The Blue Hole

Katheryn Patterson and I joined divers from Blackbird Caye Resort yesterday and dove the Blue Hole and a couple of sites outside of the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is Belize's most famous dive. Actually, our island manager and boat driver, Mr. Kent (that's a common way of referring to people down here -- I'd be Mr. Jerred), was part of Jacques Cousteau's first visit to the Blue Hole. I preferred the dives that we did outside of the Blue Hole to the dive inside of it. The Blue Hole is a limestone sinkhole. One of the draws to the dive is that there are huge stalactites deep in the hole and there are a lot of sharks that hang out in the area. We did see a number of large reef sharks and huge grouper. Because of its depth, I didn't bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures, sorry. It's depth also makes the dive very short. (Biology majors and A&P students should be able to calculate about how many atmospheres of pressure is at 130 feet. Taking that information, I'm sure that they could calculate the partial pressure of Nitrogen and understand why the dive is so short.)
After the dive in the Blue Hole, we dove a site called Half Moon Caye Wall and another site called Aquarium. Here are a few pictures from those dives.

Underwater scenery from "The Aquarium"

A Hawksbill Turtle

A spotted moray eel

A Ruffled Feather Duster Worm

A neon goby on Whitestar Sheet Coral (Agaricia lamarcki)

Grooved Brain Coral (Diploria labyrinthiformis) polyps

Blue Bell Tunicates

Sponge Brittle Stars on Pink Vase Sponges