Our Belize mainland tour...

We had a group of people visiting here in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize from the U.S., a total of 10 adults and two teenagers. We all decided to take a tour on the mainland of Belize on Tuesday, June 21, 2010. Ecologic Divers is associated with Mark's Tours, whose owner is Mark Cal, a Belizian native and a Mayan descendant. Our decision was to visit a Mayan archaeological site called Xunantunich, and to go cave tubing.

Our trip began at 6:30AM when we were picked up by two taxis to take us to the airport in San Pedro. We chartered a single engine, propeller driven airplane from Mayan Island Air to take us to the municipal airport in Belize City, a short 15 minute flight. The flight is exciting in that the views of the ocean and cayes at an altitude of around 2,000 feet are mesmerizing. The airport in Belize City a was tiny, a single strip of asphalt bordering the ocean only feet away and maybe one or two feet above sea level. We were asking ourselves if it was possible for a plane to land on what looked like a postage stamp on our approach. Anyway, our landing was uneventful, and we soon boarded our van for a trip across the width of Belize to San Ignacio, our destination being the ruins of Xunantunich (Say {Zoo-nan-two-nich}) which means "stone woman" in Mayan.

The drive took us a couple of hours over a two lane highway frequented by speed bumps which slowed our forward progress in places to stop and go speeds. Annoying but with no highway patrol, an effective means of speed control in more populated areas. The terrain along our route was relatively flat to hilly through heavily wooded areas and sometimes into what I would classify as jungle. To get to the ruins, we had to take a man powered, one car ferry across a small river. During the crossing we had to leave the van as a precaution against the possibility of the ferry sinking. A very short drive later we arrived at the Xunantunich visitor center where we each paid a $5 USD admission fee to the "dig".

We were not expecting much, but when we finally saw the ruins, we were blown away -- they were simply awesome. Everything was well manicured, the ruins were surprisingly intact, and much bigger than we expected, the pyramid, El Castillo, being around 130 feet tall. We all decided to climb to the top following our guide Mark. This climb at times was a bit unsettling in that there are no railings, and there is the real potential of falling. Needless to say, we were all very careful, and everyone made it up and down with no missteps. The view from the top was stunning allowing us to see many miles in every direction, and to the west, the hills and forests of Guatemala.

We then went to a restaurant in San Ignacio where we ate chicken, rice, beans, and plantains, the staple foods of Belize. Very tasty. Soon we were heading back toward Belize City and the turn off that would take us to the cave tubing site. About an hour later, we arrived at the Cave Tubing Visitor Center.

Luckily there were no cruise ships in Belize this day, and as such, there were no maddening crowds. We got our truck-sized inner tubes, life jackets and battery powered head lamps, and began our trek upstream through a beautiful forest. I am guessing the hike was about a mile or so on relatively flat trails, and about half an hour later, we arrived at the entrance to the cave. It was awesome -- giant limestone cliffs with a crystal clear river flowing out of one cave and almost immediately into the mouth of a second mammoth cave. Wow! The cave was much bigger than I expected. We all entered the clear, cool, refreshing water, got into our inner tubes, rafted together, and began our drift into the cave beginning with some minor rapids. The cave quickly got dark and we all turned on our head lamps. The water was slow moving and progress was relaxingly slow. The cave was huge -- probably twenty feet tall and maybe fifty feet across, with the water being relatively shallow, sometimes to the point where our rear ends would hit rounded river rocks on the bottom. The excitement level of this excursion likely varies depending on the flow of water. In our case, it was very tranquil. I am guessing we were in the cave for about half an hour before the river emerged into sunlight. For the next half hour we tubed down the river through the amazingly beautiful forest. All too soon we arrived back at the visitor center, and dried off for our return trip. Cost was $5 USD admission fee, and $5 USD for gear rental -- a real bargain.

Our trip back into Belize City took about another hour as we headed to the municipal airport. We were split up onto two airplane for our trip back to San Pedro. At approximately 6:00PM after a short flight, our remarkable excursion was over ... but never to be forgotten...

San Pedro, a sleepy little drinking town with a bit of a diving problem...

The title of this blog is a slogan that was taken from a t-shirt for sale here in San Pedro which humorously characterizes the town as a place that has a lively night life with one of its main activities being its focus on scuba diving. Most of you probably got it, but an explanation was in order for those that didn't.

Ecologic Divers is located in San Pedro here on the island of Ambergris Caye, 15 miles off the northern coast of Belize. It is a town of about 4,000 people with the island having a population of around 20,000. Ambergris Caye is about 25 miles long with its width varying from maybe half a mile to several miles wide. It is a flat island with sandy beaches lined with palm trees and surrounded by the clear blue waters of the Caribbean -- truly a tropical paradise.

People come to San Pedro and Ambergris Caye to enjoy the sea, whether it be diving, snorkeling, fishing, sailing or other water sports. Belize is renowned as a world class diving destination with diving along the length of the Belize Barrier Reef, and in and around the three atolls off the coast of Belize.

The town of San Pedro is a particularly interesting place. Once a quiet fishing village, it is now a bustling tourist town with countless shops, stores, restaurants, bars and resorts. The waves and surf breaking over the barrier reef, about a mile offshore stretching the length of the island and beyond, keeps the wave action on the sandy beaches to a minimum. Accommodations here range from backpacker hostels to luxury beach resorts.

Along the beach are many docks and piers jutting out into the calm waters, some as long as 300 feet. There are often small buildings built on the docks. Needless to say, boats, especially power boats, are everywhere. People are often surprised at the size of San Pedro and the proliferation of resorts and homes along its 25 mile shoreline. The turquoise waters near shore are crystalline -- some of the cleanest water we have encountered in the Caribbean.

The beaches are lined with beach bars, small restaurants and resorts set among countless palm trees. Many of the restaurants in San Pedro can be described as "holes in the wall" having only a few tables. We frequently purchase food from street vendors -- grilled chicken, tamales, doughnuts, hamburgers, hot dogs, burritos, tacos, pastries and meat pies are common fare. Also the street vendors will hawk goods which include wood carvings (which are simply beautiful), blankets and other cloth goods, and hand made jewelery such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and other trinkets.

The town is difficult to describe -- eclectic, quaint, and charming are words that come to mind. The town is old, but very clean -- in short, it has character. The streets are narrow, and as such, the primary means of transportation is golf carts -- they are everywhere, hundreds of them! Old time bicycles like we rode as kids where you peddled backward to brake are common -- no bicycles with hand brakes here. Taxis are ancient Toyota mini vans. An occasional motorcycle, pickup, or small car will sometimes be seen traveling the streets. Green John Deere tractors are commonly seen pulling beverage carts to supply bars, restaurants and resorts with beer and soft drinks. So what is our preferred means of transportation? We walk pretty much everywhere.

The airport is in the middle of town, and is only big enough to handle single engine propeller driven airplanes. Tropic Air and Maya Island Air fly into San Pedro almost continuously all day long, and provide a 15 minute flight from the international airport in Belize City.

The streets are filled with people at all hours of the day into the evening. Kids are everywhere, especially on weekends where they play in the shallow waters along the beach. We have always felt safe walking the streets, even at night. The people of San Pedro are very friendly and always willing to help, an attitude that we rarely found in our travels throughout the Caribbean. English is the primary language of Belize, and as such, you will rarely encounter anyone with whom you cannot enter into a conversation. For you looking for a place with a lively night life, San Pedro is the place to be.

You will not find name brand stores, hotels and restaurants here, and forget the fast food restaurant chains like in the U.S. In short, you will see virtually nothing that you will recognize. This is a good thing, and adds to the unique flavor and character of the town. A walk in San Pedro can be likened to a walk back in time...

party time

hey guys ,we had our staff party and it was wicked cool our guys and gals sure know how to have a good time. we are busy planning for the new year and have a ton of cool things coming up. we have our idc in feb and by then we will be running our awesome boats impromptu and infinity out to the blue hole for a bit of luxury diving and sailing ...hhmhmhmh
ecologic divers is really going places and thanks to all who are helping us.
lets keep diving !!!!!!

An Amazing Journey...

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Easton Beymer, "East" for short. Ian and Janey Paxton and my wife Sue and I are the new owners of Ecologic Divers. This is how we came to be here in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize, in Central America.

In 2005, Sue and I went on a cruise ship cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. On that cruise, we went on an excursion to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands where we had our first experience with snorkeling in a beautiful place called Trunk Bay. I was blown away with what I saw under water -- it was beautiful! We went back to our home in Boulder City, NV, and a month later, I was certified as a PADI Open Water Diver.

Several months after our cruise, Sue, and I decided to go on a sailing charter, and we booked a cabin with the Moorings, a very big sailboat chartering company. We got to the Moorings base in Roadtown, Tortola, British Virgin Islands late at night in a drenching thunderstorm. There to greet us was this big guy named Ian Paxton, and his partner, Janey Bauer, who were to be our crew on the sailing catamaran "Triple Dog Dare". This was to be the beginning of a rather amazing friendship. I had my first ocean dives with Ian on that charter, and he also introduced me to the infamous "Painkiller", a very toxic rum cocktail.

We all really hit it off together on the charter, and Sue and I had a wonderful time, so much so that we bought our catamaran "Infinity" several months later. We spent a considerable amount of time sailing around the BVI with our friends and family.

In the meantime, Ian and Janey continued to work for Moorings, but later went back to South Africa where they married and had their son Dylan. Ian started several businesses there, but had a yearning to return to the sea and the Caribbean. I had kept in touch with Ian and Janey over the years via Skype.

In the meantime, we had "Infinity" in charter with Voyage Charters in Soper's Hole on Tortola, BVI. We were not getting enough time aboard "Infinity" because she was always out on charter, so we decided to purchase a second catamaran, which we named "Impromptu" (so named because we rarely have a plan, and tend to make spur of the moment decisions).

Sue in particular wanted to have a crew on board "Impromptu", and we hired several skippers, which, putting it mildly, simply did not work out for us. In mid 2008, we decided to approach Ian and Janey about returning to the BVI to be the crew on "Impromptu". They accepted our offer, and they arrived in Soper's Hole last November. Our plan was to go sailing and explore the Caribbean. After several months of preparation, we set sail for St. Martin in the Eastern Caribbean in late February, 2009.

At about this time, the world wide recession really began taking hold, and the charter bookings for "Infinity" fell like a rock. Ian and I decided that we could do a better job of chartering her than Voyage Charters, and we began making plans to privately charter "Infinity".

As we were sailing to the islands of St. Martin, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, Bequia, Union, Grenada, and Bonaire, we at some point made the decision to sail to Panama to explore the Pearl Islands in the Pacific Ocean with the intent of starting a sailing charter company there. We decided to take "Infinity" out of charter with Voyage Charters, and hired a crew, Mark and Lee Maunder, to assume control of her.

We found four hardy souls who wanted an adventure, and in June, "Infinity" set sail from the BVI with her crew and guests aboard bound for Panama. Upon arrival, they then transited the Panama Canal in mid June, and made their way to Islas de Las Perlas or the Pearl Islands forty miles south of Panama City. We followed soon thereafter aboard "Impromptu", also transiting the Panama Canal in late June -- quite an exciting adventure in itself.

After spending several months in the Pearl Islands, we found that it was not feasible to start a charter company there. There was no infrastructure in the islands, no marinas or dock space, and no easy means of getting fuel and provisions. This lack of infrastructure was primarily caused by the fifteen foot tides which moved in and out of the Gulf of Panama every six hours. These big tides kept the water stirred up, and as a consequence, the diving was "not great" with generally poor visibility.

In early August, we moved our yachts to a bay outside of Panama City to do some provisioning. There "Infinity" was struck by lightning causing some $30,000 in damage to the electronic equipment aboard. All in all, things were not going well for us. The language barrier was also particularly problematic in that none of us spoke Spanish. It was mid August, and as things were not working out, we were all pretty depressed...

I had the small country of Belize in the back of my mind as an alternative destination if things did not work out in Panama. It took a bit of convincing on my part to get the crews to consider coming to Belize, primarily because they knew nothing about it. I had everyone do their Internet homework to see if coming here was a good idea, and we found to our surprise that it had world class diving. Wow! We all love to dive, and all of a sudden, we found Belize to not only be a great sailing destination, but also a great diving destination.

In September, while researching Belize on the Internet, I found that a dive center called "Ecologic Divers" was for sale in San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye, and I immediately contacted Ian. To say the least, he was very excited! In our planning of the sailing charter company, we had always wanted to start a dive center, and merge it into our sailing charter business. We had not planned to do the dive center first, but hey, we were flexible, and that's they way things worked out.

We immediately contacted the owners, and several days later, we flew to San Pedro to check out Ecologic Divers. The business seemed to be successful, it had a good reputation, it had an excellent staff, and the "numbers" looked good. We made the decision to make them an offer, and the owners accepted.

At this time, I was in Boulder City and the yachts were still outside Panama City. A Panama Canal transit ensued, followed by a haul out of both boats outside Colon, Panama. This was a horrible time for the crews as it was hot and muggy with lots of bugs. But the hulls needed to be cleaned and repainted with anti fouling paint, and "Infinity" was in particularly bad shape because of neglect by Voyage Charters. A month later, both boats, now in new condition, sailed to San Pedro.

On October 30, 2009, we closed on the sale of Ecologic Divers!

It is a little over a month later, we are doing well, and we are excited about the prospects for developing a successful business here in Belize.

Plus the diving is fantastic! Life is good...

Swam with the Dolphins

This week during a Nav Class 2 dolphins became curious about our tape measure and decided to hang around and watch the class. This was a very unique dive trying to teach and watch the dolphins.

Lindsay DMC with 2 students after their confined water skills

Lots of students this week, we just finished specialty courses and Advanced open water. and now we have several open water students for the rest of the week!!!!!!!!!!!
We are looking for some Divemasters to join us for our IDC Nov 15th
30% discount if you sign up before Oct 1

Myron L

Today we are off to the myron L with 5 divers, Jr & Marcos are leading the group. I am sad as i had to stay behind and do some work around the dive center.

Sept 1st only 4 months to the NEW YEAR

Last week Charlie saw several Loin fish at Hol Chan. Here is a picture of a small one he photographed and marked the spot. We are in the process of going to capture any we see.
This can have a long lasting effect on the fish population.
First there was South Beach ( now stopped) now this,

Nitrox, Nitrox, Nitrox

We are now pumping our own Nitrox from 22 to 36 percent
As one of the few dive centers here in San Pedro filling there own tanks with air and Nitrox want to invite all guest to try Nitrox either by " discover Nitrox course or by clicking throught to padi and getting certified as a Nitrox diver.
www.ecologicdivers.com
All divers who get certified online with PADI and use our store # will get 6 free tanks when you come and dive with us.

Early morning shot of the dive center







New picture of the IDC center sign



ECO 1 rebuilt and relaunched