Having
travelled down the Baja Peninsular to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico,
then flying over to Cancun and Playa Del Carmen on the Caribbean
Coast without finding any gainful employment, and realising that
there would not be any in the near future, we decided to try our
luck in Belize as this is the natural progression down the coast
of the Yucatan Peninsular.
Once
again we do the e-mail thing with our dive resumes to any dive
shop we can find the address for in Belize. We got one reply
offering us work, of sorts, on Glovers Reef with Glovers Reef
Resort. The offer was that we could stay and dive at the
"resort" (the word "resort" being used in the
vaguest of forms as we were to find out), in exchange for helping
with the teaching of their two children, who lived on the island,
mechanical work on their boats for Terry and hopefully some Scuba
teaching for Tracy.
So
with no other offers, we headed into Belize, making our way
through Corozal, Belize City, Dangriga and eventually Sittee
River, where we were to catch a boat to Glovers Reef, situated
about 45 miles off shore. We arrived three days early for the once
weekly trip to the reef and spent some time relaxing and taking
photos of the local wildlife. As Sunday drew nearer, our numbers
increased, with more people heading out in search of paradise.
Sunday finally arrived and Gilbert, took us on "Christmas
Bird", his yacht, out to the atoll. Within an hour of our
arrival, everyone realised what a mistake they had made coming all
the way out, just to be stranded for a week or pay $250US to
charter a boat back! Especially us! Who had intended to stay for a
month or two. We would HIGHLY advise giving Glovers Reef Resort a
wide berth as the people who run it have been out there for 30 odd
years and seem to have gone stark raving bonkers! They don’t
remember what they have told you from day to day and go through
very varied personality and mood swings (one day we witnessed one
of the owners screaming at her husband and throwing all the scuba
gear off the jetty into the water – this was one of many
instances).
Luckily,
there are 4 inhabited islands on Glovers Reef, one of which is
called Manta Resort. It is a proper resort with electricity,
running water, restaurant, air conditioned Cabanas and Ice cold
beer! Even more luckily for us, they needed an instructor for 3
weeks as they had courses booked in advance and no-one to teach
them. So, we jumped islands after only 3 nights on Glovers Reef
Resort, and ended up staying at Manta Resort for 8 weeks, diving 3
times a day, Tracy teaching numerous courses, eating 3 meals a day
(supplied by the resort) and sleeping in a converted T-shirt store
room.
All
the resident Belizean staff were really friendly, especially the
bar maid, Sharon, Alfonso and Chris, the divemasters and Regan,
Noel and Winston the boat captains – not forgetting Cookie, the
dog. The customers were American mostly, which was good for us as
it gave us loads of contacts in America, some of which we stayed
with on our 4500 mile drive from Miami to Los Angeles in Mid
August/Sept – especially Linda and Cliff Schaffer who looked
after us during out flight delays whilst LAX was closed due to the
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Apart
from diving, which is the main attraction for most people in
Belize, there is loads to do to occupy your time whilst on the
mainland. This can vary from wildlife watching (including the
chance of seeing wild Jaguar), Caving, which we indulged in and
visited a Mayan sacrificial Tomb, deep inside the Mayan mountains
near San Ignacio. There’s horseback riding through the jungle
which Tracy did with the added bonus of spotting Howler Monkeys
along the way. Also, Jungle Treks, Kayaking and much, much more.
There are many Mayan ruins to visit which can vary in size from
small, such as Cahal Pech, to bigger sites such as Xanutanich, and
Altun Hun.
San
Ignacio, close to the Guatemalan border is a good place to base
yourself for adventure activities as mentioned above and also for
crossing into Guatemala to visit the Mayan ruin of Tikal.
The
only down side to Belize is getting around. The buses are mind
bogglingly slow and to get from one end of the country to the
other involves several bus changes and precision timing for
connecting services otherwise you will find yourself stranded for
a night in a place you did not intend to be. Car hire is
incredibly expensive, so if you want to get places the buses
don’t go to, you have to take an organised tour which in most
cases is reasonably cheap. Most people generally only spend a
couple of weeks in Belize. We spent 2 months in all and still
hardly scratched the surface of this beautiful country.
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GLOVERS
REEF
MANTA RESORT
Manta Resort is
located on the South West corner of Glovers Reef Atoll which is
part of the longest Barrier Reef in the Northern Hemisphere, and
second longest in the world. It is built on an island which you
can walk from one end to the other in 15 minutes and walk across
the width in a couple of minutes. Really, it’s just a giant sand
bar protected from the ocean by a fringing reef wall on one side
and a shallow lagoon on the other. With it’s crystal clear
water, white sands and swaying palm trees it really looks like
something from a holiday brochure, only better. It’s not often
you can say that about a place!
All the dives
are drift dives in the sense that the boat drops you off on the
wall in one place and picks you up in another. Some days there is
no current at all and on others it can be raging, but generally it
is just a nice steady pace.
There are
roughly fourteen dive sites that Manta Resort use and they can be
broken down into three groups:
Around Long Caye
such as Hole in the Wall and Restriction Ridge, start and finish
in the shallows on large sandy expanses and have many cracks in
the reef wall creating good swim throughs.
Such as Elkhorn
Wall and Grouper Gulch, all start on shallow coral plateau's with gulleys leading you to the wall.
Has a
combination of sand, pinnacles and swim throughs, once again
taking you to the wall.
All the dives
are done off the edge of the wall and down to a maximum of 25m.
Even though the wall itself drops off to 70+m onto another ledge,
which then drops off to 300m-500m.
The sites are
very much alive even though there is a certain amount of damage in
the shallows, caused by Hurricanes and other natural effects.
Luckily, as yet, not by man. There is a huge variety of sponges,
including Barrel Sponges and Azure Sponges. The marine life is abundant. We don’t think we have ever seen so many lobsters out
of their holes just strolling around. It could have something to
do with the fact that most of Glovers Reef is a Marine Reserve and
is patrolled regularly by Fisheries Protection Officers based on
Middle Caye Research Station.
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THE
CRACK
This dive is
generally done as a two tank dive with a surface interval on Long
Caye at "Off the Wall" Dive Shop. The second dive is
made at the Hole in The Wall. Diving on the Crack, starts off in
the shallows on a coral plateau to get the group together, then
it is down through the Crack – a split in the sea bed, taking
you down and out on to the wall at around 25m. The Crack itself is
full of Silver Sides swirling in a huge school which seem to
reluctantly part, then envelope you as you pass through their home
and out onto the wall where you are generally greeted by several
huge Groupers.
HOLE
IN THE WALL
The second dive
of the two tank dive with the Crack. Once again starts off in the
shallows, then out onto the wall through a large swim through. As
you go along the wall there are a plethora of swim throughs to
choose from ranging in size and shape. This is a good spot to find
Giant Barracuda, which can be very "friendly". This dive
ends in around 8m of flat sand which is an ideal place to come
across Southern Stingrays and an endemic benthic fish know as a Bat Fish
(not to be confused with the Batfish of Asia and the Red Sea which
are know here as Spade Fish). This Bat Fish is a very ugly bottom
dweller whose pectoral fins have become almost like legs which it
uses to propel itself along the sea floor.
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THE
AQUARIUM
This dive site
certainly lives up to it’s name. Best dived in the afternoon,
especially in a fairly strong current, as this seems to attract
large schools of feeding fish, ranging from Groupers (around 1-1.5m long),
Snappers, Two Bar Bream and thousands of Creole Wrasse which
always seem to be heading somewhere in a long line and don’t
really care about the unsuspecting diver which may be in their
way. The only thing to do on this dive is to go with the flow of
the current along the wall and enjoy the view whilst trying to
take in as much as possible without having your senses overloaded.
GROUPER
GULCH
Another dive
started in the shallows with gulley’s or gulches which lead you
to the wall. Theses gulches are good places to find Nurse Shark
sleeping in the sand or Turtles grazing on the coral. Once over
the wall, all the usuals are there to greet you as you drift along
in the current. Plus, this seems to be a favourite place for the
resident Eagle Rays to come cruising past you, and maybe a quick
sighting of a shy Black Tip Shark racing off into the deep in
search of peace and quiet away from divers invading it’s home.
WALL
STREET
This dive site
is located on the reef wall just on the other side of the lagoon
at Manta Resort and is only a 10 minute boat journey away. As
such, it is used as the "check" dive for new arrivals
and as the mid-week night dive spot. It is not the most impressive
site but always has good visibility, is nice and shallow to start
with and has a few resident Caribbean Octopus which are often seen
on the night dives hunting. Also, you can be treated to Turtles
(Terry saw 6 there on one dive) and some rather impressive Giant
Barracuda.
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MANTA
TUNNEL
This dive is
typical of the dives at the southern end of the reef. Starting and
finishing in large, shallow sandy patches with rocky outcrops,
overgrown with coral and sponges forming many swim throughs,
ledges and pinnacles. These Southern Sites are great places to
find southern Stingrays, Peacock Flounders in the sand, with
Hogfish and Barracuda lurking around the ledges and Cowfish (Trunk
Fish) in two’s and three’s darting around the pinnacles.
SOUTHWEST
PINNACLES
This is a lovely
dive, but is not often dived as the visibility on the exposed
southern tip of the reef is very dependant on current and sea
conditions. It is the only place on the reef which has two walls.
The first of which is around 30m deep, dropping into a sandy
bottom, only to rise again to around 18m, then dropping off again
to 100m. Once again, the sand patch at 30m is a good place to see
Nurse Sharks and the pinnacles in the shallows is where you can
find lobster and Indigo Hamlets.
THE
BLUE HOLE
We
didn’t dive this site on this trip but Terry dived it 5 years
previous on another trip to Belize and having talked to people who
had dived it recently, nothing has really changed in the way it is
dived by operators in over the past 5 years.
There
is a lot of hype about this dive site, as, when seen from the air
it forms a near perfect circle of around a quarter of a mile in
diameter, descending down to 145m. In an otherwise very shallow
submerged reef, as with most dive sites that there is a lot of
hype about, it generally seems to be that the site never lives up
to expectation and this "Blue Hole", very much like the
"Dahab Blue Hole" is no exception. There is very little
life in the hole, fish or coral. The main attraction is going
through the stalactites and stalagmites at a depth of around 40m
– which makes it a pretty short dive!
Most
dive operators dive the Blue Hole as a three tank dive taking in
Laughing Bird Caye and Half Moon Caye and to be quite honest,
these 2 dives are the better of the three. But saying that, the
Blue Hole is just one of those "must do" things when
visiting Belize, especially if you are staying on Caye Caulker or
Blackird Caye for a few days.
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