The Riviera Maya

Caribbean Diving & Diverse Cenotes

If you ask most divers to choose between fresh water diving and tropical diving, we’re sure that the majority of divers would pick tropical diving fins down; you have beautiful reefs, colorful fish, large Pelagics, and endless warm tropical destinations to choose from. We think that your first thought of freshwater diving should also be just as exciting and interesting as your saltwater choices; freshwater dive sites complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Perhaps you would like some clear water dive sites with fossils, human bones, ancient Mayan artifacts, some sites with freshwater fish, some with tropical fish, some with overhanging gardens, and some sites with amazing caverns and caves to explore depending on your certification level. You can see how now the choice between freshwater diving and tropical diving gets a little tougher to make, but to avoid making a decision, we recommend that you visit the Riviera Maya where you can combine and do both types of diving while on a single memorable dive vacation.

Before we get into mentioning some of the most popular dive sites we thought we should mention just exactly where the Riviera Maya is located. It’s in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo along the Caribbean waterfront just south of Cancun from Playa del Carmen, through Akumal, and down to Tulum. You can take a bus, shuttle bus, or private car from Cancun and be down to Tulum in around two and a half hours. So even going down to the far end really isn’t all that far, but it does include glimpses of over a thousand years of Mayan history. On the way down you have to pass several sleepy little towns along the coast lines and you are never too far from one of the thousands of life sustaining fresh water wells in this part of Mexico.

Probably some of the best saltwater activities on the Maya Riviera include snorkeling with the migrating whale sharks from May thru July near Playa del Carmen at dive sites such as Chun Zumbul. Sure, there are scattered small reef outcrops in a field of sand suitable for stingrays and small reef creature, but when the whale sharks hit the area, all eyes are on them. These gentle giants tolerate the antics of bubble blowing tourists with amazing seasonal regularity. The next biggest event comes when the waters turn slightly colder in the winter time and bull sharks put on a show at selected dive locations. Many of the sites have a sand substrate, but the dive sites may have pinnacles, arches (Los Arcos), swim throughs, caves and caverns that make each dive site unique and worth visiting. Pared Verde the most well known wall dive is a step down a sand embankment and gives rise to a wall dive from 70ft to 100ft (21-31m) before becoming a sand plain once again. The wall is home to multitudes sponges, corals, invertebrates, assorted domestic small fish as well as occasional passing large pelagics. Most of the dive sites are less than 100ft (31m) deep and average 100ft (31m), but some sites like Tortugas named after all the local turtle sightings, can drop down to 130ft (140m). If you want to see schools of sabalos, (spanish for tarpon), and a small cavern, we recommend the dive site called Sabalos. For wreck divers, there is the former shrimp boat Mama Viña that was sunk on purpose in 1995 and is now home to soft and hard corals, schools of fish and occasional passing sharks, eagle rays, sailfish, and other pelagic fish.

There are several dive sites all the way down to Tulum and sites like Stingray have interesting pinnacles, but you need dive a mere 25ft (8m) to view the pinnacles and the sea life around them as well as the stingrays that gave the site its name. There are also swim throughs at Cuevitas at 10m (33ft) with lots of hard corals, and lots of fish to view at Piscina (Pool), Tank Ha Deep, and Dreams. We should also mention that a lot of these dives are drift dives due to the north flowing currents and some of the currents are stronger at some sites than at other sites depending on the time of year.

There are more than 40 some dive sites along the Riviera Maya that are part of the second largest reef system in the world, but for many divers the real reason to dive the Maya Riviera is to dive the freshwater cenotes. This entire region of Mexico was formed out of limestone that once stood way above sea level when the sea level was some 300ft lower during the last ice age. Rain water seeped through the landscape and dissolved through the porous limestone with a little help from the formation of small amounts of carbonic acid. Great underground fissures and/or circular holes were slowly over time carved deep into the limestone and later stalactites and stalagmites tried to fill these new voids. Some of the fissures connected the eroded cavities to each other and essentially became underground streams and rivers that eventually drained out into the open ocean. Some thousands of these hollowed out cavities could no longer support their overhead roof structures and caved in forming pools of fresh water across an expanse of otherwise dry appearing landscape. To the Mayans these pools were sacred wells on many levels and they also believed that located at the bottoms of these pools were the gateways to where the underground gods resided. Mayans performed human sacrifices in some of the pools and in others left pottery, jewelry, gold, jade, obsidian, cloth, and other precious items as offerings to the gods. Fossils of earlier animals round out the picture and make each cenote entered by divers a very unique and one of a kind experience.

Of course the problem with cenotes is that once you dive one, you may feel compelled to dive others. You also might like going where few divers have gone before. It starts out simple enough by going on a guided dive to Dos Ojos and seeing interesting shapes of stalactites and stalagmites, next you find yourself swimming through the Casa Cenote that leads to a river and the sea beyond meaning that sometimes you will come face to face with freshwater fish and with tropical fish such as tarpons at other times. You also might even get a chance to swim near manatees. Next you might want to try the Gran Cenote which is famous for its easy entrance and endless white colored passageways or try Calavera with fossils, artifacts and a halo cline at 50ft (15m) of depth. Angelita is popular with tech divers as you can pass through a sulfur cloud at 90ft (28m). There of course are many other well known cenotes, but depending where you are staying may determine what other cenotes you may wish to explore.

Now you would think that with all this diving that there would be little time for anything else, but it turns out that besides all the sacred wells, the Mayans also left the ruins of three nearby major cities and temples to explore. Tulum, Coba, and Chichen Itza are all in easy reach of the Riviera Maya. The ruins of Tulum sit right on the cliffs some 13m (39ft) above the adjacent ocean. Inland, Coba has a 138ft (42m) tall pyramid to view, and of course Chichen Itza has an entire city built over many time periods and is surrounded by four main cenotes. These once vast cities all but disappeared and were covered by the surrounding jungles soon after the Spanish appeared. The Spanish soldiers and explorers were quick to collect, under pain of death, any gold and other valuables and in exchange they brought forth salvation thru religion, colds, and viruses. Unfortunately this unforeseen exchange, not to mention periods of excessive drought, decimated the Mayan population, destroyed their culture, and put an end to the ancient Mayan way of life. On the positive side, the Mayans were such great engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, architects, and artists, that we know much about them from their sculptures, artifacts, temples, and cities that still stand after so much elapsed time.

So you see, you get more than two types of diving when you explore the Riviera Maya and there is so much more than mere saltwater and freshwater diving to do on the Quintana Roo Peninsula. You can be a professional beach bum and rest in a chair while watching the tides come in and out, or you can seize the opportunity of a lifetime and explore the ancient Mayan world as a novice archaeologist. Perhaps the overall point we are trying to make here is that there are not a plethora of destinations in the world where the option to visit and dive in sacred cenotes and scuba dive in saltwater can be combined so many ways and then forged into one simply spectacular as well as historical dive adventure.

The Peter Diving System

Every year at the DEMA (Dive Equipment and Marketing Association) Show, which is the largest dive industry trade show, among other things, we look for one new item, thing, device, or program that will help introduce the general public to the amazing world of scuba diving. This year at the November 2018 show, we had to give two fins and a snorkel up to the Peter Diving System. At first glance the Peter Diver System resembles a hookah system where air from the surface is supplied to divers down below. In this case two to three people can simultaneously breath off of one tank of compressed air. The tank, or cylinder of air, floats on the surface in a yellow boat shaped-like harness with multiple hand hold built right in the sides, and has a dive flag mounted on top. To use the system requires students to don a mask, snorkel, wet-suit, and fins. An instructor goes over a large sized but easy to follow teaching/safety training chart before taking the students into the water just like during a discover scuba diving program, then the students can put on a very light weight belt in warm waters, place the regulator in their mouth, and go under water. The peter system will let students dive down to a max depth of 6m (20ft).

The instructor stays with the students and can look up at the tank to see how the air supply is doing by quickly checking the color of the emitted gauge light: green is full, yellow is half full, and red is the last quarter of the tank, and time to surface. It’s fun and easy to learn and try, afterwards the kids are ready to do a discover scuba dive. They already know the drill about training by chart before the dive, so they are ready to take the next step, and before you know it, they are excited and ready to sign up to become open water divers, with weight, belts, buoyancy compensator vest, and back mounted tanks.

The conversion rate is great, but this is not the end of the story, it’s just the beginning. People with physical challenges or adaptive needs, will find that it is easy to use diving underwater when the weight of a back mounted tank is removed from the equation. It’s easier for those of us with back issues too. The entire system with a carbon tank may weigh only 10kg (22lbs) and only needs to be placed in the water, not strapped to your back during the dive. This is great for hull cleaners and people doing repairs underwater too, as tanks can get heavy even when you’re neutrally buoyant or floating like a leaf.

So, you can see that there are multiple benefits from using the Peter Diving System; SSI (Scuba Schools International), a worldwide diver certification/training organization has teamed up with a diving school in Majorca Spain to get people interested in the world below. The Peter Diving System is available in at least seven other locations around the world; see the map at www.peterdiving.com. We feel that any system that can easily excite and usher in new potential divers to any scuba training organization is a positive advancement for the entire scuba dive industry, as well as a win for all future local dive communities and a lifelong family recreational activity.

The Bay Islands, Roatan, Utila, Guanaja, and more.

The Bay Islands

Roatán, Útila, Guanaja, and more.

When you think about the second largest Barrier Reef in the world, your first thought should be, “Why aren’t my bags already packed?” We know divers and snorkelers that have been traveling down to the Bay Islands year after year and never seem to get tired of the endless dive sites, reefs, local wrecks, tropical beaches and island lifestyle. Perhaps one of the hardest decisions to make is which island to visit first. The Bay Islands consist of eight main Islands and 53 cays which are off the coast of Honduras. The largest Island is Roatán and boasts to have 176 dive sites. Guanaja claims some 50 dive sites, and Útila, the smallest of the big three, report to have 90 dive sites. On average, if you dove 4-5 dive sites a day, you could view most of the dive sites in as little as five months, but keep in mind, this estimate doesn’t include the other five islands and quite a few of the other cays. For example, many dive boat operators offer day tours over to Cayos Cochinos where 16 other buoyed dive sites are located. Underwater pinnacles and seamounts are also some favorite dive sites to visit. Also, some hotels, resorts, and dive operators boast that they have access to secret dive sites only revealed to their customers, clients, and distantly related soon to be best friends.

So what can you expect to see in the Bay Islands? Quite a lot actually, marine parks and designated reserves have helped the local coral reefs stay healthy, vibrant, and home to large schools of fish, lobsters, and crabs. Groupers, dolphins, rays, and sharks are the apex predators of the reefs, turtles frequently come in to the underwater camera or video frame, and migrating whale sharks especially around the island of Útila steal the show from February to June.

Some of the most famous dive sites around Roatán include: Dolphin Den where a maze of tunnels, and caverns, and is where a collection of dolphin remains were discovered; this site leads out through the reef and into the open water. Shark Dive is a sit in the sand encounter while experienced shark divers feed passing sharks. Hole in the wall is a must visit if you like sand chutes and tunnels. Also ask the locals which dive site is best to see, seahorses, encounter hammerheads, nurse sharks, big eye jacks, or specific corals. Wreck dives include: The 100m (300ft) long Odyssey wreck and the 70m (210ft) long El Aguila wreck is currently resting in three main sections.

Dive sites around Útila include: Black Hills is a seamount dive exploding with fish and dense corals. Black Coral Wall is a wall dive like much of the local dives here, but with the extra added attraction of black coral found as shallow as 8m (24ft) . The Canyons dive site is filled with corals and small resident fish. The largest wreck dive here is the 30m (90ft) long Halliburton.

Dive sites around Guanaja include: Black Rock Canyons where volcanic flows formed cracks, caves, and tunnels and now teeming with life, and the Vertigo wall dive with mesmerizing drop- offs. The Pinnacle is known for its tendrils of black coral and seahorses. Wreck dives include: the 80m (240ft) long Jado Trader and the shrimp boat Don Enrique.

Now although the Bay Islands are part of Honduras, the Bay Islands are unique in several ways. It all dates back to Christopher Columbus back in 1502 on his fourth and final “discover the new world” tour. Because the local Paya islanders were unfamiliar with Christianity, they were by default deemed hostile, which was close enough to get one labeled as cannibals, which most definitely meant one was eligible for a sea voyage and sold to a plantation or mine where work would definitely not set one free. We can’t blame Columbus for all the islander’s deaths though, as European diseases brought by his men and others killed untold numbers of local indigents. The point is, that the island population was decimated or soon became nonexistent on some islands, and made it a great place for migrations of English settlers, pirates such as Captain Morgan, black Caribs, and lastly, Cayman islanders to call home. It is because of all this that the primary language of the Bay Islands is a blend of English and the second most spoken language used is Spanish, while on the Honduras mainland Spanish is the primary language. The local cultures and customs are also unique to certain regions in the Bay Islands, which is also kind of interesting, and lends itself to different types and amount of spices used in preparing local food dishes and cuisine. One thing to remember though, coconut and seafood dishes are king on the islands, especially conch ceviche, conch curry, conch soup Garifuna, cooked crab, and grilled lobster.

As far as accommodations go, Roatán offers the most choices and if you want your money’s worth, perhaps one of the all inclusive or all meals resorts on Roatán is the way to go. On Útila and Guanaja there are similar but less resorts although one can also stay in a bungalow on a cay or a villa on a rock in these Bay Islands destinations. The limits are only as endless your budget, time you have available, and how close you want to be to the water’s edge.

The largest number of dive shops are on Roatán, and there are two professional dive schools here that may teach year round. Students have been known to double up and take a dive-master course during the day and Spanish lessons in the evening. Other visitors come for the hiking, horseback riding or a side trip to the mainland to visit Copán and see the mysterious Mayan ruins.

Ask any whale shark and they will tell you that February through May there is less rain, hurricanes, and a plethora of plankton, but for the rest of us, the water is inviting year round. We hope by now that you have been inspired enough to check out the Bay Islands. Be careful though, or you too may become a non-stop frequent flyer to the Bay Islands and find yourself with an airline bag half packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice.

The Cuttlefish; The Undisputed Master of Camouflage.

The Cuttlefish

The Undisputed Master of Camouflage.

Off the shores of every ocean except around the Americas hovers one of most ingenious creatures in the world. The Cuttlefish can blend in with almost any natural substrate and most divers will swim unknowingly right by them as they appear to look like a clump of seaweed, a rock, or a patch of gravel. To begin with, they are not a fish, but a member of the phylum Mollusca along with snails and bivalve clams. The word “cuttle” may have come from the Old Norse word for “soft”. They are in the same class Cephalopoda as octopus, squids, and the nautilus. They have eight arms and two elongated tentacles similar to squid and in the middle of that ring of arms is a parrot like beak. They also have a unique internal porous plate called the cuttlebone. The purpose of this porous aragonite plate is similar to a scuba divers “BC”, buoyancy compensator, and the cuttlefish can change its buoyancy with just a little addition or subtraction of gas or fluid within the cuttlebone. You may have seen cuttlebones at a nearby pet store where they are sold as calcium enriched nibble treats for birds such as parakeets. So, while the squid flies just under the surface, and the octopus hugs the bottom or hides in dens, the cuttlefish is hovering over the substrate like a mysteriously color changing oblong shaped flying saucer in search of its next close encounter with shrimp, fish, or crab. They may be near shore in Australia or Indonesia, or found down to depths of 600m (2000ft) elsewhere. Apparently, below this depth their gas filled cuttlebone may implode, so great depth and cold waters may be the biggest reasons why they haven’t already invaded the Americas.

A couple of other things we should quickly mention is that they have three hearts. They use two of the hearts just to pump blood to their gills as they use hemocyanin, a bluish green copper protein, to carry oxygen around and this is less efficient than the rich red colored iron based hemoglobin that we use. The third heart pumps blood to the other parts of their body. Like the squid and octopus, they can squirt out a dark or brown ink that gives them a cloud to hide behind and may as well momentarily affect some predator’s sense of smell.

Lastly, we have to mention the eyes and brain. The eyes are shaped like squiggled W’s and have two concentrated sensor spots called foveae on each eye; one of the spots concentrated on light forward of the body, and the other sensor spot on light emitted behind the body. The eyes have no blind spot such as those found in human eyes, and they can even perceive polarized light as well as low levels of light, and without their eyes they can use their lateral lines to hunt in complete darkness. Their eyes may be considered quite advanced in so many aspects, but for the record, the cuttlefish is colorblind. They are constantly looking for visible cues such as light intensity, contrast, polarization, background patterns, and substrate textures. They have one of the largest brain to body mass ratio sizes in the invertebrate kingdom and some scientists believe cuttlefish are similar in intelligence to vertebrates such as pigeons and mice. In laboratories they can run simple maze tests and can be conditioned to learning at least two conditional rules to be used at the same time; such as looking for secondary signs in order to determine the best routes to escape through pipes, or be taught to tap on objects to receive food rewards.

On the basic level, their brain takes in the surrounding visual cues and as quick as lightning sends signals out to their seemingly electric skin to change color, patterns, and/or skin texture. Cuttlefish need use only one of three distinguishing methods to make themselves appear invisible. With small backgrounds such as sand, they use a uniform pattern and they blend in by appearing as a collection of sand particles. For certain sized gravel rocks, they use a mottle pattern and they appear with larger colored areas that replicate as a group of rocks. The third method called disruptive, is used not to blend in with the background, but to disrupt or break apart their own body outline so that potential predators don’t recognize their natural body outline against underwater backgrounds, boulders, or large checkerboard backgrounds such as tested in marine labs. Add to this pattern coloration or different light intensities from forming different colors across their skin and you have a very stealthy and deceptive predator/prey species. Now add their ability to use muscular rings to pump up and transform regional skin tissues into bumps, blades, spikes, and leaflets, and you have what could be easily mistaken as an alien species.

To take a closer look at how they make their bodies change colors we only have to go skin deep. Just beneath the skin are layers of elastic sack cells containing different pigment colors, and commonly referred to as chromatophores. First we find yellow, then red, then deeper down brown pigmented chromatophores. Each chromatophore can reduce in size or increase in surface size by 500% merely by pulling on or relaxing their surrounding muscle cords. Below these chromatophores reside a layer of iridescent emitting and reflecting cells of the colors blue, green, red, and pink. Below this layer are leucophores, cells that reflect all colors of light at once, or what we commonly refer to as white light. It appears to be a highly complicated eye to brain to skin activity, but cuttlefish can change color in some twenty million pigment cells in mere split seconds and still have extra brain power left to use for other evolving applications.

Besides camouflage, cuttlefish use their skin to communicate with each other including using locomotion indicators such as hovering, sitting, jetting, and postures such as arm position and, placement as well as fin shape, and head tilting. In Broadclub cuttlefish, smart smaller males have learned to appear as non-sexually receptive females to move without impunity around larger males guarding potential female mates. They can do this with such skill that the side of their body facing larger potential male rivals appears female in appearance while the side facing potential females partners they flaunt their male side and hence display to the female how clever they really are. While large males are allowed to mate with females some 30% of the time, the clever cross dressing smaller males are allowed to mate some 60% of the time and thus their learned ability to go covert or in duel disguise is successfully rewarded by receptive females over time and their abilities are more successfully propagated through each generation.

Another adaptive use of Broadclub cuttlefish is their ability to have waves of light appear to ripple across their head and arms which seems to hypnotize crabs while the cuttlefish prepares to strike from the best strategic angle, so as not to get pinched from the crab’s claws while bringing the crab into contact with their beak.

One species can use their colors to worn off predators or go one step farther as to highlight a yellow fringed warning color that they are poisonous such as the little Flamboyant cuttlefish who prefers to walk across the bottom of muck and rarely swims. They are the only cuttlefish known to be poisonous, and the poison is in their muscles, and perhaps as potent as the poison of the blue ring octopus. The fact that they walk similar to a lobe fin fish and have a reduced size cuttlebone could lead to a new evolutionary direction for this species. The fact that cuttlefish only live two years at most, have such a large amount of brain power, and have persisted in the fossil record since the Cretaceous times, shows that these rather unusual soft bodied aliens have the right stuff to keep on evolving and becoming even smarter and more diverse over time: that is, if sharks, fish, dolphins, seals, and humans don’t eat them all first.

Frogfish, The Overlooked Camouflage Artist

The Frog Fish

Nature’s Most Overlooked Camouflage Artist

There are over 48 species of frogfish, but few divers ever see them. In fact, most divers can’t see these cryptic colored critters until they are pointed out by a local scuba divemaster or guide. Frogfish are currently found in tropical and sub-tropical waters worldwide except for a few places such as the Mediterranean Sea. The Sargassumfish is a species of frogfish that lives near the surface in a raft of seaweed and has occasionally drifted as far north as Norway. Meanwhile, another species prefers brackish water close to shore. Some species prefer deep water and live as adults down to 4000m.

In Australia they are known as anglerfish, which may be more appropriate as the majority of these fish don’t really look like a frog and most of them have a first dorsal spine that looks like a rod (illicium) and at the end there is a lure (esca). The esca is shaped like the food source that their prey most often is attracted to, so some species have an esca that looks like a worm, while other species may have an esca that resembles a small shrimp or fish. The esca can regenerate if needed, so they never run out of imitating bait.

This ability for a fish to fish via rod and lure at first glance seems impressive, but for frogfish this alluring stroke of evolutionary creativity is just the beginning. They can attract fish larger than themselves and they can swallow such unlucky fish in one sudden gulp and this quick gulp process can take as little as six milliseconds to complete. Their prey has no time to react to this speed and that includes other anglerfish that get too close as well. They achieve this overwhelming suction ambush hunting technique by widening their mouth 12 times the natural opening size, doubling their stomach twice their own size, and by pumping extreme ramjet blasted amounts of water out through their gills.

Now, all the things mentioned so far would be spectacular achievements for a typical fish, but this hunting strategy is only feasible because of the aggressive mimicry behavior of frogfish. Frogfish don’t have scales and instead they rely on bare skin to keep them safe from predators. They put themselves right out in the open and in harm’s way, but first they camouflage themselves so brilliantly that most potential predators and photographers alike, swim right over or by them. In order to maintain this “you can’t eat what you can’t see” philosophical way of life, most frogfish can change colors to match their background. This process can take seconds, days, or months. Frogfish not only paint themselves with solid colors, but they can add intimate circles with spectacular detail that allows them to look just like sponges with porous openings. They can add lines to look like seaweeds or add smaller painted pores to look like corals. Their skin can also form into remarkable warts or bumps. Some species even developed what appear to be hairs, tassels, or leave like appendages derived from skin cells. They also allow clumps of algae and hydrozoa to grow or cultivate on their skin to help make them blend in with the surrounding rocks and substrate. They are such masters of camouflage, that one of the best ways to spot them quickly, becomes looking for a clump of algae, coral, or a sponge that to your surprise, has a fish, shrimp, or crab hanging out of its mouth.

It’s not just the adults that are good at camouflage, but the juveniles do it too. Larval forms floating in the plankton may have little tassels that help make them look like little tentacled jelly fish, and when they get big enough to sink to the ocean’s substrate, the young will change colors so they resemble toxic or foul-tasting sea slugs and flatworms.

Yes, they are cannibals, so no fish no matter what species that is less than twice the size of the frogfish is safe around them. Males may be one tenth the size of females, so after a moonlit night courtship which involves swimming upwards and releasing sperm and eggs, the male may end up as a lite snack if he gets too close to the larger female; it’s just what they do, nothing sexist or personal, fish gotta eat.

Now you would have to scuba dive around the globe to see most of them as one specie is found only in Hawaii. For the specie found in the Sargasso seaweed it might be easier to visit the display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City than paddle out hundreds of miles in the North Atlantic looking for the sargassum. Still another new species of frogfish was found recently in the Lembeh Strait off Sulawesi island, Indonesia. Coincidentally, Lembeh Strait has the highest concentration of different species of frogfish in the world. Local divers and resort operators track the movements and whereabouts of different frog fish throughout the year, as some species of frogfish remain in one place year-round if the hunting is good, while others either move around depending on what they currently feel like eating or to avoid predators such as sharks that use electro and chemical sensors to locate food. So, their camouflage may not always work with all predators at all times, but the fossil records show that it has worked pretty well for the last 23 million years and ironically, their evolutionary adaptations and longevity really make frogfish as a species stand out.

130 Years Closer to a Cover Shot

130 Years and Closer to a Cover Shot.

A History of Underwater Photography

Since 1893, when Louis Boutan first used a surface supplied hardhat to take photos underwater, divers have circled the globe to get an ever-elusive cover shot. The only problem was that aluminum housing with a good camera was too expensive for most except professionals. Of course, when it comes to underwater photography, the real mass shootings didn’t occur until Jean de Wouters designed the Calypso camera in 1957 and had it promoted by Jacque Yves Cousteau. In 1963 Nikon bought the right to produce the Calypso and it became the Nikonos I. You probably don’t want to hear about every make and model of every brand of underwater camera system, but it’s safe to say that there were plenty of reasons to wait more than half a century for the next generation models to come along.

We’re not saying that early underwater photography was as difficult as walking uphill to school and back up even higher to get home, but there were a few inconveniences you had to tolerate or adjust for to get a few decent shots. First of all it was easy to forget to load film in the camera. You could spend a day with a great white whale, but if you forgot to load the film, the camera could still snap away with nothing to show for it. Setting the film in the sprocket teeth so the film would be pulled across the plate was sometimes a touchy issue too, and for those of you that never had a camera housing flood on you, you were one of the lucky ones. We should mention strobe lights here too, as they made a popping noise like a faraway depth charge when the batteries and capacitors touched salt water.

So the film was set in good and you were ready to click away; you only had 24-36 frames to fill in those days. If you took three images of each subject (fish or shrimp), this only gave you 12 different subjects to choose from, and this didn’t even hold back at least one frame for the end of the dive in case you had a once in a life time meet and greet with a large pelagic such as a manta or gray whale right before boarding back on a boat. Even if you managed to get 30 some images, you now had to wait a week or two to get them developed at Costco; yes, some of us lived in Kirkland Washington in the 1980’s before they went nationwide. Oh and when the film was ready to be picked up, that’s when you realized that only half of the subject (fish) was in the original frame. As a beginner, you could get the top (dorsal) or the belly side (ventral), but the total fish’s body just didn’t want to be set in print until you underwent a period of sometimes frustrating apprenticeship. You could also get your filmed processed at a local film kiosk, but they didn’t always develop the film fully, and when film went into the bin of history, all the kiosks apparently became coffee stands. With the passing of film you also didn’t need to pack everything (all your film) in lead bags to keep it all from becoming exposed in the old school x-ray security machines before you got to your departure gate to start your dive destination.

Of course, there were other opportunities for learning curves. To get macro shots with the Nikonos IV-A macro lens was needed and a black coated metal rectangular frame was attached to the camera; this was considered progress, but only if you could get the subject (a fish) within the frame, and to do that, the fish couldn’t be skittish and you had to watch that you didn’t crash the frame into the coral background during the process.

So when you were getting good at framing your subject, getting the right aperture setting, right film speed, and the lighting just right, along comes digital cameras and with using SD cards instead of film, you could take hundreds of images on a single dive depending on the settings you chose for image size and how fine you wanted the image detail. Not only did the number of potential images to be taken soar, but you could see each and every one of the images there on the dive. Oh, and these new digital cameras with their houses were small, inexpensive, and portable too. It was awesome, you could frame potential images through the lens and most of them looked good. Maybe not cover image good at first, but at least page three good, or web front page good. A good example would be from Las Vegas when a world record was set at the former Riviera Hotel for the most media attendees at an underwater conference using OTS full face masks and underwater electronics that transmitted the conference to speakers above the water too. Although the group contained many professional photographers, the underwater images of the event in the pool were taken by a small portable digital 1.3mp Sealife 100 camera. As the golden rule states, if you are the only person that took images, then your images are the best taken at the event, and these images captured went viral around the world. Suddenly any one going out for a dive could afford an underwater camera and capture never before seen images. The only problem? The new digital cameras were so slow that you had to hold them still while waiting for the shutter system to finally click into gear. We found this to be really tricky when taking pictures of fast moving objects such as spiny dogfish sharks. Imagine that you’re trying to take a picture of a shark coming at you and ten feet out you snap the shutter, three feet out the shutter moves and the flash goes off, then you feel the nose of the shark bump into your shoulder as you try and see if you got the shark framed in the image viewfinder. You had to guesstimate the speed and where the subject would be by the time it was close enough to take the shot and hope for the best when it came to lighting, back-scatter or anything else.

Within a few years, what we called a lag time was eliminated or barely noticeable but video emerged and then GoPro came out with their water proof housed video camera. They were so small that you could hook them on almost anywhere and you were ready to film for the next James Bond movie festival. Divers embraced video and while still images for dive websites and magazines had moved online and smaller photos were in, links to videos were super in. GoPro has just put out the Hero Five and Sealife just produced the DC2000, a duel layer 20MP image sensor camera that is enclosed in a external housing good to some 500ft, and has secondary housing/body on the video camera good to 60ft of depth. These new systems are rugged and can go just about anywhere you ever dreamed of above and below water. A novice can produce professional quality images and video with just a slight training curve compared to years earlier. Android and Iphones now have cases or housings which are great for personal image albums. We guess that within several years the next step in camera/video evolution will allow you to take videos and photo images simultaneously and they will automatically down load via satellite before you’ve reached the end of your three-minute safety stop. When you arrive home from your next vacation, the videos and images will already be queued on your smart TV, edited by AI (artificial intelligence) programs automatically posted on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and leave you time to address comments on your personal video and image cover shots.

The Galapagos Islands: A Natural Selection for Divers

The Galapagos Islands
A Natural Selection for Divers

There are thousands of islands around the world where fish are plentiful, birds fill the trees, and volcanoes are still active, but there is only one group of islands that has changed so profoundly the way we think about evolution of animal species; including how we even now view ourselves. In 1835, while on a five-year voyage, a young geologist/naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands and collected various endemic plants, animals, and geological rock samples. Because the endemic giant tortoises looked like saddles, the Spanish named the islands in 1570 after the tortoises: “Insulae de los Galopegos”. The local acting governor, Nicholas Lawson, told Darwin how tortoise populations looked different on each island, but it wasn’t until the home voyage that Darwin pieced together that some of the collected species of birds were actually just different species of finches that had radiated out with specialized beak shapes, sizes, and lengths to fill separate niches on distinct islands in the Galapagos archipelago. Unfortunately, the exact island where each finch was caught was not recorded at the time of capture, but it’s been all sorted out since then.

There are 18 main islands and some 100 plus rocks, islets, and minor islands that make up the Galapagos Islands. Volcanoes sprout above the surface on the west end of the Nazca Plate and form islands, and like a conveyor belt they are moved eastward with time until they slowly sink beneath the waves in a never-ending process of final seduction; for at least the last 90 million years. So, you have young tall volcanoes/ islands on the west side, and older eroded volcanoes/islands on the east side. Since the Galapagos Island are part of Ecuador, we will rely on their Spanish names for the most part, but some English names remain from the inked on English made maps before Darwin’s voyage.

Six volcanoes make up one of the newest and largest islands being formed called Isabela; it is 1,707m (5,600ft) tall at the top of Wolf Volcano. Española on the east-side is over 3.5 million years old. The age, height, and placement of the islands effects the type of animals, and birds willing to make each particular island their home, and also effects the local sea life as well. You can see these variations and preferred habitats played out over and over again as you discover for yourself. So just like Darwin you have a chance to see the waved albatross colony on Punta Espinosa, the pink flamingos on Floreana or in Flamingo Lagoon on Santa Cruz, the nocturnal species of swallow-tailed gulls on Genovesa, the vampire finch of Wolf Island (drinks blood from other birds), or one of the many colonies of the flightless cormorants or the Galapagos penguin; the only penguin found north of the equator. Oh, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the red-footed, blue-footed, and two-footed Nazca Boobies.

For divers, this is a bucket list destination but the wonder of these islands runs naturally much deeper. With 28 species of sharks and over 400 species of fish and with 17% of them found no where else in the world such as the red-lipped bat fish, Galapagos clingfish, Galapagos grunt, and Galapagos garden eel. This makes these islands a must dive literal hot spot; over 62 dive sites to be exact. New divers or divers seeking less strenuous diving activities can enjoy the inner circle islands where you will see Galapagos seals, and marine iguanas, and most other species of birds and fish, but advanced divers who don’t mind strong currents, downdrafts, and general drift diving, the outer islands are the place to view whale sharks and larger schools of passing hammerhead sharks.

For those that remain land based, which gives you more time to do land excursions as well as scuba dive the inner circle of islands, Cabo Douglas off Fernandina Island is a good spot to see flightless cormorants, sea lions, and penguins zip by in the water next to you while marine iguanas eat algae. Bartholomew Point off Bartholomew Island is another good spot to view swimming penguins and sea lions. Cousins Rock off Santiago Island is a great place to do wall dives and view sea lions, Pitt Point off San Cristobal Island is good place to see schools of fish, grunts, and diving boobies; San Cristobal is also the home of the new dive called the Cave which is home to lobsters, a turtle or two, and passing tunas and rays. Gordon Rocks, also called the “Washing Machine”, an advanced dive, is known for a wide array of sharks and rays. Seymour Channel is known for its turtles, cleaning stations, and garden eels. Daphne Major has walls, caves, and WWII bombing practice artifacts. Camano Islet off Santa Cruz Island is known for grouper, batfish, and seahorses. An absolute must see is the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz for more understanding of his discoveries, native flora and fauna, land iguanas and meet the long living giant tortoises.

For those that want to dive the majority of the previously mentioned dive sites, plus desire a chance to see large pelagics you’ll need a liveaboard vessel to take you out to these most distance destinations, which incidentally traveling this way puts Darwin’s voyage of the Beagle to shame, and you usually wake up at these sites after an all-night voyage. Some of the best dive sites out here include: at Darwin Island, the arch, the sands, and at Wolf Island you will see large pelagics in addition to local fish at the landslide, roca elefante, and shark bay. June through November is the best time to see the whale sharks out here. The rest of the year expect to see mantas, rays, sea lions,scalloped hammerheads, silky, and Galapagos sharks. Diving to these remote locations aboard liveaboards means no shore time but you will get multiple and unforgettable dives.

As for when to visit these islands? The warm or hot and rainy season is December to May-June and this is when the seas are calmer and you can wear a 5ml wetsuit. At this time of year, you might even see a few snorkelers around the inner circle of island shoreline wearing 3ml shorties. Hammerhead sharks are in great abundance during this time period. From June to November the water is colder as it pushes up from the coast of south America and requires a 7ml suit and hood or dry suit. The plankton blooms can lower the visibility in the water varying from 15-30 meters (45-90 ft), but the plankton also brings in the whale sharks and other numerous species . These two seasons may vary due to the El Niño effect. June, July, and August are the busiest season. Many who want the full Galapagos Island experience will spend time both land based on the islands as well take a liveaboard trip. Expect the local species to not be afraid of humans allowing you to get close to certain species than ever thought possible. Expect to also spend a night or two in Quito or Guayaquil on the Ecuador mainland when traveling to the Galapagos Islands. Also, expect to be very impressed by the Galapagos Islands but you will not have to endure the controversy or suggestions of heresy that surrounded Darwin’s life after the voyage.

It’s been almost 150 years ago since Darwin published the theory that all species evolve by the basic process of natural selection. No matter what your personal beliefs are, we believe that as humans, we have little choice but to evolve in our awareness of the world’s species so that we can protect them and share them with our own future generations; and traveling around the planet to encounter, face to face, unique, rare, and/or exotic sea creatures is one of many aspects that defines us as true divers and/also world explorers.

Scuba Diving Is Transformational

Scuba Diving Is Transformational!

Has scuba diving changed your life?

A recently released 2016 research study conducted by researchers at East Carolina University working with Outside Magazine showed the motivation for adventure travelers has changed from a former study completed in 2005. The new study revealed that adventure travelers crave transformative experiences, but not as a byproduct of the pursuit of adventure activities. Instead, adventure travelers are actively motivated by a desire for personal growth and change.
Interestingly, of the 10 recreational activities identified as transformational by all those who participated in the research study, scuba diving was listed as number 8 and the overwhelming majority of participants were not scuba divers.

Earlier this year, we asked our e-news and social media followers to tell us how scuba diving was transformational for them. Our divers disclosed that scuba diving not only transformed them as individuals, but also influenced a loved one or their entire family, helped them overcome a fear, embrace a healthier lifestyle, and reminded us that you are never too old to get certified.

Louise and Dennis Marquering were both teaching biology and oceanography over forty years ago when they got married. They went snorkeling on their honeymoon and two years later became certified divers, which helped enhance their teaching experience. They have been each other’s dive buddies from the start and have traveled together to places they would never have explored otherwise. But, it doesn’t end there. In her own words, Louise writes, “Mothers have tears when their daughters get married. I teared up when our daughter completed her check out dive as a young teenager.” Well, their daughter has since grown up and is married to a diver. Now, the entire family goes on dive vacations together.

Scuba diving can help children’s self-confidence and create strong, family bonds. Valerie Rule defines this passionately when sharing her story. She tells us that they got their children in the water as early as age two, placing them on their laps, putting a mask on them and allowing them to breathe from their octopus regulator underwater. They enrolled their children in a scuba rangers program and, as soon as they were old enough, took them on their first dive vacation to Belize. Now in their twenties, their children are still their dive buddies and the four of them are still traveling together. Scuba diving has been, she says, “transformational in these and so many countless ways, and it has been an indispensable tool in binding the four of us together.”

Ed Rau discovered scuba diving as a young single man. He got married and his wife also became a certified diver. The couple had three children and they all became certified divers. He now has a 13-year-old granddaughter who is now a certified diver. Ed writes, “I always found a way to sacrifice whatever I had to in order to be able to go on a dive trip.” He shares that he started taking 8 mm snapshots that played movies on those old film projectors, which eventually progressed to underwater video. The whole family goes on dive travel vacations together and they always have “3 generation pictures” taken of them underwater! Certainly, the images and video relive their memories but also serve as a legacy for future family generations.

Sometimes scuba divers need to fend off certain anxieties, but what if the anxiety one is dealing with is unrelated to going underwater or the diving experience? We have all heard stories of individuals who had to escape a demon or two in order to accomplish a life goal.

Dr. Bill Bushing has been an educator and avid scuba diver his entire adult life, teaching marine biology at the high school and college levels. But, Dr. Bill (as he is known) had to overcome his fear of flying commercial aircraft in order to travel to those select destinations that he so desperately wanted to dive. He got over his fear of flying and has traveled all over the world, from the Caribbean to the South Pacific and Australia, including the islands of the Bahamas, the Philippines, Palau, Egypt, Fiji, Tahiti, Thailand, and other dive destinations. He also goes on trips to conduct studies and produce films. He has a newspaper column and TV Show, “Dive Dry with Dr. Bill,” and is a recipient of the 2011 California Scuba Service Award. He is a good example of someone you might consider never had a fear to overcome, but his story reminds us that our love and passion for scuba diving, and our desire to explore the oceans worldwide, is enough to dare us to overcome any fear – even when that fear is flying.

Suuz Martines, works in the dive industry, and has developed her professional persona, CoCo Cheznaynay® Secret Agent of Truth & Style, who teaches courage, truth, and advocates facing your fear. But as Suuz stated, “when I began scuba lessons, a strange performance anxiety surfaced; not about water, claustrophobia, fish, nor the equipment, but the act of being lined up to perform the certification skills. This was the beginning realization of the bullying I buried from my childhood. I knew I had to overcome this fear and get my certification or abandon CoCo. How could I teach through a character when I could not do as she says?” If not for scuba diving, she would have never embarked on solo dive travel trips beginning in 2000 and met strangers who became friends.

Scuba diving encourages some people to live healthier lives and embrace the sport ever so lovingly. Sherry Mitchell depicts herself as “a lover of life and scuba diving.” She and her husband gave up smoking, started exercising and eating better after becoming certified divers. As part of their dive classes, they were learning how to stay healthy so they could dive safer. They also became closer in their relationship and joy in life that they did not experience before scuba diving. Sherry also writes that they have been to some wonderful places and poetically illustrates the diving experience when describing her encounter with wild dolphins, giant manta rays, sharks, jellyfish and other marine life. She finishes off by telling us that they want to continue their plans of living healthy so that they can continue traveling and diving long into their senior years.

Many scuba divers will still be enjoying diving and traveling into their senior years, but Karen Jernigan is proof that you are never too old to fall in love or get certified. She was in her 50’s when she met her husband, who was a diver. A year later, she became certified. Since then, they have been traveling all over the world to scuba dive. She says she cannot imagine a vacation without the opportunity to dive. Karen says that they have also met many wonderful divers and they do seek warm water diving. The couple is now in their 70’s but looking forward to more years of traveling and diving.

Another group of divers who have benefited from scuba diving are war veterans and those with physical or emotional challenges. When they enter the water, experience underwater life and realize they are weightless and free, it becomes therapeutic. Specialized instructors, family, friends and fellow divers will willingly assist while more destinations and resorts are welcoming their visits. Many have learned to manage almost all on their own quite well. Others may require additional assistance, but all exhibit a new level of confidence and are so upbeat and resolute that nothing can stop them from diving.

Many encounters in life influence and change us in various ways. We all seek to focus on good things that bring about positive changes that make us happy when engaging in any sport, hobby or interest of any kind. As witnessed by the revelations of our readers, diving not only motivated them but became a shared fulfilling lifelong journey pursued with intense passion. In reading their truthful inspiring experiences, we realized two things. Human emotion creates moisture around the eyes and for everyone who becomes a certified diver; puts on special gear, loads a tank on their back, inserts their regulator and plunges into the water; there is one unanimous conclusion…
Scuba Diving is Transformational!

Tobago. The Less Known Dive Vacation Island

Tobago

Drifting Along with Macros and Pelagics

From the smallest seahorse to an abundance of majestic sized mantas to gigantic groupers to perhaps the world’s largest brain coral, Tobago has something to offer just about every diver. It’s not always this black and white when you are talking about a dive destination. That is unless you are talking about Tobago’s black sand beaches being on the Atlantic side of the island and the white sand beaches on the Caribbean side, but Tobago has lots of macro sea life to view as well as an unusual abundance of pelagic life. The reason for the great quantities of reef and pelagic life is because of the out flow of nutrients from the nearby Orinoco River in Venezuela, South America which feeds the plankton who in turn feed the small fish and this process works its way up the food chain at an amazing exponential rate. This doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to see a whale shark or school of 30 scalloped hammerhead sharks on your visit, but it does increase your chances of filling up your camera and video cards with lots of awesome images and memories.

Before you get ready to jump off the dive boat, we should probably give you some background information about Tobago and mention what you might want to see and where you might like to dive first. Tobago is the small sister island in The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is approximately 40km (25 miles) long and 10km (6.2 miles) wide. It’s where many from Trinidad come to take a leisure vacation as it is only 35km (22 miles) away; a twenty minute flight. We should mention that Tobago is only 80km (50 miles) from South America. In fact, most of the flora and fauna is identical to what you would expect to find in South America as a land bridge connected this region during the end of the last ice age.

The Arawak were the first to inhabit the island and they were later replaced by the Caribs. Columbus discovered Tobago on his third voyage and soon afterwards, in what seemed at the time like an endless rotating order, the Caribs were replaced by the French, English, Dutch, Spanish, and finally by Africans and East Indian descendants. You might say Tobago has changed hands more than any other island in the Caribbean, and yet somehow, it remarkably retained one of the oldest forest reserves in the western hemisphere starting in 1776. The Main Ridge Reserve is 550m (1804 ft) high at Pigeon Point Peak near the village of Speyside. If you want to visit this protected forest and view the beautiful water falls you’ll have to hire an official Tobagonian guide. Tobago also has some small islands off its coast that have become bird havens or sanctuaries. The south end of Tobago is low lying and is home to the Robinson International Airport (TAB). You can fly nonstop into Tobago, or go “directly” through Trinidad, or you can even take the ferry service which runs from Port of Spain, Trinidad and takes 2.5 hours to reach Crown Point, Tobago.

Back to diving that will excite beginners to the most experienced, 4km (2.5 miles) south of the airport are the sites of some of the most well-known drift dives near the island, and when it comes to drift dives, the name Flying Reef pretty much says it all. Here you can drift by at 0-2 knots down to 17m (58ft) of depth over the coral and past a ship’s anchor as you keep a look out for stingrays, turtles, schools of fish, nurse sharks, and passing pelagics. This dive site goes right into Sting Ray Alley where guitarfish, electric rays and more nurse sharks are usually spotted. Nearby Divers Dream is the site with overhangs for nurse sharks to the left, and a rock garden full of fish for those that dive to the right. Nearby Divers Thirst is where black tips, bull sharks and tiger sharks are spotted.

Mt Irvine Wall with is another dive destination where one dive site leads to another or is nearby. The Wall is where you may find lobsters, crab, shrimps, and sea horses, but over at the Mt Irvine Extension is where the grouper, eagle rays tarpon, cobia, and hawksbill turtles like to hang out. Rainbow Reef in the middle of the bay goes down to 21m (70ft) and is named for the rainbow runners that like to hang out around a 17^th century fishing anchor.

For specific fish destinations we recommend Arnos Vale, max 14m 45ft depth, which is a rock crevice nursery for all kinds of fish and is a great place for beginner divers as well as for night dives. Kelliston Drain near Goat Island and not far from Speyside, is home of the world’s largest brain coral at over 3m (10ft) high and 5.3m (16ft) wide; while not every diver is amazed by these measurements, at least the large number mantas who pass by here are impressed. The nearby Sisters are a group of five pinnacles that rise up from the deep and this is where you have a great chance to see scalloped hammer heads, especially during October to May, and whale sharks whenever they feel like it. Also close by is Japanese Gardens near Goat Island and it gets its name from all the soft corals, sea whips, and barrel sponges. This dive site flows right into the rock corridor named Kamikaze Cut. London Bridge is another popular spot when currents permit, and where water pushes you between two hard rock surfaces and empties you out into a 15m (45ft) deep area of sand. You’ll see where it got its name from before you even get close to the exposed topside rock formation. It’s a great spot to view black surgeonfish, trumpet fish, and trunk fish. Some of the more unique fish you may find around the island include: cherub angelfish, flame angelfish, angle sharks like the sand devil, and giraffe garden eels. As for wreck dives, the M.V. Maverick, 107m (350ft) long passenger and car ferry that was cleaned and opened up and made safety ready for divers before being sunk on purpose in 1997, has plenty of coral and animal life including: crabs, clams, schools of bonito and bait fish, turtles, and eagle rays.

Now for adventurous divers and weather permitting, there is practically untouched diving 32-64km (20-40 miles) away at the off shore reefs. Plus, there is the wreck of the S.S. Kioto, which was sunk Sept 15, 1942 by U-boat 514. After three torpedoes, it finally sunk in 12m (40ft) of water and the scattered debris are still visible.

As you can see, Tobago is a small island, but there are more than 40 dive sites to choose from. There is also bicycling, birding, exploring the old sugar mills and plantations, visiting the 1770 Fort George, or checking out the beaches in April-July to view the leatherback turtles nesting. We didn’t even have time to point out all the beaches, but Tobago is where Disney filmed Swiss Family Robinson in 1958, so you already know that the beaches are Disney approved; even the Pirate’s Beach. There is a lot to experience, so you might not be able to fit everything in on one vacation trip, but the steel drum music bands are always playing something good, the crab and dumplings “Creole style” are simmering in the pot, and to make Tobago’s sunsets complete, the island just needs you.

Belize and Un-Belizable Diving and Adventure!

Belize and Un-Belizable Diving and Adventure!

Who would have thought that you have to go to Central America to a small English speaking country to truly encounter the second largest Great Barrier Reef in the world? There are three atolls off shore to dive and explore, Turneffe Atoll, Lighthouse Reef, and Glover’s Reef, and the sea life ranges from Manatees up north from Dangriga to Ambergris Caye to whale sharks down south near Placencia. Belize is also the least densely populated country in Central America. The local population consists of Mennonites, Mestizos, Mayans, English, Spanish, Caribbean, African, and many others of multiethnic descent. It’s a beautiful blended cuisine and culture country with Mexico right above it, Guatemala to the west and south, and wondrous diverse waters with some 200 plus territorial islands and cayes to the east.

Starting at the most northeastern end of the country we find ourselves captivated with Ambergris Caye. By boat from the mainland it is a short ride the main Ambergris Caye town of San Pedro. The majority of resort hotels in Belize surround San Pedro so if you are in to nightlife, this is the hot spot of the country. From San Pedro it is a short five mile boat ride to Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark-Sting Ray Alley. The aquatic creatures are abundant here and you don’t have to dive deep to discover reefs lush with life and protected by rangers for a small $10 park fee. There are many other dive sites along Ambergris Caye’s coastline and you could spend a week here, but there are some other must see dive sites to visit before you leave the country and at least one is world famous.

South east from Ambergris or right across from Belize City on the edge of the Caribbean Sea is Turneffe Atoll the largest atoll off of Belize and here you can stay and play and dive around shallow reefs, caves, walls, and view large pelagics at The Elbow and Pelican Wall or visit a pod of dolphins in the middle of South Lagoon. You can go kayaking around mangrove swamps, or comb Lindsey’s Back Porch or The Terrace for a glimpse of the rare white spotted toadfish. You could easily spend a week here, but for now, we have to move on.

Once a week, weather depending, day trips from several dive shops or dive resorts will take you to Lighthouse Reef. You can dive Half Moon Caye Wall and The Aquarium, with lunch on shore next to a red-footed boobie sanctuary, or you could come out here for a full day trip to The Great Blue Hole. Blue Hole was made world famous when Cousteau came here in the 1970’s and dynamited a path through the reef so he could get his ship the Calypso inside to measure accurately the 407ft (124m) of depth near the center of the hole. While this was not a particularly friendly to any environmentalist, he did map the 984ft (300m) wide blue hole, the 20ft (6.1m) long stalactites and stalagmites down at 130ft (40m), and the caves at the western end down at 230ft (70.1m).

Glover’s Reef is the smallest atoll and can easily be reached from Dangriga, Hopkins or Placencia. Both Dangriga and Hopkins are Garifuna settlements, so expect the food, the culture, the locals, and especially the music to be a unique African/Caribbean treat in these more southerly visited regions. For more boutique style, yet equally impressive diving you can take either half day of whole day dive trips out to Glover’s Reef. Some of the dive sites out here include: Long Caye Wall (corals and mantas seen here), The Aquarium (yes another one, but with dolphins and turtles), Manta Wall (known for swim throughs), Pinnacles (corals, sponges, and pelagics) and Off the Wall (dive at 25ft (7.6m) to 6,000ft (1.8km). You could easily spend a week diving out here, but wait, there is more!

Off of Placencia from March through June whale sharks come in to feed off the spawn of pelagic species and Gladdin Spit is the destination for many a boat/charter operator. From June to August you can view female turtles coming to shore to lay their eggs. As for the rest of the year local dive sites and cayes include: night dives at Laughing Bird Caye, Silk or Queen Cayes, North Wall, White Hole, Turtle Canyons, Pompion Caye, Long Reef, The Wreck, and Shark Hole to name a few. We had to shorten the list and stop here because we haven’t even mentioned any of the land attractions that have made Belize so famous.

Sure, they have a spectacular national zoo with all the local suspects, but even more than this, they have the only national jaguar preserve in the world: Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary & Jaguar Preserve. They also have Pumas, Ocelots, Jaguarundi, and Margay; plus some 300 other species of wildlife. The preserve is between Hopkins and Placencia and day hikes or overnight limited stays in cabins are available. There are also nearby river rafting tours available. For something a little more out of mainstream, you can enter Actun Tunichil Muknal cave. The ATM cave has deposits of human remains such as the “Crystal Maiden” and sacrificial artifacts left by Mayans from AD 300-900.

Speaking of Mayans, they absolutely ruined Belize by placing temples and other structures all around the country. Xunantunich is a classic period ceremonial center, Altun Ha has the large jade head and lots of wildlife, Caraco is the largest known Maya center, Cahal Pech has 34 structures and two ball courts (you don’t want to know what happened if you were on the losing team), Santa Rita in northern Belize dates back 2000 years, Lamanai has over 719 mapped structures, Cerro Maya was a coastal trading center, the Barton Creek Cave has many Mayan artifacts and was used for Mayan rituals, Nim Li Punit is small, but has the largest Mayan carvings, and Lubaantun is constructed southern Mayan style without mortar.

So there you go more biodiversity, outdoor activities, architectural wonders, and more diving than you could see or do in several trips and all this is rolled inside the borders of one of the smallest countries in Central America. Here you get the great Blue Hole, the second largest reef in the world, three atolls, hundreds of cayes and islands, local cultures, historical remains of an advanced ancient civilization, jungles, multiple wildlife species, extensive flora and cuisines that are blended from around the world or go back thousands of years. Come visit soon and find out all of this for yourself, as some things are just too naturally incredible, absolutely amazing, and just too historically magnificent to ever make up; Belize it or not!

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The Galapagos Islands: A Natural Selection for Divers

Scuba Diving Is Transformational

Tobago. The Less Known Dive Vacation Island

Belize and Un-Belizable Diving and Adventure!

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