Belize

If you are unfamiliar with this region of the world, perhaps a couple of charts will assist you locate the country of Belize. Our diving experience was on the Wave Dancer, motoring Southeast of Belize, south of the Turneffe Islands, then north to the Blue Hole. It was a wonderful experience to dive from her decks and a very comfortable vessel to live on. One of the interesting aspects of our dive was to be present during the spawning of the large barrel sponges. Unfortunately, the Wave Dancer was capsized in 2001, during a hurricane.

Wave Dancer

Belize is located above Guatemala and Honduras and Southwest of the Cayman Islands and Cuba.

The following images were captured on 35 mm slide film using a Sea&Sea MX-10 camera withYS-40 strobe and later scanned into digital images. It is some of our earlier imagery, but provides the essence of sea life in this part of the Caribbean Ocean. The diving commenced on April 16, 2000 and continued for five days, averaging about five dives per day. The map below illustrates the general routing of our journey.

Route taken

Blue Tang

Gray Angelfish

Queen Angelfish

Sharon and I were fortunate to find a very nice group to share the time spent at sea and the crew was extremely accommodating. Brenda, our cook, provided absolutely outstanding meals the entire time. We all grieve to think that Brenda was one of the crew not to survive the hurricane of 2001.

Crab

Lobster

This being our first Caribbean live-a-board venture, we were very pleased to note the variety and abundance of sea life in the areas we dove.

Scorpion fish

Triggerfish

Blue Parrot fish

Of particular note was our experience in witnessing the spawning of a number of barrel sponges. This was viewed on the morning of April 19, 2000 at about 9 A.M.

Barrel sponge

Spawning Barrel sponge

Spawning

The variety of life was a pleasant surprise. We both felt it more extensive that the diving experienced in other locations throughout the Caribbean.

Flamingo tongue

Hermit crab

Conch

Clam on string coral

The nurse shark was encounterd while snorkeling from the Wave Dancer to an island for lunch. Though docile, I began to wonder what was for lunch when I looked to my left and found two more sharks accompanying me. Toward evening, we would find the underside of the Wave Dancer became an area for the fish to congregate. Note the "hang bar" at the stern of the vessel. Maintaining a safety stop at 15 feet became very easy.