This photo of a Caribbean Octopus was taken during a night dive. (In case you can't tell, its head is the darker oblong shape in the middle.) This guy is in the process of trying to find some dinner - he has spread his entire body out to envelope something on the rocks underneath. The lighter bands of color are the tentacles.

Caribbean Octopus

Ambergris Caye is located about 30 minutes by prop plane from Belize City. We stayed in San Pedro town, a cute area with 3 streets - Front Street, Middle Street and Back Street! It's a funny little place full of extremely friendly people and lots of souvenir shops. There are also quite a few restaurants - the best is probably Elvie's Kitchen. The food is authentic Belizean cuisine and you really get a lot for the price.

We stayed at a hole-in-the-wall place called Oasis Del Mar - it was cheap and had a kitchenette. It was located across the street from Ramon's Village - a high-priced, 'touristy' resort. We booked our diving through Ramon's and it cost us a bundle! We were shipped off to a few sites, including the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. There are tons of big fish here, mostly because the locals used to feed them. The fish were fairly aggressive and came up to us begging for handouts. I wasn't very impressed with the amount of corals and sponges, but there was a fairly large number of fish. The night dives here tend to have currents, so watch out.

Also watch out for mosquitoes after any amount of rain (and probably the rest of the time too - the locals drink rain catch so there are barrels of water standing all over the place!).

I've heard that the dive guides prefer only a few of the available dive spots around the Caye and that's where they take their guests over and over. I would recommend skipping Ambergris and trying the more remote reefs, like Glover's, Turneffe, or Lighthouse. I didn't go to the Blue Hole, but no one I talked to was particularly impressed by it…apparently it IS just a big blue hole with not a lot to see.