Belize it or not, we're diving the Great Blue Hole
Like a massive pupil in a sea of turquoise, the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize is easily considered the most amazing underwater sinkhole in the world. There are others that are deeper and larger in diameter but none can compete with the splendor of this natural depression.
The Great Blue Hole formed as a limestone cave system during the last ice age when sea levels were lower, and the caves flooded as the planet warmed and sea levels rose. Jacques-Yves Cousteau made the site famous in 1972 when he explored the area with his research ship, the Calypso. It was quickly declared one of the top 10 scuba diving sites in the world.
At nearly 1000 feet wide and 480 feet deep, it's a feature attraction for gutsy divers looking for the adventure of a lifetime.
Exploring the famed hole is a specialty for the guys who run the Amigos Del Mar Dive Shop in San Pedro, a laid-back settlement of 10,000 people on the island Ambergris Caye. Tourism has replaced the once-dusty fishing village with low-rise hotels, cold beer and sandy beaches.
Diving guides Maverick, Michael, Jorge and Captain Edgar briefed our group of eight divers before we headed east for about 60 miles or 2.5 hours, bobbing up and down on moderate waves.
My boyfriend George became PADI-certified in June 2014. Other than taking his dive exams in the waters of Lake George last summer, he had zero dive experience. Would this first dive prove too risky or scary? The dive exceeds the depth limit of an Open Water Certified Diver by a few feet.
Many people liken this dive to a spiritual or sacred experience. It's on most diver's top ten bucket list. George and I were about to find out how our bodies would adjust to a murky abyss at nearly 140-feet.
Geared up, we entered the shallow rim of the Great Blue Hole basking in the temperate 76-degree water. One diver after another launched themselves off the back end of the dive boat with the assistance of a helpful crew.
When it was my turn, a sudden surge of overwhelming anxiety hit me. "Get a grip, Sonja, you can do this," I said to myself. Before I could equalize, something had triggered an unwanted phobia and with it came symptoms of vertigo, hyperventilation and irrational thoughts.
To hell with George, would I be able to do this?
I motioned for Captain Edgar to stay close. Trained to recognize stress, he held my hand and calmed my the fears to a point where I could descend like the rest of the group.
Laser-like sunbeams sliced through the crystal-clear waters of the Lighthouse Reef Atoll. At a depth 40 feet, the rim is a bounty of colorful marine life and coral formations. The shallow seabed makes for perfect snorkeling for those who prefer to swim at the surface.
A chill of cold water hits my shoulders and it time to descend deeper. The limestone dive wall is etched with snails and mollusks. It's a continuous sheer drop for about 60 feet, at which point I begin to see the familiar silhouette of the ocean's most misunderstood predator: shark.
A couple reef and bull sharks circled in the watery Caribbean void. They aren't interested in us but linger long enough for me to stay vigilant of their presence. I didn't see any but I'm told that hammerhead sharks also patrol here.
At 100 feet, the effects of nitrogen narcosis is very real. It didn't affect us but others would later describe a temporary loss of senses and movement, almost like being intoxicated.
At 120 feet, I began to recognize gray columns hanging from the cavern ceiling, stalactites 20 feet in length that dwarf all divers. Mesmerizing!
It is deadly quiet, eerily-so, at this point. Edgar finally releases my hand to show me a trick. He takes the respirator out of his mouth and blows air up and into a small air gap or pocket in the shelf of the cave. The bubbles resemble smoke vapors spreading into a wildfire.
Like the experiment where you turn a cup upside-down and submerge in water, the cave ceiling has small pockets of trapped air too. This air is a relic from countless eons ago and believe it or not, is still breathable but not enough to sustain life. Like a diving bell, the only way air can escape is by diffusing itself through the water, one molecule at a time.
Diving the chasm is an unforgettable experience. For eight minutes we swim past a breeding ground of giant gray monoliths and harmless sharks. Some might argue that it's too isolating, too remote a place, but the experience lives up to all the hype described on websites and guide books.
Stay tuned: When I get back from Belize, I've got hours of video that I'll edit into a summary of the adventure.
Harriette, since I didn't actually see the video, I'm going to assume it included the four sharks that ehave been hanging around Halfmoon Wall site for at least couple of years.
Last edited by seashell; 07/04/1510:39 PM. Reason: used wrong name
A fish and a bird can fall in love, but where will they build their nest?
We decided to not skip the next destination against many people’s advice. ‘Belize is too expensive for what it has to offer’, they said. But being a passionate Scuba Diver and stubborn on top of that, we went anyways. We simply couldn’t resist and there was no way that my traveller soul would have ever rested in peace without having experienced one of the highlights of that place: diving the Blue Hole of Belize. To be fair, it is a more expensive country compared to its neighbours. Here are our tips to help you turn your trip into an unforgettable memory.
Beautiful spot to have a break between your dives…
Where to stay when diving the ‘Blue Hole’ of Belize
We opted for Caye Caulker because the bigger island, Caye Ambergris, sounded too crowded, touristy and expensive for our taste. And if you compare the costs of the dive trips there is actually no big difference from whichever island you go, both Caye Ambergris and Caulker offer day-trips to the ‘Blue Hole’ for similar deals. Caye Caulker is a bit more laid back than it’s bigger sister Ambergris. There are no cars on the island, people sell their arts and handicrafts on the street, you hear music but you can also enjoy peaceful tranquility if you stay away from the small town centre.
Enjoying a cup of coffee in one of the island’s restaurants…
There are not many budget accommodation options on the island: Yumas House Belize, Dirty Mcnasty’s Hostel, Hostel La Vista and Pedro’s Inn Backpacker Hostel. But these few ones are likely to be booked. At least when we got there the hostels were all full and we had to stay in one of the mid-range hotels. Ouch! So make sure you do your research well before your trip… But once you’ve decided to go, it’s easy to not regret it, either way it’s a fantastic island and connecting it with your dive at the Great Blue Hole will make it one trip you’ll never forget.
Choosing a Dive Company for your Trip to the Great Blue Hole of Belize
‘Frenchie’s’ is a locally run business with a great crew and equipment.
When you walk the streets on Caye Caulker, you get the impression that there are a LOT of dive companies on the island. But actually there are only three dive shops that take you onto a Day-trip to the ‘Blue Hole’: Belize Diving Services, Frenchie’s Diving Services and Big Fish Dive Centre. All the other small shops that try to sell you their spots, refer you later on to one of these three companies. So, if you don’t want pay a commission on top of the regular price and see directly who you are going with, go straight to one of the above.
It all starts with a beautiful sunrise…
You will be rewarded for getting up at 5am…
Yes, it is painful and really way too early for being on a paradise island in holiday mood. But right from the start, your efforts will pay off. We met at 5:30am at Frenchie’s Dive shop in order to get ready to hop onto the boat. They gave us a light breakfast and coffee to wake up and had us double-check our gear that we tried on the day before. At 6am we were on the ocean towards the Blue Hole. It is around 110km away on the Lighthouse Reef Atoll, which means a 2 hour boat ride from Caye Caulker. Enough time to enjoy the view and get even more excited for the upcoming
Our Captain was smart enough to cover himself up against the wind of our speed boat…
The first Dive at the Blue Hole
I lost my underwater camera back on my dive trip in Cancun. So poor us, we’ll have the duty to memorise the underwater world till the end of our days. To break it down, here is how the dive at the Blue Hole was: it is a deep dive where we went down to 40 metres. Dropping into the deep while there is nothing but darkness below you is definitely one of the best parts of this dive. Once you hit 40 metres, you’re on level to the left with caves and stalagmites. To your right you see a dark blue and sometimes a shark swimming past. It’s an incredible feeling to imagine that you are inside an almost perfect circular cave with 124 metres of depth and a diameter of 305 metres.
Exhausted and a bit tired, but absolutely happy after our first dive in the Blue Hole.
Quickly after that amazing 35-minute dive, the captain took us to a small island about 20 minutes away from the Blue Hole. The people on the boat who did not go diving and just came to go snorkelling got off the boat and waited while we went on our second dive at the ‘Half Moon Wall’. This dive and also the third dive at the ‘Aquarium’ are very different to the first one at the Blue Hole. We saw a lot more fish and coral life on these last two ones but compared with the Blue Hole they are just ‘normal’ dives you could find in other places of the world. Not that I did not like them, actually I prefer coral reefs over caves and love seeing fish/turtles/sharks etc but I am glad to see what it’s like to dive in the Blue Hole.
Arriving in paradise…
With only 12 people on board and a very laid-back crew, we had a great time. But the setting they chose for our lunch break helped to give this day-trip a five star rating (if I could give one). Spending our surface time between dive number two and three on a little island close to the Lighthouse Atoll was the perfect combination of that magical dive in the Blue Hole. Here are some pictures, they speak for themselves…
Dolphins surprised us on our way back to Caye Caulker
And sometimes life is full of surprises and gives you something great and unexpected on top of things when you thought it can’t get any better: I was dozing away after three exciting dives and being softly rocked by the boat, when I heard the captain scream: DOLPHINS!!! Everyone jumped up and it’s the classical reaction that all want to see what’s on that side of the boat where everyone is staring at. It’s funny that gravity was with us in that moment, but I can’t blame my fellow passengers, it was really amazing to be greeted by at 50 dolphins who were jumping joyfully out of the water next to us…A perfect end to a perfect day!!!
Dolphins on the way back from Diving the Blue Hole of Belize
What a spectacular and joyful surprise on our way back from the Lighthouse Reef Atoll to Caye Caulker...the pod of dolphins would jump for ages next to our boat and made a perfect end to a perfect day.
One of the things I wanted to do when we started researching Belize was to see the Blue Hole Reef. It’s a circular-shaped reef around a really deep sinkhole, so the water looks super dark blue inside the reef and crystal clear blue outside. The photos I saw were gorgeous!
I found a snorkeling tour, but it left Caye Caulker at 6am and lasted about 12 hours or longer. That sounded like torture. For only US$10 more, there was an option to take a scenic flight over the reef. No early morning, no long day, and I’d get the aerial views of the reef, which is what I wanted more than snorkeling in it. Decision made, I signed up for the tour, and Andy opted to rent a kayak during the same time.
The pilot took five of us up in a Piper Cherokee, and being by myself, I got to sit up front. This upset one of the other couples a little because the guy had a big fancy camera, and according to his girlfriend, “he really wants to take pictures.”
Yes dear, we ALL want to take pictures, that’s why we’re taking the flight. Everyone got a window, and guess what? Being in the front meant I couldn’t lean over to take pictures out the other window because that would’ve gotten in the way of the pilot, and it meant the few times I could actually see above the dashboard, I got the spinning propeller in my photos.
So while it was fun for me to sit up front, I think it would’ve annoyed the guy who wanted to take thousands of pictures of every nanosecond of the experience.
After the pilot arranged our seating in the plane, he flew us out over several other reefs, and even that view was pretty amazing.
After about 20 minutes, we finally reached the Blue Hole.
He made several loops in both directions above the reef so people on each side of the plane could take pictures. After a few loops, he made the turns even steeper and flew lower. Even knowing the pilot was well trained and does this flight quite often, I still got that nervous flip in my stomach.
That orange line indicates the horizon, so when the white line is lined up with the orange, it means the plane is upright and in line with the horizon. As you can see, we were tilted quite a bit.
When he was finally done with his loops, he flew straight over the reef at about 80 feet above the water, the lowest he flew during our scenic flight. I couldn’t help but panic a bit that we were going to hit the water, but again, I had to remind myself to calm down because he knew what he was doing. But really, I was thinking, STOP! There are no floats on this plane!
Nine years of working in aviation insurance and having so many pilot friends helps me remember to not worry in these situations. Obviously it doesn’t always work, but I try. And it really was fun to fly over the Blue Hole from so many different angles and heights.
Next up we flew a few minutes over to a shipwreck. This cargo ship apparently has been there since the 70s, and it’s too expensive to get the ship out of there, so it adds a little bit of interesting scenery.
Taking the Blue Hole Reef scenic flight
The scenic flight lasted about one hour or so. It took off and landed at the Caye Caulker Airport. Many travel agencies on the island can book it for you, and I recommend booking as soon as you get to the island. There is a minimum number of people they need to do the flight, so it helps to be flexible about the day.
I paid 400 Belize dollars for my scenic flight, which is just over US$200. I got picked up at my hotel and dropped off again after the flight. It was a little pricey, but totally worth it for those amazing views!
Submerging first to a 12m shelf, a sandy slope leads down towards the hole itself. There's no abundance of marine life here (which may come as a surprise to anyone who has dived elsewhere in Belize) but that's not the point of this site. Instead, this is a dive that is all about the earth's natural geologic design. Any marine life is a bonus.
16m down and the dive is already mesmerizing. The deep abyss of blue is truer than any I've seen before, heightened no doubt by a lack of light. Descending deeper still, it seems any light that does break through is immediately absorbed by the limestone.
The limestone itself is the only reference amidst the ever darkening blue, though it's at this depth that there's the best chance to see Caribbean and black tip reef sharks which will cruise past.
Soon after is when the first enormous stalactites appear, forming a cathedral-like cavern which caves downwards to 40m - the dive's max depth. Circling back past these limestone chandeliers, we start to ascend and, as with any deep dive, it's over all too quickly. Thankfully we have the second and third dives of the day to look forward to.
I'm floating 70 kilometres offshore in the Great Blue Hole, a 125-metre deep sinkhole in Lighthouse Reef. And although aerial photos show a circular sapphire set in turquoise, it's high tide, so it feels like we're swimming in an oversized infinity pool.
It's a surreal shade of blue that beckons with untold treasure. Measuring 300 metres across, this natural phenomenon became synonymous with Jacques-Yves Cousteau who popularized this Belize dive site in the early 1970s. At our basecamp on Half Moon Caye park ranger Bill from the Belize Audubon Society tells us that Cousteau "blew a piece of the crater out of the Blue Hole using dynamite" to gain better access to the heart of this adventure playground.
All of Belize seems primed for amusement or escape. Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker are still sun-drenched hotspots, and new properties promising exclusivity are also under development. Like the Itz'ana Belize Resort & Residences (opening in March 2017) with its luxury lagoon villas, solar cottages and private island (not to mention a library inspired by Ernest Hemingway). Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio's passion project, Blackadore Caye, is taking sustainability to a utopian level, perhaps an homage to his movie, The Beach. The actor-activist's offshore idyll will welcome residents and guests in 2018.
I'm staying a world away, spending six days at isolated off-the-grid basecamps on Glover's Reef and Lighthouse Reef as part of a 10-day guided excursion with Island Expeditions. My journey with the British Columbia-based outfitter starts in Dangriga, a 15-minute flight from Belize City. It's where we set off to explore the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the second-largest barrier reef in the world.
Cousteau's opening allows our boat, the only one there on this day, to enter the sinkhole's inner chamber.
"Keep left," says Rodney, one of three guides accompanying our group. As we jump off the boat to circumnavigate the inner rim of this abyss I'm aware that in the dark domain beneath my fin-clad feet are black-tipped sharks, stingrays and other outsized creatures that grow with wild abandon in this protected area.
My shallow breathing echoes in my ears. But as I swim out of the sinkhole's shadows and into the beams of sunlight illuminating the clear water, massive purple and ochre fan corals wave in concert with the current to calm my nerves. Someone points out silly-looking black-and-white tiger tails-a type of sea cucumber-almost two metres long. Cartoonish-looking tube corals act as hideouts for fish. I glimpse twin triangles to my right: eagle rays flying in formation like fighter jets. A few of us try to keep up with these stealth creatures, but they disappear into the darkness. Exhilarated, we surface to share our amazement at what we've witnessed.
Back on shore at Southwest Caye, our basecamp on Glover's Reef is the picture of lo-fi living. It's a playful paradise-found. But not in a reality-TV kind of way where people eke out a Robinson Crusoe-type existence and shun creature comforts. The dozen white safari-style tents staked among the palms are a bit of bliss in the sand, cooled by breezes buffeting through screened windows.
My seaside home is a spartan-yet-comfy setup with a kerosene lantern atop a tiny table painted the precise shade of turquoise as the water. Nearby, camp cook Miss Annette emerges from a powder-blue building to say a shy hello before ducking back inside the kitchen to prep lunch: grilled snapper with homemade tartar sauce, bean salad and chewy coconut-ginger cookies. Like us, she's a temporary castaway on this sliver of sand suspended in the Caribbean Sea.
It's time to get back on the water. Six or so of our group settle into kayaks to explore a handful of the hundreds of patch reefs off Glover's with our guides Mario and Mike. Just offshore we raft together and anchor in the shallow waters, trading paddles for snorkels and fins. Soon, I'm floating face-down, mesmerized by a kaleidoscope of psychedelic colours and shapes rearranging themselves before me as fish dart among coral colonies.
A flash of silver punctures my playful abstraction as Mario thrusts his spear into the belly of the beast-a Pacific red lionfish-and swims to the surface. Snorkels protruding from our mouths, our group gawks at this interloper in these otherwise pristine waters. Still alive, the painterly fish slips off the spear. Mario curses, takes a gulp of air and dives back underwater to recapture his prey, but he comes up empty; the invasive species won't make it to the dinner table this time.
I spend hours exploring Glover's seemingly limitless landscapes, lured to the life beneath the surface-day and night. Later, our guide Budge coaxes five of us into skipping hammock-and-beer downtime for more underwater exploration. We slide into a bed of seagrass for a moonlit snorkel, bubblegum-pink flashlights tethered to our wrists. Plunging into the darkness, it becomes clear that we've crashed an underwater party. Swarms of neon-blue fish bounce off my beam like strobes. Sleek squid, decorated in luminous green stripes, flutter past. A large spiny lobster glares at me with beady eyes.
A few days later, at Half Moon Caye and our Lighthouse Reef basecamp, the land- and water-based playing field amps up further. We snorkel near the remains of the old lighthouse that tumbled into the sea, dodge hermit crabs on the way to sunrise yoga classes and visit the colony of 3,000 sula sula (red-footed boobies) that live in the canopy of orange-blossomed ziricote trees. Guides Roo and Daton take us fishing outside of the protected area, where we bake in the sun and enjoy the thrill of feeling a tug on our lines.
"I caught another one!" says Calvin, a six-year-old from land-locked Colorado. It's the eighth fish he's hooked and part of a haul Roo cleans by the beach, tossing remains to the frigate birds and a nurse shark and stingray that swim right to shore. Our catch feeds the group at dinner. But not before the evening happy hour, when we drink beer with homemade cassava chips while watching the sun turn into a glowing orange orb on this idyllic playground.
26 Adventurous Hours Around Half Moon Caye, Belize Thanks so much to SeaStar Belize for organizing this super fun camping-diving-snorkeling adventure to Half Moon Caye, Belize! In this "movie" we compressed 26 hours into 7 minutes. Our new GoPro did a great job capturing all of the beauty underwater at the Great Blue Hole and Half Moon Caye, Belize.
The Great Blue Hole in Belize is high up on any diver's bucket list - and how could it not be with that deep blue ring surrounded by limestone reef? In reality, many divers who surface after the Blue Hole dive are very disappointed having laid down some serious cash to go diving in one of the most famous dive sites in the world. Your expectations would be pretty high right?
That's where a lot of people go wrong. You can't expect much in terms of coral, colour or even sea life on this dive because that's not what it's about! You're here to dive in a massive sink hole, 318m in diameter and 124m deep.
The boat ride out from Caye Caulker was very smooth, I had picked a perfect day for it! At some point the Captain killed the engines and announced that we had arrived. Looking out at the horizon I expected to see the light blue ring of the reef but saw nothing but blue!
Click here to read the rest of the article in the Gallivanting Gus Blog
In the footsteps of Jacques Cousteau: Researchers unveil the secret of the Blue Hole stalactite
In 1970, Jacques Cousteau and his team recovered an unusual stalactite from the depths of the Caribbean Sea. Now a geoscientist explains what it reveals about our climate since the last ice age.
Professor Eberhard Gischler and his doctoral researcher Dominik Schmitt with the last piece of the stalactite recovered from the Blue Hole by Jacques Cousteau in 1970.
Credit: Daniel Parwareschnia
In 1970, a team led by French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau recovered an unusual stalactite from the depths of the famous Blue Hole in the Caribbean Sea. In the current issue of the Journal of Sedimentary Research, geoscientist Eberhard Gischler of Goethe University Frankfurt explains what it reveals about our climate since the last ice age.
At the time, Jacques Cousteau's divers did not find any visible traces of living organisms in the mysterious Blue Hole. They did, however, find a large number of stalactites such as are known from karst caves. These are formed through the dissolution of limestone. Today the 125-metre-deep Blue Hole off the coast of Belize is flooded by the sea.
Frankfurt geoscientist Eberhard Gischler has been researching in Belize for over 25 years. He was given the unusual sample two years ago by Professor Robert Ginsburg at the University of Miami, with whom he worked in the 1990s as a postdoctoral researcher. Robert Ginsburg had in turn been given the stalactite by Jacques Cousteau immediately after it was found. Back then, he had the sample sawn into pieces and began to examine it together with marine geologist Bob Dill. Work did not, however, progress beyond a preliminary analysis. Added to this, the largest pieces of the stalactite went missing when the Ginsburg laboratory moved premises.
The cross section now being examined is the last specimen from Cousteau's stalactite. After almost 50 years, when the Blue Hole stalactite was in danger of being forgotten, Gischler, together with physicists from Goethe University Frankfurt and colleagues from the universities of Mainz, Hamburg and El Paso (USA) as well as GEOMAR in Kiel, has unveiled its secret.
By contrast to most stalactites, the outer layers of the Blue Hole stalactite are composed of marine deposits. Its concentric layers allow a detailed reconstruction of the climate in the late Pleistocene and the Holocene (the period from about 20,000 years ago to the present day). For example, the core formed during freshwater influx indicates surprisingly dry conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum and the following period (approximately 20,000 to 12,000 years before our time). The marine layers formed when the karst cave and the stalactite were flooded after the ice age by rising sea levels, i.e. over the last 11,000 years.
"Detailed climate reconstruction is, however, rendered difficult by the fact that the stalactite layers formed both on land as well as in seawater developed under the influence of microbial activity," explains Eberhard Gischler. The researchers are now decoding the types of microbial activity that influenced calcium precipitation during the stalactite's formation. On the basis of this study, it will be possible in future to make better use of the potential that stalactites with a complex formation history offer for the reconstruction of paleo-environmental conditions.
Together with doctoral researcher Dominik Schmitt, Gischler is currently working on other deposits in the shape of sediment drill cores up to 9 metres long, which were extracted from the floor of the Blue Hole in August. The sludge-like bottom sediment from the Blue Hole shows fine annual layering and will be used as a high-resolution storm and climate archive.
Eberhard Gischler, Daniel Birgel, Benjamin Brunner, Anton Eisenhauer, Gabriela Meyer, Stephan Buhre, JÖrn Peckmann. A Giant Underwater, Encrusted Stalactite from the Blue Hole, Lighthouse Reef, Belize, Revisited: a Complex History of Biologically Induced Carbonate Accretion Under Changing Meteoric and Marine Conditions.Journal of Sedimentary Research, 2017; 87 (12): 1260 DOI: 10.2110/jsr.2017.72
Film about Jacques Cousteau's recovery of the stalactite from the Blue Hole:
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