Ambergris Caye, Belize (April, 1998)

Author: Joe Childs

My wife Cathy and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last week with a trip to Ambergris Caye, Belize. The following is a brief description of our trip. If anyone would like additional information, phone numbers,or URL's feel free to email me.

Getting there:
Continental and TACA are the only airlines that service Belize from Houston. We didn't want to "Take A Chance (Airline)", so we booked on Continental. During check in, my wife mentioned that it was our 10th and the agent graciously upgraded us to First Class. We had a great time "up front", MIXED nuts, hot towels and everything. Flying time was about 2 hours. Upon arrival in Belize City, we discovered that our luggage hadn't received the same treatment that we did. In fact, all three bags were was missing. The baggage people assured me that "this happens all the time, your luggage will *probably* be on the next (and last) flight." After an anxious 90 minutes of multiplying our bags weight x 2.2 x $9.07 (maximum compensation for lost stuff), the next flight rolled in with our luggage, none the worse for wear. Stage two required getting from Belize City to Ambergris Caye. There are 3 or 4 airlines that make the short hop on a fairly frequent (every 30 minute) basis. We got a couple of tix, checked our luggage, jumped on the plane (an 8 seater) and were on our way again. Twenty minutes later, after a brief stop at Caye Caulker to drop someone off, we arrived at the Ambergris Caye airport. This time, the baggage hassle was much less stressful. Our dive bag made the trip, and only our clothes were missing. Thirty minutes later, another plane arrived with the balance of our luggage. Having officially "arrived" it was time to find some lodging.

Accommodations Not having made any advance planning for any aspect of this trip other than plane tickets to Belize City, we (actually, just Cathy) were a little nervous about finding a hotel. A taxi driver at the airport said he knew just the place, and took us to "Corona del Mar". Corona del Mar is on the ocean, about 1 mile south of town(San Pedro) and consists of a fourplex building with 1 bedroom apartments, and a 2 bedroom bungalow. We stayed in one of the units in the fourplex. Amenities included: 2 double beds,full kitchen, living room, direct dial phone,air conditioning, cable TV and drinkable tap water. The place is owned/run by Woody Canaday and his wife Helen. They live on-site in their own bungalow and provide breakfast daily, and rum punch on a continuous basis. We really enjoyed "hanging out" with Woody and Helen. They are from California, but have been in Belize for 20 years.

San Pedro Town Our week long trip seemed to go by very quickly, and we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time exploring the town, other than to visit the restaurants and a couple of gift shops. For the adventuresome, golf carts are available to rent for about $60 per day. We weren't particularly impressed with any of the restaurants that we visited. Fish and chicken make up the majority of the entree items, rice, beans and cole slaw are the usual accompaniments. One "don't miss" activity is "The Chicken Drop", which is held every Wedneday and Saturday the Pier Lounge. Without getting into details, it's basically betting on where a chicken is going to, umm, relieve itself

Diving: There are probably around 15-20 dive shops in town that offer both "local" and "daily" dive trips. Dive sites were uncrowded. The surface intervals for local diving are usually spent at the dive operations dock, just a few minutes from most dive sites. Water temps were a consistent 80 degrees, visibility was usually about 75'.

4/20 We dove with "Amigos del Mar", one of the larger operations. They picked us up at our dock at 9:00 for 2 tanks of "local" diving. The reef is about 1/2 to 1 mile from shore and extends for the length of the Caye. Most dives consisted of being dropped off at the outer edge of the barrier reef at about 50', going perpendicular to shore for a few minutes while dropping to 80' or so and then traveling parallel to shore for the duration of the dive. The dives are considered drift dives although the current is virtually non existent. Depending on the DM, you may drift north, south, east or west. We did a nite dive al "Hol Chan" marine park. This site is *just* inside the barrier reef. The dive consists of dropping in at 8', swimming about 100 yards to the reef, and then swimming back to the boat. Max depth is 29'. This one was kind of tough due to an outgoing tide.

4/21 Amigos del Mar again. We decided to take a 3 tank "day" trip to Turneffe atoll, since we heard that this was where the "real" diving was in Belize. The boat (38' w twin 200's) left our dock at 6:45 and we were in the water 2 hours later. Dive sites included "The Elbow", "Billy Bob's" (saw a black tip shark), and "Gail's Point". This trip icluded a stop on a deseted island (there's quite a few to choose from) for lunch. We noticed that at the Turneffe dive sights, there was quite a bit more fish life, and vis was a bit better than at Ambergris.

4/22 We used "Adventures in Diving" this morning. They were a bit unorganized, mainly due to the fact that 18 people showed up for a 10 person dive boat. After securing another vessel, we took a short ride to "Amigo's Wreck", a barge that had been sunk by, you guessed it, Amigos del Mar dive shop. The second dive was at Cypress Gardens. The high point of this dive was discovering that I was diving with a classmate from senior high school (Hi Janie!)

4/23 I don't really want to talk about it. l'm still not sure of the dive operation that was responsible. It was either "C. Dolphins" or "Coral Beach Dive Club"

4/24 Back to "Amigos del Mar" for our final day of diving. The first dive was at Victoria's Tunnels, the only site we dove that had any swimthroughs. The second dive was at Hol Chan. Several Black and Nassau groupers accompanied us for this dive. These fish were tame enough to let you hold them for several seconds at a time. During the last few minutes of this dive we swam within 20 feet of 4 eagle rays.

While we saw very few reef fish except for the trip to Turneffe, we did see many eagle rays, sting rays, nurse sharks and loggerhead turtles. This was OK by me since I should be seeing plenty of angles and triggers in Cozumel next month :)

Misc: Weather- Temps were in the mid to upper 80's throughout the day. Winds were usually 10-20 mph, which the locals considered "calm" We heard that diving was pretty much shut down for the 5 days prior to our arrival due to high winds/seas. Money- Belize dollar and American dollar are both used. $1US=$2BZ. Travelers checks as well as credit cards are both widely accepted. Expect 5-10% surcharge for credit cards. Prices- (US) 2 tank local dive 40-50, 3 tank day dive w/lunch 125-175, hotels 40-100, dinner entree 8-16, beer 2-3 Language- English, but you can try out your Spanish or Creole if you want to. Bugs: We went whole hog, got the malaria medicine, 100% deet, and ended up not seeing a single mosquito during the entire trip. Water bugs are another story. We were severely bitten/stung by what the locals call "peeka peeka". I call em jellyfish and I'm still itching 4 days later.

Joe Childs, 4/27/98