Belize Music Festival

Belize have the longest barrier reef in the Northern Hemisphere and offers a combination of gentle inshore scuba diving and some more adventurous oceanic dive sites for the experienced divers. Belize offers scuba divers with a heady concoction of reef, wall, cavern and cay diving experiences. Belize had a history of swashbuckling buccaneering in days gone by. Back then, there were regular pirate attacks on Spanish treasure ships. Now, it is a peaceful little city on the Caribbean coast of Central America. Belize is a popular diving destination because of its long barrier reef which offers an array of diving experiences for all levels of scuba diving proficiency, from the novice beginners to the experienced veteran divers. The barrier reef is about 174 miles or 280 km long extending all the way along the coast of the Yucatan Peninsular in the north to Honduras in the south. In this way, the reef actually creates a true barrier between the ocean and the coast thus providing calm waters to scuba dive in. There are also numerous islands dotting the reef which are called cays or cayes in this part of the world. In the south eastern part of the reef, there is a large ... [more..]

If you've never been to Belize, a great spot to start is Ambergris Caye. It offers great diving and interesting topside attractions to keep you busy during those surface intervals. Ambergris Caye is the most popular spot in Belize for scuba diving. It offers a variety of diving such as reefs, walls, blue holes and more. If you've never been to Belize before, Ambergris Caye is a great place to start. Geography Ambergris Caye is the largest island of Belize and is about 25 miles long and 1 mile wide. So it's a small island and easy to explore. The town on Amergris Caye is San Pedro and lies near the southern tip. San Pedro has 3 main roads that run parallel to the beach and reef. They have more tourist oriented names now but many of the locals still call them by their old names. The 3 main streets are Barrier Reef Drive (Front Street), Pescador Drive (Middle Street) and Angel Coral Drive (Back Street). The barrier reef lies just offshore from Ambergris. It is about a half mile east from the shore so boat rides to most dive sites are short. Location Belize itself is situated on the Caribbean coast. It is bordered by Mexico ... [more..]

Having not been diving in over a year, I was going through a bit of ocean withdrawal. The only cure of course was to get back in the water - ASAP! So, that's exactly what we did. I've just returned from St. Croix where my son and I spent the better part of a week diving our brains out.This was not one of those "planned far in advance" deals. It was more like, I want to go now! So that's basically what happened. There were only a couple parameters which included "doing it on the cheap" and maximum diving. I also wanted to check out the island, and enjoy some good food - shrimp in particular.With the top dive sites located along the islands north side between Ham's Bluff and Salt River, I found a small, older hotel (just 9 rooms), right on the shore in Cane Bay. Every room had a balcony that provided a 180 degree view of the ocean. You could see St. Thomas and St. John on the horizon, and the continual sound of the surf was totally relaxing.This hotel also just happened to have one of the best restaurants (extremely popular with the locals), right ... [more..]