ROUTE OF THE MAYA
November 9 - 26, 2010
Page Sixteen
Belize - Ambergris Caye and San Pedro
The island's biggest tourist attraction is the Belize Barrier Reef that runs parallel along the entire coast of Belize. The reef is only a quarter mile from the beach of Ambergris Caye making diving easily accessible. The island's seaside is jammed with jetties and dive shops which offer trips to the different dive sites and to the Great Blue Hole. There are also certified scuba lessons. One of the most popular dive and snorkelling sites is the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, which is only about a 15 minute boat ride from town. The reef's beauty and richness has put Belize among the top ten dive destinations in the world.
After the short boat ride to an area called Shark Alley, we jumped off the boat to
snorkel. Using an underwater camera, I took photos of some of what I was seeing.
Here are a bunch of fish hanging out near the boat, a stingray on the floor of the sea,
and a snorkeller's fins.
3 stingrays can be seen in this photo.
Our guide for the snorkelling trip was Ben, shown here diving down to the floor.
This stingray got so close that I couldn't get it in the whole frame of the picture.
A stingray next to Ben, our guide.
The wing span of the stingrays we saw was about 4 feet.
While we were watching the stingrays and other fish, this nurse shark arrived, a
fairly large shark. The Nurse Sharks average four to six feet in length,
and the dive masters often feed them small fish. I was hoping they would be content
with the small fish, while I was in the water with them.
For several years, local fishermen often cleaned their catch in this area, located
just inside the reef, to the south of Ambergris Caye. When fishermen noticed that their activity
had attracted Nurse Sharks and several Southern Stingrays, they reported this information
to the dive operations in San Pedro, who then sent some divers to investigate.
What they found was a bonanza, and Shark-Ray Alley quickly became a very popular dive site.
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