Great Blue Hole (Belize)

October 6, 2019 OzDive

Nov 2019

Blue Hole & Half Moon Caye

Caye Caulker, Belize

On our way from Guatemala to Cancun, we passed Belize including Belize City. From Belize City, it is just a 1h boat ride to go to Caye Caulker, the proclaimed hippie island (well, it used to be, now it is quite touristic) with lots of diving opportunities including day trips to the famous Great Blue Hole and Half Moon Caye. Long story short, we arranged a full day dive trip (3 dives) to the Great Blue Hole and Half Moon Caye with Belize Diving Services (BDS). Please check out the Dive Shop section for more details. We started very early in the morning (5 am) with a yummy breakfast at BDS. All dive gear and tanks were already sorted out on the ship, we only had to board. The boat was quite spacious and comfy as it is needed for such a long trip (roughly 2h each way). After we arrived at the blue hole, the dive guides gave us an introduction and explained the 2 dive types: 1) 24m for beginners and 2) 40m+ for advanced divers (we obviously took the 40m+ dive). The dive itself was very nice but frankly it is just a hole in the ground. You probably will get better pictures from above when taking a helicopter ride. Anyway, it is a spectacular dive as it goes very deep and at 40m you can see stalactites, which are the remains of a cave system that eventually collapsed producing the perfectly round-shaped hole you can see now. Again, great diving but not worth the money if it wasn't for the 2nd and 3rd dive at Half Moon Caye and Painted Wall (we did not go to the Aquarium due to swell conditions). The corals are fantastic with lots of large fans and sponges - quite different from corals in the Pacific - it looks more like branches of trees. This was a completely new experience and in terms of photography divers heaven. To my surprise, we only saw one Nudibranch, just one, and that after searching very hard for it. This is strangely awkward as you typically see lots of them. Anyway, both dives were amazing with lots of different and huge fan corals with some reef sharks sprinkled in. The visibility was great at about 40-50m and with the white ocean sand very characteristic to the Carribean.