Epic Travel → Central and South America → Belize → The Great Blue Hole

Location: Caribbean Coast, Belize

Dive Depth: 130 feet

Time Required: 1 day

Red Tape/Notes: Contact your hotel or resort to reserve your spots for this dive before you go since there are limited boats making the trip and they’ll fill up easily.

What’s Nearby?: Reef Dives, Whale Shark Diving, Sailing

The Great Blue Hole is one of the “must do” dives of a lifetime, but you really do need your advanced certification. The reason to dive the Blue Hole is to reach the cave and swim among the underwater stalactites; please be aware when you sign up for this dive that it’s relatively boring until you reach the cave- it’s dark, and there’s not a lot of colorful sea life (or much sea life at all). You’ll likely see some reef sharks in the hole, and you’ll see some stuff along the rim during your descent or deco stop, but it’s nothing like a reef dive. This dive is different, which is why it’s special. The cave and stalactites are at about 130 feet (although the full depth of the hole is over 400 feet). Clearly at those depths there’s a greater potential for real harm if a diver is not accustomed with how to compensate for changes in buoyancy and how to identify and respond to the effects of nitrogen narcosis. And depending on the company you’re diving with, safety may not be up to your usual standards. When we dove the Blue Hole, a lady with our group panicked at 100 feet, ditched her weight belt and did an emergency ascent and no one noticed (luckily she was uninjured), but it just goes to show that accidents do happen, people try to do this dive who aren’t prepared, and you can’t rely on your dive master to keep you safe. You’re responsible for your own safety. With that said, there’s nothing particularly tricky about this dive if you’re comfortable at depths and good at controlling your buoyancy, and it’s a pretty amazing experience floating weightless amongst massive stalactites in a subterranean world. The video here is better than the poor quality pictures below (which are actually just screenshots from GoPro footage).

Epic Travel → Central and South America → Belize → The Great Blue Hole