All activities / Scuba Diving / Great Blue Hole
Scuba Diving in Great Blue Hole
A near-perfect circular sinkhole more than 300 metres across and about 125 metres deep at the centre of Lighthouse Reef Atoll, roughly 70 km off the Belize coast. Part of the UNESCO-listed Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System and made famous by Jacques Cousteau, who brought the Calypso here in 1971.
Why here
The Great Blue Hole is the dive on almost every Caribbean bucket list, a collapsed limestone cave that flooded as the seas rose after the last ice age and now drops as a dark blue circle through the reef. Jacques Cousteau charted it from the Calypso in 1971 and ranked it among his finest dives, and the pull is the geology as much as the fish. At around 30 metres the walls give way to enormous stalactites hanging from old cave ceilings, with Caribbean reef sharks and the occasional blacktip and bull shark cruising the gloom. Trips run as full-day, three-tank outings from Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker that pair the Hole with the wall dives of Half Moon Caye and the Long Caye Aquarium, so a day mixes the deep sinkhole with shallow reef packed with life. It is an advanced dive for the depth and the long crossing, not a place to log your first ocean dives.
Best months
The Blue Hole itself is a deep dive, typically to around 40 metres, so it suits advanced divers or those diving to depth with a divemaster. Visibility is excellent and there is little current inside the Hole. Seas can be rough on the two to two and a half hour crossing to Lighthouse Reef, so pick calmer weather. Diving runs year-round, with the drier, calmer months from February to June the surest for the boat ride.
Getting there & around
The Blue Hole sits at Lighthouse Reef, the outermost of Belize's three atolls, reached only by boat on a two to two and a half hour crossing from Ambergris Caye or Caye Caulker. Full-day trips leave early and return late afternoon and include three dives with lunch. Book with a dive shop licensed to run the atolls; there is no shore access and no facilities on site beyond the boats.
Skill levels: intermediate, advanced
Schools & guides (2)
Amigos del Mar
OutfitterAmigos del Mar has run dive trips out of San Pedro since 1984, when a family of brothers opened what became one of the longest-established shops on Ambergris Caye. It is an SSI Diamond Dive Center and SDI facility, and one of the few operators licensed to run the full-day, three-tank trip to the Great Blue Hole, Half Moon Caye and the Long Caye Aquarium at Lighthouse Reef. Its large dive boat steadies the long crossing to the atolls.
Belize Pro Dive Center
OutfitterBelize Pro Dive Center is an authorised PADI 5-Star Dive Resort in San Pedro, fully Belizean-owned and operated with local management and crew. It runs three-tank day trips to the Great Blue Hole and Lighthouse Reef alongside daily reef diving at Hol Chan and Turneffe Atoll. The centre keeps one of the larger fleets on Ambergris Caye, an on-site compressor station staffed by certified technicians, and holds groups to a maximum six-guest-to-guide ratio.