Pressure on the brain - a week in Belize
Am I lucky or what? For the big 40 arriving later this year, my wife was nice enough to let me get away for week and go on a live-aboard excursion to Belize. I was on board of the Belize Aggressor III for the last week. Candice and I had been there a few years ago on another live-aboard on the Nekton Pilot, which again won the prize for ugliest boat on the dive sites during this trip.
My father-in-law, Jim, and brother-in-law, Edwin, joined me on this trip. We had a very good time on the boat and I’m very happy that I decided to go. Everything was perfect: the accomodation on the boat was first class (if one ignores the fact that the cabin I stayed in was the loudest of all of them - skip cabin #1 if you’re a light sleeper, because the location at the front of the boat and the aluminum hull make for some constant splashing sound all night); food was excellent (Lourdes and Anna in the kitchen added a few pounds to the middle half of my body); the crew was very nice (thanks again Jay, Nadia, Bart and Raul); diving was good (there weren’t too many large encounters, but the small stuff made up for it); and we had some really nice company on the boat (a 12-person delegation from the United Divers of New Hampshire, three people from LA/Kentucky and the three of us for a total of 18 divers).
Diving in Belize means mainly wall-diving and lots of it. Almost every time we entered the water we hit the wall within minutes. There was one notable exception and that was the Blue Hole: the deepest dive of the trip brought us down to about 150ft (some of us even deeper - hi Tim!) where we saw the stalactites of a huge cave that collapsed a long time ago. We had about 5 dives every day (well, some of us preferred to skip the night dive in order to get our hands on some nice cold Belikin beer that was served on the boat).
I rented an underwater camera and took it on most of my dives. Here are just some of the critters you will encounter down there:
Not that I’m a bad diver, but hovering over the reef with your eyes on the view-finder of the camera, while you wait for that damned animal to move into position, does have a negative effect on your knees: I dove in a shorty all the time and several times my knees touched corals (fire corals as well - ouchie). I’m still red and itchy and I guess it will take a few days before that’s getting better:
There were also some encounters with non-local critters. Those UDNH divers brought some toys with them and several times we some the underwater flora decorated with the weirdest stuff:
All in all a great trip - highly recommended if you are a diver and have not been on a live-aboard before.
Update 5/4/06: I just found out that the Captain’s log from last week is now online. You can read about the Crew’s perspective here.
Nice blog entry Tobi!
It was great getting a chance to dive with you and the rest of the non-UDNH divers. On the way back, a few of us were discussing how well we all got along. Take care and thanks for the mention.
I’ll be using Photoshop to edit my pictures and will let you see what I can do later!
Live free and diet! (Now that I’m back.)
- David
Hey Tobs!
I heard that you had a great time. Perhaps we have a tradition forming? (If Candice let’s you go, at least.) The pictures are beautiful. Thanks for sharing. Edwin had a blast! Being on call was almost as fun. hee hee hee.
Love,
Pam
[...] For some unknown reason, I went to Google Earth and looked at my favorite diving destinations. It’s been a year since I went scuba-diving the last time and I feel the urge to put some pressure on my brain. I think it’s the warm [...]