9: the Blue Hole

dawn over the water

At 5.30am we padded across the sandy road up to the dive centre, located in a wooden shack at the end of a pier near the other end of the island. We sized up our BCDs and got our gear sorted and on the boat, and had breakfast of strong black coffee, monkey bread and pineapple.

Our boat was a sharp, chunky speedboat that cut through the still waters of the Cayes at pace, then we hit the edge of the reef and the sea changed; waves hit the front of the boat and brought us several feet into the air, landing us back down on the water with terrific force.

It took us about 2 hours to get out to the Blue Hole site. The formation itself is a giant sink hole in the Belize Barrier Reserve Reef system, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jacques Cousteau made it famous by declaring it to be one of the top ten dive sites in the world, and at its deepest point it extends to 125m.

One of the main reasons to go there is the opportunity to dive with sharks. Now I encouraged this story to be told at the end of our dive, but Clare has an American friend, who she met on her travels, nicknamed "Tiburon" (meaning "shark" in Spanish). 25 years ago, Tiburon was spear fishing in the Blue Hole, and was attacked by a bull shark. For those of you who don`t know, bull sharks can grow up to 12ft long and are among the species most likely to attack people, appearing in places that most other sharks won`t, like swimming up rivers into fresh water. Tiburon lost most of the flesh on his lower arm, but clearly survived to tell the tale! 

So we were geared up for adventure, for being surrounded by sharks, for the crystal waters we had been promised. As soon as we got in the water I spotted a large reef shark, some way off, but the visability was poor and it soon disappeared into the distance. We descended into blackness, Clare and I both feeling apprehensive and holding hands. There was nothing below us, it was like sinking into the end of the universe. As we got deeper I looked up and saw the silhouette of three reef sharks nearer the surface. We moved closer to the wall and there were massive stalactites suspended over the chasm; and that´s where I got a bit narced.

the Blue Hole

When you dive, you breathe compressed air that contains a higher concentration of nitrogen, and if you are at depth, it can make you behave a bit oddly: there are stories of divers trying to give their regulators (air tubes) to fish so that they can breathe. I didn´t do anything like that, but I remember thinking that the pattern on the stalactites reminded me of my grandparents´ wallpaper, and wasn´t it terribly interesting that 70s fashion should have drawn from the floral looking coral deposits in deep water. It didn´t matter that neither sets of grandparents ever had 70s style wallpaper. I knew it was an odd thing to be wondering about, but if I´m really honest there wasn´t really anything else more, well, exciting to think about. Because that´s what the Blue Hole is: it´s just a big hole, and there´s nothing to see.


We were only at depth for about 7-8 minutes, and spent the rest of the dive hanging about in a nondescript sandy area with nothing really to look at. I kept watch over the deeper area in the hope that a shark might appear to alleviate the boredom of being suspended for 20 minutes at 15m with nothing to look at, but they clearly had something more interesting to do.


The other two dives of the day were much more interesting; lots more fish to see and more colour in the water. We stopped at Half Moon Caye to see the red footed boobies and the frigate bird sanctuary, and I spent a lot of time picking up hermit crabs and shrieking when they came out of their shells (see photo of Wentworth Miller below for reference). That night we got drunk on coconut rum with our divemaster José and his Mayan friend Ricardo, and Clare refused to eat dinner in case she was sick.