Great Blue Hole of Belize

[Magical Realist]

If you were a recreational diver, this would be like Disneyworld for you:

"The Great Blue Hole is a world-class destination for recreational scuba divers attracted by the opportunity to dive in crystal-clear waters and see myriad species of marine life including tropical fish and spectacular coral formations.

The marine life in these areas includes nurse sharks, giant groupers, and several types of reef sharks such as the Caribbean reef shark and the Blacktip shark. Dive excursions to the Great Blue Hole are full-day trips, that usually consist of one dive in the Blue Hole and two additional dives in nearby reefs. The Great Blue Hole is in our list of Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Visit Belize.

The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the mainland of Belize City.

The hole is circular in shape, over 300 metres (984 ft.) across and 125 metres (410 ft.) deep. The world’s largest natural formation of its kind, the Great Blue Hole is part of the larger Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Glyn Collinson, a NASA scientist who recently dived the Great Blue Hole described it thus:

“It was the deepest, deep blue hole imaginable; A chasm that fell away deep into the deep, dark blue. It had been forged out of solid rock as caverns, hundreds of thousands of years ago during the last ice age. For eons, water filtered through the rock and into these great stone cathedrals, breeding multicolored stalactites and stalagmites. Then, one by one they collapsed in on each other, creating a chasm four hundred feet deep. As Earth’s swollen polar ice-caps receded, the warm Caribbean ocean swept in to fill the chasm with boiling white hands, the last rays of sunlight struck the chasm’s floor. Then, as the limestone broke down, it began to rain tiny fragments of rock, which slowly began to fill the great Blue Hole.”

“Alright,” the dive master said, jolting me back to reality. “Welcome to the Blue Hole. This one is real deep, starting with a drop off from forty feet that goes right the way down to the bottom past 400 feet.” The man held up a detailed custom drawn map of the site and pointed as he talked. “We will go down fast to one hundred and thirty feet where stalactites come down from this overhang. We will stay there for a maximum of twelve minutes, starting from the time that the first pair gets there. We all need to keep together and watch each other. To make sure that you all keep an eye on your depth, the dive pair who goes the deepest will buy a round of drinks for everyone back at the Island.” ‘Great’, I thought, ‘so much for pushing our depth limits.’"==http://www.belize.com/belize-blue-hole

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