The Rastafarian vibe gave me the real holiday feeling on Caye Caulker; nice cooling breeze, palm trees, reggae music, fresh fish, turquoise waters, white sand, clear waters and an amazing underwater world close to the second largest reef in the world.
Caye Caulker is easygoing; only golf cars and bikes drive around! For me that is perfect of course. It has nice restaurants and chill places to hang out and drink one of the happy hours. The Split is perfect for a sundowner and enjoy the scenery while boats and kiters passing by. I loved this island and wish I could stayed here longer.
At Part One I was already giving you some inside of the Island Caye Caulker and how to get around there by Golf Cart! If you wanna check it out click here.
Part 2 is about the most famous, most amazing and also most expensive Spot, a MUST DO so to speak, it is about The Great Blue Hole!!
This site was made famous by Jacques Cousteau, who declared it one of the top five scuba diving sites in the world. I didn`t have my divers license yet, but I found out that it was also possible to snorkel around it. And as my friend Cecile was gonna dive there anyways, I joined her.
I mean in 2012 Discovery Channel ranked it as number one on its list of "The 10 Most Amazing Places on Earth". - So how could I miss a spot like this!!
The Great Blue Hole is a giant marine sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 70 km from the mainland and Belize City.
With the boat that means at least 2hrs until arrival, so we had to be there pretty early.
In the early morning we went to the beach to see the Sunrise and from there streight to the harbour where we met our tour guide, the captain and other tourists joining the trip.
While the sun went up, we enjoyed the ride on the boat with wind blowing against our faces. After a while we had a little breakfast with fruits and coffee and started to wake up and warm up for the snorkel/dive at The Great Blue Hole!
The water was surprisingly calm for being so far outside on open water!! it even looked like a giant mirror sometimes!!
The water was Caribbean Blue and we noticed immediately when we arrived at the Blue whole, because you could literally see it!!
The hole is circular in shape, 318 m across and 124 m deep. It was formed during several episodes of quaternary glaciation when sea levels were much lower. Analysis of stalactites found in the Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000; 66,000; 60,000; and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the cave was flooded.
Entering it you can see how the color changes from caribbean Blue to dark blue which is quite impressive.
We first went a bit inside and from there to the south wall to let the divers in. On the south wall of the Blue Hole at about 35 to 40 meters depth, the underground cave system opens up for experienced divers.
Of particular geological interest is a gallery in the rock face, where numerous stalactites and occasionally stalagmites are formed in caves beneath the sea level. The biggest ones are up to eight meters long and approximately two meters in diameter.
That of course was the main attraction for the divers so they jumped right in and went for it! Cecile took pictures of course.
The snorkelers (including me) jumped in after. We were only allowed to snorkel along the wall of the hole, which anyways was the home of most of the fish. It is a great opportunity to meet several species of fish, including midnight parrotfish, Caribbean reef shark, and other juvenile fish species. Other species of sharks, such as the bull shark and hammerheads, have been reported there, but are not regularly sighted... Thank God!! haha
Sadly I didn`t have a camera, but of course Cecile also took some pics and videos getting back to the reef.
After a while in the water seeing all that water wild life we were pretty happy but also a bit tired!! So in the end we were grad to come back to the boat.
With everybody on board we went directly to an Island close by, where we had lunch and could chill out at the beach for some time! Getting tan ;) Everybody was pretty excited about what they saw!! I was so jealous of the divers that I decided to do my PADI still while I was on the Island .. but more about that soon.
Of course we also walked a bit around the Island. It was really small and nobody was living at it, which made it very peaceful!
On our way back we got as always here a Cocktail to relax and enjoy the ride.
We arrived just in time for Sunset at the Split and had another awesome view from this beautiful Island before we went for dinner and to bed looking forward to another adventurous day.
But more about the other boat trips, how I survived doing my PADI and my very first dives soon!
Cheers,
Liz