Trip Report - Ambergris Caye, Belize Feb. 2020
Online Jun 25, 2020
A group of 12 divers and one non-diver from Scuba Shack flew to San Pedro Belize on February 22 for a week of diving on Ambergris Caye. We stayed at Sun Breeze which was conveniently located near the airport in San Pedro and on the beach. The village of San Pedro, full of restaurants and shops was just steps away. The hotel staff and service were excellent. We sampled several local restaurants. The onsite Blue Water Grill was one of the better eateries on the island.
The on-site dive shop, Ambergris Divers took great care of us all week aboard the Baby Catherine. All of the dive sites are located on the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef stretching from The Yucatan Peninsula to Honduras. The dive sites we visited included San Pedro Canyons, Tres Cocos, Mermaids Lair, Sandy Point, Esme Garden, Mayan Princess, Tackle Box, Cypress Garden, Bottom Time, Esmeralda and a Monday night dive at the Hol Chan. Rather than provide a description of each site, I will let the accompanying video tell the story.
We had a fun group including a few folks new to diving with Scuba Shack. We also had a number of milestones on the trip. George Keech completed his Open Water and Nitrox certifications on Monday morning. A few hours later he was on his first night dive at Hol Chan, a nature preserve in a natural cut in the barrier reef. What a great first night dive! We saw lobster, eels, basket Stars, octopus, stingrays and Spotted Eagle Rays! The next morning was our deep dive. I managed to get a picture of George and most of the rest of the folks in the group coming thru a swim through at 100 feet on Esme Garden. On Wednesday, Joe White went on a real adventure. He took a 3 hour bout ride each way to Lighthouse Reef and the Great Blue Hole. That’s definitely a “bucket list” dive. The squeezed in a couple more dives on the reef after the Blue Hole where they say more reef sharks.
We managed to see lots of animals big and small. I don’t recall every seeing so many nurse sharks. We also saw a couple of reef sharks. There was a mother dolphin with a calf on the first day.
Unfortunately, I was too far from them to get a decent shot with the camera. The weather cooperated for the most part. There were a couple of choppy days but not enough to interfere with our diving.
Ambergris Caye, Sun Breeze Hotel and Ambergris Divers were wonderful hosts for the week. I would not hesitate to visit them again in the future.
Trip Video
