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Mark Moxon's Travel Writing

Belize: The Great Blue Hole

Getting the dive boat ready for a 6am start for the Blue Hole
Getting the dive boat ready for a 6am start for the Blue Hole

'Oooh, are you planning to dive the Blue Hole?' people ask when you tell them you're going diving in Belize.

The Lure of Lighthouse Reef

The wind battering Half Moon Bay
The wind battering Half Moon Bay

The problem is that Belize is supposed to be one of the most amazing diving destinations in the world, but we were really disappointed by our trip to the reefs off Ambergris Caye. It just felt a bit drab compared to the astonishing colour and sea life off Cozumel in Mexico, so we thought we'd book a trip to one of the more distant reefs off Belize, ideally somewhere like Turneffe Island, which has a good reputation, or even Lighthouse Reef, which surrounds the Blue Hole.

A frigate bird puffing up its red gular pouch on Half Moon Bay
A frigate bird puffing up its red gular pouch on Half Moon Bay
A red-footed booby on Half Moon Bay
A red-footed booby on Half Moon Bay

Geology of the Great Blue Hole

A hermit crab on Half Moon Bay
A hermit crab on Half Moon Bay

For a lot of people, the dive in the Great Blue Hole is the least interesting of the three dives you do on Lighthouse Reef; in fact, it's often a major disappointment. It's dark, it's blue, there's practically no life, and because you get through your air much more quickly at depth, it's a short dive, at around 20 to 25 minutes. But knowing a bit about how the Blue Hole formed makes it all the more impressive, because it isn't just a hole in the sea, it's a geological monster.

Inclement Weather

The wind blowing a hammock sideways on Half Moon Bay
The wind blowing a hammock sideways on Half Moon Bay

As seems to be a theme with our trip so far, the weather had other ideas. We booked onto the dive for the day after next, giving us a day to rest after our trip to the Ambergris reef, and we turned in early the night before, as the boat leaves Caye Caulker at 6am to get to Lighthouse Reef before the other boats. All fired up for the dive in the morning, we lay there unable to believe our ears as the winds started blowing, and then gusting, and then howling through the phone lines, before a huge tropical storm hit and lashed the island with horizontal rain and screaming winds. The rain stopped sometime in the night but the winds kept on blowing, and it was with a heavy heart that we fell out of bed at 5am, packed up for the dive and plodded down to the dive shop, where we knew they'd simply turn us around and say sorry, no, this is just too dangerous to go out in. And that's exactly what they did, so we went back to bed, helpless in the face of the tail end of this particularly persistent hurricane season.

Diving the Great Blue Hole

The dive boat moored up in Half Moon Bay
The dive boat moored up in Half Moon Bay

The journey out there was hell. The boat smashed through the swell, soaking those of us who sat at the back in an attempt to stave off seasickness, and by the time we pulled into Lighthouse Reef, some two hours later, I was shivering. Shivering? In the tropics? None of us on the boat could quite believe it, but yes, we were all absolutely freezing as the driving winds chilled us to the bone.

Diving in Lighthouse Reef

The sun reappearing from behind the clouds on the way home
The sun reappearing from behind the clouds on the way home

The weather didn't only make the journey to the Blue Hole hell, not to mention scaring away the sharks and silting up the visibility, but it also screwed up the diving at Half Moon Wall and the Aquarium, the other two sites that we were due to dive. The original plan had the second dive straight after the Blue Hole, after which we would tie up at Half Moon Caye Natural Monument for lunch, and then head out for the third dive before returning home. Instead, the team decided to wait a bit for the second dive to see if the visibility would improve, so we dropped anchor at Half Moon Caye after the first dive, and waited to see how things panned out.

Sunset over Caye Caulker on our way home
Sunset over Caye Caulker on our way home