Belize, Lighthouse Reef, Long Cay – Diving

Belize is famous for it’s fantastic diving.
Almost the entire coastline of Belize is protected by on outer barrier reef, the second largest in the world, making it a hot spot for diving and snorkelling. On top of this Belize has two off shore atolls, Lighthouse and Glovers, and one atoll like ring of cays, Turneffe. These are the ‘holy grail’ for many divers as these off shore reefs offer fantastic visibility.

Lighthouse Reef atoll, Turneffe Islands atoll, and Glovers Reef atoll together cover more than 400 square miles with a total 140 miles of drop off walls. Incredibly, these atolls comprise as much reef surface as the Belize barrier reef itself. Unlike Pacific atolls, built on volcanos, these sit atop two parallel submarine ridges close enough to the surface to allow the formation of massive coral and sponge growths.

Guess where the humans are?
You got it, Lighthouse Reef, the furthest north eastern of the off shore atolls. With the predominate easterly trade winds, and as they are making their way south, this was the most logical spot to start first. Now there is a small matter that they really should not be here without first going to the mainland to check in. But for them, this would mean having to sail(probably motor) directly into the trade winds to get here. Other cruisers they had met had done just that. But you know my humans are both lazy and too cheap. They had heard, through the cruising grape vine, that there were not any officials in the outer cays and atolls. Some cruisers, hoping to avoid Belize’s $10/day fee, yellow flag it (do not check in) down the atolls and outer cays to Guatemala.

The humans do intend on checking into the country, eventually.
It just makes sense to visit the outer atolls and cays first before heading west to the mainland. So it may be a few weeks before they check us in. Guess they are going to need another ‘break down’ excuse when Belize officials ask them why it took them so many weeks to get there from Mexico. They are terrible liars.

So we are here at Lighthouse Reef finally and the humans are happy now. They have cleaned a years worth of dust off their diving gear and finally gotten to go diving. They say the diving is easy here as the dive operators have set out a load of buoys over all the highlights. Big, multi-level, live-aboard dive boats circle us as they shuffle along the buoys dis-engorging their well paying guests into the ‘dive of their lives’. My humans ‘zoom in’ on their dingy and launch themselves from a free buoy beside them. Hope that doesn’t dispel their fantasy of being out diving ‘virgin’ territory!

Do not worry, I have sent the humans off with a camera and orders to get you some good pictures. Unfortunately, since we are so far off the mainland, we have no internet AGAIN! So you are getting my reports via ‘radio waves’ again. I will have to send you the maps and pictures later. I am happy to leave the humans to do the diving alone this time, although at the moment they have the company of Brett and Teresa from the boat Seismic Wave, whom they met in Georgetown, Bahamas. Brett and Teresa are heading off south as soon as the winds ease a bit, while my humans want to head a little west, to visit the Turneffe Islands, before going south. So they might miss each other, which is a shame as they are very ‘doggy friendly’.

Not all is running completely smoothly, which is not surprising for my humans. They left old fuel in the dive compressor so the carburetor was all blocked up. As all their troubles with small engines has been the carburetors, the humans had purchased a spare. Problem solved. So filling the tanks is not a problem. So I have my beaches and palm trees (mind you the humans are not too keen on the hungry mosquitoes) and my humans have some great diving, what more do we need? There is also a bird sanctuary on the next cay east in the atoll, Halfmoon Cay. The humans are sure that ‘I am not welcome’, so they are going to pick a ‘light winds’ day and run over for a visit in the dingy. Other then that we have no plans yet.

I will keep you informed of how they get along and save up photos for you. end: