food was a genuine highlight. No real choices - you get what you are given and it was a winner every time. You eat with the other guests - (all meals are at the same time) and it's a really nice way to get to know who else is on the island with you. Everyone I spoke with was in agreement about the food - superb. A nice mix of other guests from full on divers, snorkelers to fisherman - catch and release
)
The diving was incredibly easy with boat rides sometimes as little as two or three minutes! Given the hurricane the previous week - I think some allowance would need to be made to the viz and the condition of some of the tube sponges and coral etc. I'd say viz was medium to good on most dives but nothing amazing. Damage was certainly evident with broken tube sponges and broken barrel sponges also. Nothing horrendous and just 'here and there' rather than devastation.
Marine Life Highlights
Eagle Rays on many of the dives, same for large stingrays. Couple of nurse sharks. One large blacktip reef shark. Lots green moray. Lots white spotted toadfish. Really big shoal spadefish, huge shoals horse eyed snapper, lots decent sized permit. Always lots grouper - mostly Nassau, some Goliath also. Dolphins showed up on three consecutive dives, which was pretty amazing thing to happen. Pod (15) of spotted dolphins on two occasions - the next day was a pair of much larger bottlenosed. The spotted were mostly having fun with each other and chasing after the boat above us - the bottlenosed showed up underneath us while we were at about twenty metres and were really interested in us. Fantastic dives!
All in all - well worth the trip, worth the money and run and staffed by some really decent people. Had hoped for more reef sharks but wasn't at all disappointed.
TJ
Getting there is easy enough and they will collect you from either of the Belize City airports. It's then a boat ride to the Island - perhaps 1hr 3/4. Something like that.
The island itself isn't huge but has some lovely beach front and is big enough for a five minute stroll. All very picturesque - palm trees, lovely white sand and blue sea.
Our Cabana was great - actually much nicer in the flesh than any photo could do justice to. I saw their pics and thought they looked a little dated but they are actually really nice. Didn't need the air-con overnight but it was there to take the heat down a little when we needed.
Food was a genuine highlight. No real choices - you get what you are given and it was a winner every time. You eat with the other guests - (all meals are at the same time) and it's a really nice way to get to know who else is on the island with you. Everyone I spoke with was in agreement about the food - superb. A nice mix of other guests from full on divers, snorkelers to fisherman - catch and release
) The diving was incredibly easy with boat rides sometimes as little as two or three minutes! Given the hurricane the previous week - I think some allowance would need to be made to the viz and the condition of some of the tube sponges and coral etc. I'd say viz was medium to good on most dives but nothing amazing. Damage was certainly evident with broken tube sponges and broken barrel sponges also. Nothing horrendous and just 'here and there' rather than devastation.
Marine Life Highlights
Eagle Rays on many of the dives, same for large stingrays. Couple of nurse sharks. One large blacktip reef shark. Lots green moray. Lots white spotted toadfish. Really big shoal spadefish, huge shoals horse eyed snapper, lots decent sized permit. Always lots grouper - mostly Nassau, some Goliath also. Dolphins showed up on three consecutive dives, which was pretty amazing thing to happen. Pod (15) of spotted dolphins on two occasions - the next day was a pair of much larger bottlenosed. The spotted were mostly having fun with each other and chasing after the boat above us - the bottlenosed showed up underneath us while we were at about twenty metres and were really interested in us. Fantastic dives!
All in all - well worth the trip, worth the money and run and staffed by some really decent people. Had hoped for more reef sharks but wasn't at all disappointed.
TJ
