Belize Water Sport Vacations

Belize is one of the undisputed adventure travel capitals of the world, and although you are free to hole up in any of Belize’s resorts and lose yourself in a stack of novels, you’ll no doubt begin to feel left out as you watch your fellow guests return each day from all kinds of exciting excursions.

Most travelers come to Belize with at least a few activities they’d like to learn or practice. For many, diving is the focus. Here’s a quick overview of a few of the more popular water activities you’ll find available in Belize.

Belize was a Western Hemisphere diving mecca decades before it became the romantic and trendy destination it is today. Hundreds of miles of reefs, atolls, caves, coral patches, and rugged coastline harbor the unknown, as do shipwrecks with hundreds of years of secrets. Swimming among the curious and brazen fish puts you literally into another world—theirs. This is raw excitement and, combined with the sensation of zero gravity, there’s really nothing like it. Dive shops exist everywhere there is access to the reef and cayes in Belize—this means San Pedro and Caye Caulker, Belize City, Sittee River, Placencia, and more shops and dive resorts scattered throughout the islands and atolls.

Belizean dive stories include swimming with dolphin, swarms of horse-eye jacks or massive tarpon, and dozens of eagle rays at one time. Some divers go strictly to photograph the eerie underwater beauty and color, or to get that elusive whale shark photo in March or April, when they come to these waters to breed during the full moon. Speaking of breeding, others enjoy the January full moon when hundreds of groupers gather at their primeval mating grounds on the reef; some tell of so many groupers gathering that the reef face is covered with these thick-lipped fish, releasing sperm and eggs in such a fury and quantity that you cannot see two feet in front of you.

Introductory Dive Courses
You’re in Belize on vacation and want to dive—but you don’t want to spend four precious days getting certified. What can you do? How about a “resort course”—a one-day introduction to using scuba to enter the underwater world. Also called “discovery” courses, they usually include one tank of air and cost around US$75.

Other Certification Courses
The full menu of PADI- and NAUI-accredited courses are offered at most dive shops. You’ll have no trouble finding a shop; in fact, you may have quite the time choosing between so many options. Throughout this book, we’ve tried to identify dive shops with the best reputation for safety practices and quality of instruction and gear. In most cases, prices are more or less uniform between shops, but it pays to do a bit of shopping around. Expect to pay US$60–75 for a two-tank fun dive and US$250–300 for certification courses (Open Water and Advanced).

Live-Aboard Dive Boats
Several excellent live-aboard vessels based in Belize City are designed for scuba divers, but can also accommodate an avid diver’s companion if he or she is a sea lover or a casual angler. Nondivers pay less. Your luxury hotel and chef travel with you to some of the most scenic and best diving spots in the tropical world. Fees are usually all-inclusive. Here are a few options: Belize Aggressor III (120’), US tel. 985/385-2628 or 800/348-2628, fax 985/384-0817, belize@aggressor.com, www.aggressor.com; Offshore Express (50’), tel. 501/226-2817, forman@btl.net; and Sun Dancer II (138’), Peter Hughes Diving, US tel. 305/669-9391 or 800/932-6237, dancer@peterhughes.com, www.peterhughes.com.

Whitewater, lagoons, open ocean, surf, lazy rivers, underground water systems—Belize’s paddling terrain is as varied as every other part of the country’s amazing geography, and there is an enormous fleet of canoes, open and closed kayaks, and other small craft with which to float it all. A spectacular array of flora and fauna can be seen along the riverbanks, and night paddles reveal just as much wildlife activity. Stunning sea kayaking trips (day trips and overnight island-hopping) are available on Glover’s Reef, Placencia, and from other coastal towns as well.

Experienced sailors and yachties find abundant anchorages among the cayes and coastal villages of Belize. The Belize Barrier Reef provides calm inshore waters, with none of the crashing surf or large swells of the open ocean. Sailing charters are available up and down Belize’s coast—with or without a captain. Boat owners take note: Vessels traveling to the area must have permission from the Belize Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Fly-fishing the flats of Belize has become one of the biggest fishing attractions in the Caribbean; wet that hook in search of tarpon, bonefish, permit, and barracuda. In the mangroves, anglers are likely to snag a snook, tarpon, mangrove snapper, or mutton snapper. Outside the reef, it’s deep-sea fishing for red snapper and the big trophies such as marlin, sailfish, giant grouper, and tuna.

San Pedro, Caye Caulker, and Placencia are home to fabled Belizean fishing guides who have been featured in international angling magazines and on ESPN. Most resorts offer fishing trips, and a few specialize in fishing packages.