Ambergris Caye with Ambergris Divers at Belizean Shores Resort
I traveled to Ambergris Caye with my wife and eight good friends. We had a really wonderful time at the Belizean Shores Resort on Ambergris Caye. The place was beautiful with huge rooms...actually apartments with kitchens...well maintained grounds, and a truly magnificent pool area. Although the resort is over 3 miles north of San Pedro, they have their own $5 per person water taxi service, so we were able to get into San Pedro regularly for shopping and eating.
The town is pretty funky, but it has some super places to eat and lots of neat little shops. The people we met were all very friendly. And yes, the main streets are now all paved. Eating in town is worth it...the restaurants serve good food and the prices are reasonable. We tried Caliente's, Elvi's, and Fido's ... all god and recommended. We also tried a few of the more upscale restaurants along the beach on the north end. The best were Capt. Morgan's and Luna at Jouney's End, but all are expensive compared to what you can find in town.
Diving was a mixed bag. Our dive op, Ambergris Divers, was not the on-site dive op, so we had no gear storage at the resort. Ambergris Divers picked us up at the pier daily at 8:30 am and stored our BC's and regs at their place. We had to carry our wetsuits, fins, and masks with us every day. Tuff Enuff is the on-site tour/snorkel/dive op, but even they didn't seem to have much storage space. I never saw wetsuits hanging, so I think they also just stored BC's and regs.
Ambergris Divers used 35' twin outboards, with little room for tanks. Typically, the tanks sat at the back of the boat. When we got to a site, the boat driver would hold the gear on the side of the boat while you got into your BC. The seas were very rough the whole week we were there. A typical dive was done with 5-6' seas. We'd get through the calm area inside the reef, then across a wild region of breakers, then finally into the open sea with the big waves.
Pre-dive briefings were good. We were allowed to dive our computer profiles, as long as we came back with 500 psi. All dives were drift dives. All dives were drift dives and the driver always knew where his divers were and he would bring the boat around quickly for the pickups. Getting back into the boat was a challenge, and could not be done unless you handed your BC up first. So the routine was to doff your gear in the water, hang on to the tag line, hand up BC and fins, then grab on to the ladder and climb up the side of the boat.
I dove Nitrox...NO ANALYZER WAS AVAILABLE OR OFFERED. They said it was 32...period.
The diving itself was not as good as I had hoped for. Mostly spur and groove with 40-65' visibility. A couple of the sites we dove had swim throughs, but this was not typical. There was lots of surge, so the bottom was stirred up in many of the sites. Also, there was silting of the reefs, so many of the sites were brown and lacked color. Water temperatures were consistently between 79 and 80 degrees. The diving got better as the week progressed...I don't know if the sites were actually better or if the conditions improved. There were a ton of nurse sharks and huge grouper all over the place. We also saw several spotted eagle rays and turtles. I was commenting about the lack of parrotfish when we hit a site that was teeming with them, so there was a big variation from one site to the next. On our last dive, Esmeralda, the DM brought a chum bucket to attract sharks. He brought about a dozen in and, at one point, held one upside down and petted it. I got a chance to pet its belly...very odd. I know this is frowned on, but the sharks certainly didn't seem to mind and it was a unique experience.
On most dives, we had our group of three to five divers and nobody else. A few times, we had another diver or two but, except for the Blue Hole day trip, the boat was never close to being crowded.
The big dive of the week, and the one I was looking forward to all year, was the Blue Hole. We left at 5:30 am for the two hour ride out to the hole. The big 45' boat was packed with thirteen divers and five snorkelers. Most of the divers were not experienced divers at all. Luckily, the seas were fairly calm that day so the ride wasn't too bad. The whole way out we were accompanied by spinner dolphins and flying fish. Our dive profile was a 23 minute dive, with a rapid descent to 130'. At 130', we would enter the "Roof" which is a wide tunnel filled with stalactites and stalagmites, then exit along a wall and start our ascent to a 45' reef. At about 45' I felt a wicked thermocline...water temp dropped from 80 to 65 degrees in a foot. By 60' I noticed that the water was turning brown and the viz was dropping. By 100' there was zero viz, no light, and all I could see was a dark brown muck. I could, luckily, just make out the fins of the diver directly in front of me. My strobe has a modeling light, so I turned that on, but it barely penetrated the dark. In the "roof" I could glimpse a shadow of formations, but all I could do was take some pictures by shooting blind. So, this was a total disaster of a dive. After the dive, many of the newer divers were exclaiming about how little air they had left...400 psi in one case. My two buddies and I all came up with 2,000 psi, so the stress level must have been severe for some of them. We were just happy that there were no accidents on this dive. The DM said he has been diving the Blue Hole for 12 years and has never seen it like this. He had no explanation as to what happened.
Lucky for us, this trip also included a stop at Half Moon and Long Cayes. At Half Moon Caye we had a beach barbecue lunch and toured the bird sanctuary. The island is a nesting ground for boobies and frigates, and we saw tons of them. We dove Half Moon Wall which was one of the best dives of the week. Finally...a wall dive! Great, colorful reef with lots of fish. On Long Caye, our last stop, we dove the Aquarium which is aptly named. Healthy reef with endless schools of colorful reef fish...another exceptional dive.
Later in the week I spoke with a diver who had just returned from the Blue Hole trip. She said they had barely 10' visibility on their trip and saw nothing. I guess this was just a bad week for the Blue Hole.
All in all, we found the resort to be well above average in both accommodations and staff; Ambergris Divers was accomodating and competent, but the boats were small and i still don't understand how they could offer Nitrox with no analyzers available for their clients.The diving was average and the seas were rough the whole time we were there. Ambergris Caye was a fun vacation but, quite frankly, better diving can be found in many other locations. Our short trip to Half Moon and Long Cayes showed just how good diving is once you travel away from the dive sites right around Ambergris Caye. If I returned to Belize, I would absolutely stay at one of the other, less developed, Cayes.
I traveled to Ambergris Caye with my wife and eight good friends. We had a really wonderful time at the Belizean Shores Resort on Ambergris Caye. The place was beautiful with huge rooms...actually apartments with kitchens...well maintained grounds, and a truly magnificent pool area. Although the resort is over 3 miles north of San Pedro, they have their own $5 per person water taxi service, so we were able to get into San Pedro regularly for shopping and eating.
The town is pretty funky, but it has some super places to eat and lots of neat little shops. The people we met were all very friendly. And yes, the main streets are now all paved. Eating in town is worth it...the restaurants serve good food and the prices are reasonable. We tried Caliente's, Elvi's, and Fido's ... all god and recommended. We also tried a few of the more upscale restaurants along the beach on the north end. The best were Capt. Morgan's and Luna at Jouney's End, but all are expensive compared to what you can find in town.
Diving was a mixed bag. Our dive op, Ambergris Divers, was not the on-site dive op, so we had no gear storage at the resort. Ambergris Divers picked us up at the pier daily at 8:30 am and stored our BC's and regs at their place. We had to carry our wetsuits, fins, and masks with us every day. Tuff Enuff is the on-site tour/snorkel/dive op, but even they didn't seem to have much storage space. I never saw wetsuits hanging, so I think they also just stored BC's and regs.
Ambergris Divers used 35' twin outboards, with little room for tanks. Typically, the tanks sat at the back of the boat. When we got to a site, the boat driver would hold the gear on the side of the boat while you got into your BC. The seas were very rough the whole week we were there. A typical dive was done with 5-6' seas. We'd get through the calm area inside the reef, then across a wild region of breakers, then finally into the open sea with the big waves.
Pre-dive briefings were good. We were allowed to dive our computer profiles, as long as we came back with 500 psi. All dives were drift dives. All dives were drift dives and the driver always knew where his divers were and he would bring the boat around quickly for the pickups. Getting back into the boat was a challenge, and could not be done unless you handed your BC up first. So the routine was to doff your gear in the water, hang on to the tag line, hand up BC and fins, then grab on to the ladder and climb up the side of the boat.
I dove Nitrox...NO ANALYZER WAS AVAILABLE OR OFFERED. They said it was 32...period.
The diving itself was not as good as I had hoped for. Mostly spur and groove with 40-65' visibility. A couple of the sites we dove had swim throughs, but this was not typical. There was lots of surge, so the bottom was stirred up in many of the sites. Also, there was silting of the reefs, so many of the sites were brown and lacked color. Water temperatures were consistently between 79 and 80 degrees. The diving got better as the week progressed...I don't know if the sites were actually better or if the conditions improved. There were a ton of nurse sharks and huge grouper all over the place. We also saw several spotted eagle rays and turtles. I was commenting about the lack of parrotfish when we hit a site that was teeming with them, so there was a big variation from one site to the next. On our last dive, Esmeralda, the DM brought a chum bucket to attract sharks. He brought about a dozen in and, at one point, held one upside down and petted it. I got a chance to pet its belly...very odd. I know this is frowned on, but the sharks certainly didn't seem to mind and it was a unique experience.
On most dives, we had our group of three to five divers and nobody else. A few times, we had another diver or two but, except for the Blue Hole day trip, the boat was never close to being crowded.
The big dive of the week, and the one I was looking forward to all year, was the Blue Hole. We left at 5:30 am for the two hour ride out to the hole. The big 45' boat was packed with thirteen divers and five snorkelers. Most of the divers were not experienced divers at all. Luckily, the seas were fairly calm that day so the ride wasn't too bad. The whole way out we were accompanied by spinner dolphins and flying fish. Our dive profile was a 23 minute dive, with a rapid descent to 130'. At 130', we would enter the "Roof" which is a wide tunnel filled with stalactites and stalagmites, then exit along a wall and start our ascent to a 45' reef. At about 45' I felt a wicked thermocline...water temp dropped from 80 to 65 degrees in a foot. By 60' I noticed that the water was turning brown and the viz was dropping. By 100' there was zero viz, no light, and all I could see was a dark brown muck. I could, luckily, just make out the fins of the diver directly in front of me. My strobe has a modeling light, so I turned that on, but it barely penetrated the dark. In the "roof" I could glimpse a shadow of formations, but all I could do was take some pictures by shooting blind. So, this was a total disaster of a dive. After the dive, many of the newer divers were exclaiming about how little air they had left...400 psi in one case. My two buddies and I all came up with 2,000 psi, so the stress level must have been severe for some of them. We were just happy that there were no accidents on this dive. The DM said he has been diving the Blue Hole for 12 years and has never seen it like this. He had no explanation as to what happened.
Lucky for us, this trip also included a stop at Half Moon and Long Cayes. At Half Moon Caye we had a beach barbecue lunch and toured the bird sanctuary. The island is a nesting ground for boobies and frigates, and we saw tons of them. We dove Half Moon Wall which was one of the best dives of the week. Finally...a wall dive! Great, colorful reef with lots of fish. On Long Caye, our last stop, we dove the Aquarium which is aptly named. Healthy reef with endless schools of colorful reef fish...another exceptional dive.
Later in the week I spoke with a diver who had just returned from the Blue Hole trip. She said they had barely 10' visibility on their trip and saw nothing. I guess this was just a bad week for the Blue Hole.
All in all, we found the resort to be well above average in both accommodations and staff; Ambergris Divers was accomodating and competent, but the boats were small and i still don't understand how they could offer Nitrox with no analyzers available for their clients.The diving was average and the seas were rough the whole time we were there. Ambergris Caye was a fun vacation but, quite frankly, better diving can be found in many other locations. Our short trip to Half Moon and Long Cayes showed just how good diving is once you travel away from the dive sites right around Ambergris Caye. If I returned to Belize, I would absolutely stay at one of the other, less developed, Cayes.
