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Diving the Blue Hole
Days 43 & 44, Caye Caulker
We spent a couple of days on Caye Caulker, doing what the island is meant for, lazing in the sun, swimming in the warm, crystal clear water and scuba diving!
As we were feeling much better by the first morning, we explored the rest of the small town then enjoyed the very small beach area at the north of the island. Caye Caulker doesn't have much of a beach scene, but the little patch of sand and the long concrete pier are always packed with locals and tourists lazing in the sun and paddling in the water. The ideally shaped swimming area was actually only made a few years ago when a hurricane literally cut through the island, severing part of it, collapsing part of the pier and leaving a small, protected swimming area.
However, the highlight of our time here was definitely scuba diving the Belize reef. The sheer diversity and abundance of marine life and coral in Belize's numerous reefs means that they are one of the diving wonders of the world. This has of course pushed up the prices (now about twice the cost of diving in neighbouring Honduras), but as it stands, its definitely still worth the cost.
We took a whole day trip which gave us 3 dives on 3 of Belize's best reefs. The journey out to the reefs, even from the well located island, still takes about 2 hours...but even the combination and time and money means it is worth it!
Our first dive was at the world famous Blue Hole (to see a photo of the reef from the sky, click here). The Blue Hole is an amazing natural phenomenon, a collapsed shaft, 100s of metres deep in a circular coral wall; the extreme depth of the hole compared to the surroundings making it appear dark blue from the sky, giving it it's name. The Blue Hole is a famous dive spot because of has beautiful coral formations and also because you need to drop to 40m, the depth limit of recreational diving, to see the underwater caves and rock formations. However, the most exciting thing about this dive was sighting a number of huge Caribbean Reef Sharks, circling us closely, eying us carefully.
The second and third dives were both on incredible reefs with an almost unimaginable variety of coral of different, sizes, shapes, forms and colours. And beyond this was the marine life, so numerous it felt like we were in aquariums, rather than wild. Some of the best creatures we saw were sting rays and even a Moray Eel, evil looking, very dangerous and a rare sight to see swimming around outside of the holes they normally live in.
We also made a lunch stop at the most idyllic Caribbean island I've ever seen, it was quite perfect...wide, golden-white beaches, dense forests behind, spindly palm trees blowing in the wind and no permanent buildings other than a small hut for the wardens (it's part of a national park) and a unobtrusive toilet building. Life here would be peaceful and stress free!
After we'd done the diving, there was little more to keep us on the island and after just 3 nights (the last 2 being in a much cheaper and, of course, more basic hotel) we decided to return to the mainland and make our way up to Mexico. We only had a few days left before we needed to be in Cancun, to meet Reema,who was flying out to join us for the rest of the travels.
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