Dive Belize 2002

Ramon's Village Resort, San Pedro
Ambergris Caye, Belize

When we first came to Ambergris Caye in 1987, Ramon's Village Resort had six huts. Now it has over 60. The setting is a tropical paradise. You'd never know that in 2000 the buildings and the landscaping were devastated by a hurricane. Tourism is driving development on this sleepy coastal island near the barrier reef.

Click on any photo to see a larger image. Hyperlinks under the photos are for 10 second video clips.

Garden Cabanas
the resort the beach

Pool area
the pool the dive operation

Banana palm off the porch
coconut palms

Food at the resorts is very good, but you can get more for less in town. It's just a short walk down the beach or down the dusty road past the air strip. It's a good place to shop for souvenirs and to get a taste of the local lifestyle. Golf carts are the primary mode of transportation because they are economical to operate. Scruffy stray dogs wander everywhere, scrounging food wherever they can find it.

Jaguar's Temple night club
streets of San Pedro

Caliente sign shades hot dogs

Picnic on a remote beach
amphibious landing?

The best scenery and the most interesting action is below the waves. Innumerable canyons run perpendicular to the main reef on the seaward side, so there's plenty of structure to explore. Some dive sites are frequented by nurse sharks. Our dive leader gave me a VERY personal experience with a small shark (below right). The shark tolerated being held briefly and was quite placid when turned upside down.

Robbie, the shark wrangler

The main diving and snorkeling site within the Belize marine park is Hol Chan Channel. Another is called Shark and Ray Alley. The shallow water shots with turtle grass and sand were taken while snorkeling. Yes, nurse sharks ARE reddish brown. The smaller fish in the water are mostly blue tangs. The third shot is from about 50 feet below the surface. The shorter wavelengths of visible light don't penetrate this deep, so blue predominates. The flash brings out the true colors of close objects.

Loggerhead and hawksbill sea turtles are quite shy, so they need to be approached calmly and quietly. It never pays to pursue a critter for a photograph. You get the proverbial south end of a critter heading north. And, no, a black grouper isn't big enough to swallow a diver. Perspective just gives that illusion.

Loggerhead turtle
(diver in background)

Black Grouper (note the tail of a yellowtail snapper sticking out of his mouth)

Black Grouper and diver

Unlike many other Caribbean Sea dive locations, Belize has not protected most of its coral reefs with national park status. There's still a lot of subsistence and sport fishing that goes on near San Pedro. Consequently, the quantity and diversity of fish life at some dive sites is relatively low. In contrast, Hol Chan is home to big schools of fish that are very calm around divers.

Black Margates

Bluestriped Grunts and Mahogany Snappers

Eagle Ray

Pillar Coral school

Schoolmasters

I'm distinguishable underwater because of my pink snorkel tube, blue fins, and the nylon body suit that I wear while diving . The mixed school on the left contains schoolmasters, porkfish (with black stripes) and a gray angelfish. This was a great dive site. I could easily have spent half an hour exploring just a couple acres of reef here.

divers on the surface

Our normal routine was to make two dives from the boat every morning with an optional one in the afternoon. To allow nitrogen to leave your blood and eliminate the risk of getting decompression sickness, we always spent about an hour on the boat between the morning dives. Sometimes we snorkeled. On the day that we had a beach picnic, we harvested queen conchs off the bottom for fresh conch ceviche. The shells were gorgeous. To clean a conch, a hammer is used to chip a hole near the apex of the shell. The mollusk is cut loose from its attachment point in the shell and the meat is trimmed until only the muscular foot remain.

Live queen conchs

getting the meat out

lighting the fire

Brian's 2 barracudas

Fresh fish cooked over a coconut husk fire

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Updated 8 June 03 by Aleen Kienholz