The blue hole

If you've ever seen a postcard of Belize, you've probably seen a picture of the blue hole. It's one of Belize's top tourist attractions, and a dive site unlike any other I've been to.

While my better instincts were to avoid lengthy boat trips for a while, both for the sea sickness and to reduce the risk of running into any more Phils, I couldn't resist the exorbitantly priced trip to the blue hole.

And so I found myself, once again, grimly staring at the the horizon while our smallish dive boat (not the 57 ft cruiser on the poster) fought the swell for 47 miles to get to the blue hole. From the looks on faces around the boat, I wasn't the only one who was reconsidering just how much he actually wanted to do this dive. Apart from the sick people, the standout on the boat was the blond, pale guy who rolled his board shorts up around his waist so that his upper thighs wouldn't miss out on the sun, and the rest of the boat wouldn't miss out on his upper thighs. He hadn't said a word, so I didn't know where he was from, but I couldn't help but guess that it had to be a cold climate. I couldn't see an Australian or New Zealander falling, quite so easily, for the old trap that if you can't feel the heat, because of the wind and water splashing over the boat, you're not getting burnt.

As I turned greener and our blond friend turned redder, we were eventually told that we'd reached the blue hole. One thing about the blue hole is that all those pictures are taken from a helicopter. When you are in the boat, you can't really see it. But we took the guide's word for it and jumped in.

The dive starts with a 40 meter descent along the wall of the hole. You have to descend reasonably fast, because you can't stay down for that long when you go to 40m. Having dived so many coral reefs in the past two weeks, I was expecting more of the same, lots of colourful corals and fish, maybe the odd ray, crystal clear water - but I was completely wrong. The blue hole is a limestone cave that was formed before the oceans rose to the present levels. I had read this, but hadn't really thought about it. Along the descent there is no coral, and I didn't see any fish. Its basically a grey wall of rock.

At 40 meters you reach the main attraction - the underwater stalactite and stalagmite formations. It may not sound like much, but it's really an eerie sight. The water is quite dark down there, and beneath you the descent continues to well beyond the visibility limit. Its a little like diving through Jenolan caves would probably feel, only with a seemingly bottomless drop beneath you. The dive continues by weaving in and out of the stalactites and mites. From inside its like looking through the bars of an underwater prison.

After about 8 minutes we started the ascent. As we did and I was reflecting on what an interesting dive it had been, and how it was worth the price, I suddenly remembered the main reason I'd wanted to do the dive in the first place - sharks. The tourist brochures describe the hole as 'shark filled'. We clearly hadn't seen any sharks, and it didn't seem to me like we were going to, so I put the sharks in the same category as the whale sharks - would have been nice, but wasn't meant to be, and tried not to be disappointed.
Then dive master banged his tank to get our attention and put is hand on top of his head, fingers pointing up like a fin, in the dive symbol for shark. And sure enough, coming out of the murky water, about 15 meters away, was a shark. And it was a proper shark too - bigger than me, probably about 3 meters in length, with a row of teeth jutting out along its mouth. Another bang, another fin gesture, another shark, and suddenly there were sharks everywhere.

At one point one of them was swimming straight at me. The only thing behind me was the wall of the blue hole, so there was nowhere to go (not that trying to outswim a shark would have been a great plan). I have to admit that at that point, despite knowing that people do this dive every day and apparently rarely get eaten by sharks, my heart rate did quicken. And I couldn't help but notice the whole group was pulling a little closer together. Kate bravely made sure she kept me between the shark and herself. But the shark seemed quite unconcerned by the reaction he was causing. He kept coming until, about two meters from us, he veered left and simply drifted past.

That was it and a few minutes later we were back on the boat. The day finished with two more dives, on the coral reefs around the hole, and then the long boat ride home. The water was much calmer on the way home, so I didn't go as green, but the sun was stronger than ever, and our (Canadian, as it turned out) blond friend reached a level of pink that I wouldn't see again until Kate went kite boarding, two days later. But that will be for the next post.