Diving Belize Style

Went for our first dive with a co called Frenchies who were meant to be one of the best on the island. was a little concerned when there were 8 beginner divers on the boat, us and a dive master. The two dives were shambolic in the extreme, so much so that i had to abandon my usual tac of going right behind the DM as u usually see the most. The usual rule of everyone swimming in a line seemed to not apply here and there were people above you, below you bumping into you, kicking you. Most annoying and even cam close to smacking some prat underwater who was banging into Ruth constantly. The 2nd dive we just hung out at the back at tried to avoid the morons. Decided to cancel the blue hole dive with them and go with Big Fish which turned out to be a capital decision as our mates from Bocas turned up to be on the same dive.

The Blue Hole - well after a ridiculously early rise of 5am i checked out a wicked dawn (seen way too many of these this trip and not in the usual still up from night before type too!) and had to leg it to the dive shop as it was attack of the killer mossies. No wind = millions of the little bastards and i was performing the amusing running while trying to slap arms and legs simultaneously run. Got our gear and got on our way. The boat rise was good and the sea was flat as a board. A few clouds gave us some cool pics and then we got to to the hole itself. You can't get the same perspective as you can from the air but when you get under the water you see what all the fuss is about. The hole itself was formed when a giant cave that used to be above sea level millions of years ago collapsed into itself so you have giant 30m long stalactites that you can swim around. The vid gives you an idea of what it is like - note this is not me! The hole is the worlds largest sinkhole, it lies near the centre of lighthouse reef a small atoll 96 km east of Belize. The hole is almost perfectly round and is 305m across and 146m deep. Now this is far too deep to go fun diving to but we made a fast decent down to 44m. At this depth your lungs are 1/8 there normal size at the surface and you can easily get nitrogen narcosis, which is going a bit loco underwater. One of the girls was in a bit of a mess at the bottom but managed to get a handle on it. People have been known to take out their regs and try to give them to fish, that kind of thing. So we drop to 40m and start to swim in and out of the cathedral sized pillers of rock and massivo stalactites. As we looked up into the blue haze you could see a school of Caribbean nurse sharks circling above, silhouetted against the water. As we ascended the sharks swam right past us, only about 4m away. Magnificent creatures, so graceful. They are meant to be pretty harmless to people so wasn't too bothered although Ruth was grabbing my arm at this point. The whole dive was only about 25m due to the rate people were going though their O2.

We did another couple of dives after that and saw some of the best soft coral I've ever seen and some Southern Sting Rays and eagle rays. Lunch was on a small island where we saw hundreds of hermit crabs and some red footed boobies and frigate birds. Easily one of the best days that I've had on this trip and probably one of the best dives I've done so far :)

Now were are probably going to head back to the Guatemalan border to do some caving before heading to Tikal for the first of Mayan ruins.

Oh and before I go just wanted to say congrats to Paul and Sara on their engagement, really happy for you both!

Chris