I've snorkelled a fair bit in SE Asia and Australia,including some great places in Malaysian Borneo and Indonesia.
How does the snorkelling in the Belize/Honduras/Nicaragua area compare to these places?
Is it likely to be underwhelming in terms of sealife,visibility etc?
Thanks Luc
The best thing about central american snorkeling is the viz. Its normally very good. Bad day is 15 meters. Reefs can appear a bit brown in colour if you 've been to places in egypt. Sealife is way below that of Indo and borneo, but you do have a fair number of turtles and eagle rays......Borneo snorkeling is about as good as it can be...don't expect anything like this. As for thailand, i'm not impressed at the places i've been but know central american viz is much better than east coast thailand. Coral life in central is different as well..you're not getting as many soft corals........
Based on 2 recent visits to Belize, the last to Turneffe atoll, and snorkeling the Blue Hole, and Lighthouse Reef I would say if Bunaken is a 7.5, Komodo a 7, Togean a 6.5+then Belize is a 4.5 in terms of variety of fish, coral and anenomes. As said above the visibilty I would say on a good day can be a little better but not by much. Roatan, Honduras is a 3.75 vs. a 4.5 and visibility can be same as Belize.
Thanks guys.....I have a good idea now.
ashley.....have you been to the Corn Islands?....How would that rate on your scale?
lucapal; No I have not and I think they are more knowb for diving and fishing. The San Blas Islands of Panama which I have not been to are on my radar but I doubt they will best Belize as long as I get continue to go to places on the reef not crowded by tourists, i.e. all the snorkel boats out of Ambergis Caye. We make the 25-30 hour trips to Asia reluctantly but we have really experienced much of North and Central America. Next year we are off to the Raja Ampat Islands which along with Palau are said to be the "everest's" for snorkelers and they both are 30 hours fron NYC with connections.
Hope your trip goes well!
Haven't been to Raja Ampat yet.....though I have done the Togeans,Komodo and Bunaken.
Hi Ashley: We have never been to Raja Ampat, but we stumpled into Tanjung Karang on Sulawesi this year. We were stunned. We came for three days and left after 4 weeks. Just check our travel notes:
http://konniandmatt.blogspot.com/2011/08/16-aug-15-sep-2011-tanjung-karang.html
http://konniandmatt.blogspot.com/2011/09/04-sep-05-sep-2011-lebo.html
We met a few people there who combined both Tanjung Karang and Raja Ampat.
Cheers, Matt.
Konniandmatt; We were not far from you this past Sept. at Wakatobi DFive Resort. But don't let the name fool you because we had our own snorkel guide for ever 4 snorkelers and as it turned out on most twice a day trips I took there were only my wife and I and on a few one more person. I have a write-up on TripAdvisor. But I most admit it was not better than Bunaken. Komodo, Togean and Baggai Islands in our opinion. In fact it was slightly less. That may be because we went to 5 areas vs. one general area though the visibility was exceptional.