Shark Week Belize 2010

Belize is suppose to be one of the top Caribbean dive destinations and Ambergris Caye is the place to dive in Belize, so were psyched to dive there. Unfortunately it did not live up to its reputation.

It is expensive to fly into Belize City we paid over $650 each not including the Belize City to San Pedro leg. From Minneapolis we connected in Atlanta and once we cleared customs and immigration in Belize City we took the 15 minute flight to San Pedro on Tropic Air. Even though we had two connections we were in San Pedro by 1:00 PM, not bad.

The plane for Belize City to San Pedro leg was a fourteen passenger (including the passenger sitting in the copilot seat) prop plane. Because Karen was one of the lightest people on the plane she had to sit in the bench seat at the rear of the plane, and she could not get her seat belt to clip and the crew couldint either, so she made the entire trip unbelted.

Once we landed in San Pedro, Tradewinds Paradaise Villas arranged to have a cab pick us up. We checked in , unpacked and went for a late lunch at Fido’s.

Tradewinds Paradise Villas

 We got a great deal at the Tradewinds- seven days lodging, five days of two tank dives, a night dive, air travel to and from Belize City to San Pedro on Tropic Air and transportation from San Pedro airport to the Tradewinds for $1000 each.

As usual we checked out Tradewinds on Trip Advisor, all of the reviews were four or five star no ones, twos or threes. The descriptions of the property on Trip Advisor were accurate but the ratings were to high, I would not have rated it more than a three or even two and a half. The property was a little worn.

Karen, my wife, had a good idea and that is to compare resorts to hotel chains in the US. Motel Six at the low end, Holiday Inn in the middle and Westin at the top. For example, Posada Del Mar in Isla Mujeres Mexico is slightly better than a Motel Six. Tradewinds would compare to a Super 8; better than a Motel 6 but not a Holiday Inn.

Tradewinds looks nice from the outside. The pool area is inviting but the lounge chairs are made of wood and are weather beaten. Some have had pieces replaced with new wood so they look a little patchwork. The pads for the lounge are faded and worn. I am actually amazed that Karen didn’t complain about them, she must have had her vacation attitude on.

The  dining room and living room are medium sized. The bedroom contained a king size bed, more comfortable than Mexican beds. The kitchen was small but was adequate for the minimal cooking that we did. The only meals we had at the condo were breakfast.

The furniture was a little worn but one thing in the condo that was new was a 32 inch flat panel TV and it had satellite TV service. I thought the maid did an ok job but Karen thought the unit was dirty- the difference between men and women.

Manuel was the front desk/concierge for our unit. He was excellent, one of the nicest people that we met on the island. Leelo (probably not spelled correctly) was the cab driver that shuttled us to and from the airport. He was on time and the cab was air conditioned.

Reef Adventures Dive Shop

Reef Adventures was literally one hundred yards down the beach from the condo so on dive days we rolled out of bed, made breakfast and walked to the dive shop. I didn’t even have to put shoes on.

The dive masters were not that friendly and it seemed like it was just a job for them. Most dive masters that we have dove with love what they do, they could make more money doing something else but they love showing people great dive sites and amazing sea creatures. It seemed that the dive masters at Reef Adventures were just punching a clock.

The disclaimer that we signed pretty much stated that the dive shop is not responsible for anything including equipment failures, worse than most disclaimers. I did five two tank dives and a night dive and the dive master never asked anyone how much air they had left. The dive master frequently changed directions without warning and hardly ever looked back. I would not say he was unsafe but there seemed to be a lack concern.

After reading reviews on Scubaboard.com I am not sure any other dive shop would be better. I read comments on forums where people felt some concern for their safety during their dive.

The Diving

 

Throughout the week we dove:

Eagle Ray Canyon

Hol Chan Reserve

Pillar Coral Reef

Tackle Box

Victoria Tunnel

Ezmerelda

and more…

Nurse Sharks

In Belize many dive shops (not ours) chum for  nurse sharks. In the video below you can see a dive master has a  three inch PVC tube filled with fish parts, the tube is to sharks what catnip is to cats. You can also see from the videos the sharks cram their snouts against the chum tube. It is like they are inhaling the aroma of the dead fish. They even pile on top of each other to get get a whiff of the fish in the tube.

Karen was the first one in the water during on the first dive and was  immediately surrounded by curious nurse sharks. It was a little unnerving for her so she decided to let someone else go first from that point on.

Initially it is very cool to backroll into the water and have five or six large nurse sharks and large groupers come over to check you out but by the end of the week the novelty had worn off and I just wanted to see other reef life.

Which brings me to my point, other than nurse sharks there is not a lot else to see. There are no large schools of fish. When diving Mexico, Hawaii or Turks and Caicos you can see large schools of sargent majors, grunts or jacks. You usually see at least some turtles and a fair amount of angel fish. We saw was nurse sharks, groupers, one eagle ray, very small reef fish and not much else.

We did several swim throughs during the week. Victoria Tunnel is a narrow completely enclose passage through the coral about ten yards long. We entered at eighty-four feet and came out a ninety-four feet. The tunnel exit is small enough that you will probably scrape your tank as you exit. We also did Tackle Box dive site which has a series of swim throughs.

The weather wasn’t great we had some rain but the wind was the main cause of our problems. No one went out Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before we arrived.  When we dove Saturday it was still windy and there were ten foot swells outside the reef, which made it a little challenging getting back in the boat. One of the reasons we dive in the summer is because  it is suppose to be calmer; we avoid Christmas winds etc… and that means greater visibility and easier dive conditions. I guess I should be happy that we did get to dive, if we would have arrived a week earlier we would have been out three days of diving.

Karen had a sinus infection, could not clear her ears and came up with blood in her mask so she missed the last two day dives and a night dive.

Crazy Boat Ride

 

Taking the boat out past the reef  could be a challenge even on calmer days. On calm days there was current,  the waves were breaking against the reef and the boat was crashing headon through three foot swells.

The wind picked up again on Thursday making it a rough boat ride to get outside of the reef.  We made two attempts to get outside the reef and had to turn around each time because the engine was only at half power. The dive master figured out that we had water in the gas so he killed the engine, pulled the cover and emptied the fuel filter bowl to remove the water. That helped but engine was still missing.

The dive master had to time the waves just right, waiting for a series of smaller waves. Optimally we would hit the wave at the base, he would gun the engine, power up the wave, cut the engine at the top and ride down the backside of the wave. If we did not hit the wave just right the wave could break over the bow of the boat and fill the boat with water. Or if the the divemaster gunned the engine to long the boat would fly over the wave and crash down hard. During our ride through the reef there were several times that I was sure a big wave was going to break over the bow of the boat but luckily it did not. There were also several times the boat cleared the top of the wave too quickly and slammed down into the water, hard enough that I felt the jolt all the way up my spine.

Immediately after we cleared the reef the boat engine died. One of the crew desperately dug through the storage compartment in the bow of the boat until he found the anchor and heaved it overboard, tieing it off of course.

The boat was being pushed toward the reef but the anchor dug in and held. The divemaster ground the starter until the battery was dead. At that point he pulled the cover off the engine, got out a rope and after two pulls the engine started. The mate pulled the anchor up as the boat was moving forward. The dive master gunned the engine and it died again so they repeated the entire process again- toss the anchor back in the water, try to crank the engine and the battery was still dead (duh), pull the cover off of the engine, and use the rope to start it.

It finally started and stayed running all of the way to our dive site and got us back to shore after the dive. This is the only time that I have been on a dive boat that had engine problems and it probably the worst time for it to happen.

Night Dive

 Our package included one night dive, unfortunately Karen’s sinuses would not permit her to dive so it was just myself, the divemaster and a couple from Colorado. The couple from Colorado had just started diving and this was their first night dive.

The night dive was at Hol Chan, so we where in about twenty-five to thirty feet of water at the deepest. Hol Chan means narrow channel in Mayan and that is a good description because the passage through the reef is narrow.

Since there is a narrow opening through the reef there is current through that opening anytime the tide goes in or out (most of the time). It just so happened that the tide was going out that night, not the direction I would have chosen. We were told that if we managed to get sucked out past the reef it would be too dangerous for the divemaster to come and rescue us and we would have to make it back inside the reef by ourselves. Luckily that was not a problem.

We hit the water exactly at sunset so we had about fifteen minutes of twilight before it was completely black. Diving at night you have to deal with psycololgical effects of water temperature. The water isn’t any colder that it was earlier in the day but it sure feels colder. As the water leaked through my wetsuit zipper it sent chills up my back.

There was a lot of current. I had my camera in one hand, my flashlight in the other which made it difficult to hang on. At times we were literally crawling across the ocean floor hanging onto rocks or coral (something you’re not suppose to do) to keep from being swept away by the current.

The sandy ocean floor was scattered with stingrays that were dug in for the night. I saw grouper and parrot fish sleeping in the coral. We spent most of the dive at a coral out crop in about twenty-five feet of water. There were several swim throughs and the place was crawling with green eels on the hunt. They were slithering through every nook and cranny in the coral.

Eels aren’t going to  mistake you for food and bite you but I was afraid that while I was grabbing the coral to keep from being swept away by the current I would accidentally grab an eel. At one point I went through a swim through and looked back to see one of the other divers going through the same swim through just as a five foot green eel swam directly over his head.

Towards the end of the dive we happened across three small squid. They were hovering in a triangular formation just off of the ocean floor. They were camouflaged white with brown spots to match the sea grass they were hovering above.

They did not seem to be upset by our flashlights. Luckily the other divers passed them by but I love squid so I stayed to play with them. I put out my hand to touch one of them and it initially pulled its tentacles in but after a second it used a tentacle to check out my finger and I could feel the tiny suckers attach. I pulled my finger away and as you can see from the video below that as I left another squid hung vertically in the water with two tentacles bent at the end, like a gymnast hanging onto a high bar.

The dive master that stayed on board helped us out of the water at the end of the dive. He shown his flashlight into the water as we took our fins, masks, BCs and tanks off so we did not lose anything. This caused a feeding frenzy at the boat ladder.  There were literally tens of thousands of tiny fish that were drawn to the light and swarming around us as we got out. I don’t know what kind of fish they were but they had small hooks in their dorsal fins so when I got out I had about a dozen of them clinging to my wet suit. The couple that I dove with did not,  unfortunate for them, wear wetsuits. They were picking little fish out of their swimsuits the entire ride back to shore.

I saw three small squid during the night dive. With all the current is was hard to keep the camera still.

Diving Summary

 Did Belize live up to its reputation? No even close. I have heard so many good things about diving in Belize, in particular Ambergris Caye. They do have nurse sharks (they bait them) and it was grouper mating season so there were a lot of large groupers but that was about it. If we were to go to Isla Mujeres we would see schools of jacks and grunts. Just about everywhere we dive we see schools of sargent majors but not in Belize.

My Favorites

Ok, it was cool to scratch a nurse shark’s belly regardless of whether they were chummed or not. The squid that I saw on the night dive were also a highlight for me.

The other really cool experience was  an encounter with a spotted eagle ray. A lone eagle ray swam past our group and I was lucky enough to be closest to it. I swam next to it as it rose toward the surface, at one point I was close enough to stare into its beady little eye (beady but beautiful eye). It circled around my column of air bubbles as it rose to the surface and just hung around for a while, odd behavior for a spotted eagle ray. I followed it up but eventually had to swim back to the rest of the divers. Eagle rays are beautiful, the geometric spots on they back and their pushed up snout make then a truly unique looking animal.

Turneffe Islands and the Blue Hole

 Two of the couples we dove with went to Turnif Islands. They left at 5:30 am and got back about 4:30 PM. It is about a two and a half hour boat ride each way and they   did three dives once they were there. Both couples said the diving was nice, not fantastic but nice. They did not seem sure that the diving was worth the boat ride.

The Blue Hole is even further than Turneffe. From what I have read the Blue Hole is an amazing geological formation. It is a totally round sink hole that is about 390 feet deep. There are amazing coral formations but not a lot of fish. We decided that is was not worth the long boat ride plus $200 each.

Food

 The food in general was ho-hum. Our best meal was at Red Ginger which is located in The Phoenix resort. The Phoenix is the newest and nicest resort in San Pedro. Red Ginger is upscale but the food was worth the cost.

 Our first meal in San Pedro was at Fidos (pronounced fee-doze) and we had lunch there several more times. The food was OK, just bar food but the the view from the deck was great and they have a band several days a week.

We had breakfast on our non diving days at Estel’s by the Sea. The eggs and pancakes were good and very reasonably priced. Their menu is written out on a big chalkboard. I wondered if they did that for old folks like me so we don’t have to take out our reading glasses to read the menu. The owner’s (I am guessing) dog is a miniature schnauzer and he hangs around the restaurant. He has been fed a few too many table scraps but he is very well behaved.

We ate at the The Reef twice. It is a very nice restaurant on the beach. We had pizza both times. The pizza was good the first time. Our second time the cheese on the pizza was bad and we could not eat it.

Caramba was always busy so we had high hope for the food but it turned out to be mediocre Mexican food.

We had pizza at Pinocchio’s one evening. It is located on the south end of the island so we had to take a cab. It is also in prime mosquito territory so bring your bug spray if you go. The pizza and salad were good. It was worth the cab ride.

We had lunch and watched the World Cup at Tackle Box. Karen had lobster tacos, which were very good and I had a cheese burger that I did not care for.

We had frozen custard at DandE’s almost every night. The shop is owned by a very nice but unique couple from Pennsylvania. The custard is very good.

We also had drinks at Wet Willie’s one evening. The owner is very friendly, she is from Canada and her husband is from the US. Wet Willie’s is a great place to hang out and enjoy the evening.

Online Forums

Just a quick story about online forums. On one of the trips back to San Pedro the regulator hose on my tank blew. I didn’t think much about it at the time but several days later it finally occurred to me that if the hose blew half an hour earlier I would have been in the Victoria Tunnel swim through at ninety feet, not a good place to run out of air. My gut reaction to the situation was to turn and try to get out of the swim through which is the exact wrong thing to do. I don’t know if that is what I would have done (hopefully not) but that is the first thing that came to mine.

I decided to post a question on Scubaboard.com to get opinions about what my best option would have be. When I posted the question I added a hypothetical question  about the hose blowing on a drift dive that we did in Puerto Morelos.

I got some really good information and suggestions from many of the people on the forum. Per their information I would not have been able to use my regulator but I would have been able to use my octopus for a short period of time. So the safest option would be for me use my octopus until I could get to my buddy ( my tank would have drained fairly quickly) and then use her octopus to surface.

Anytime you post a question on the internet you open your self up to the looneys and know-it-alls. From my hypothetical question I got comments that I was a bad dive buddy, my wife was a bad dive buddy and I need to be recertified. I am amazed that people were able to draw conclusions about my dive experience from one hypothetical question. I probably got a little defensive in some of my replies but I felt I needed to tell my side of the story. There is some good information so here is the link if you would like to read it.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/345670-safety-question.html

You’ll probably have to sign up to see the post.

Recap

 

Tradewinds Paradise Villas- We had hoped for nicer accommodations but the price was very reasonable so I guess I cannot complain.

Diving– Mostly a let down, partly because of the weather.

Restaurants– The food is reasonably priced but nothing to write home about. Estel’s is good for breakfast. Fido’s is a good place to hang out for lunch. Red Ginger was our best dinner.

Getting there– Was easier than I thought. We left Minneapolis at 5:30 AM and we were at Fido’s eating by 2:30 PM.