Page 288 - Central America

Dive Site Name Section Top Rate Marked on Dive Map
White Hole
Pompion Caye
Pompion Wall
Placencia Dive Site Descriptions
Coral Garden - Coral Garden is known for
its abundance and variety of coral. Critters
include spotted drum, huge lobsters, cleaner
shrimp, arrow crabs, and lots of variety of
reef fish. Coral mounds separated by sandy
patches rise from 100 feet/30mt, to 30 to 40
feet/10 to 12 meters from the surface. This
dive can be done at either the 70 foot/21mt
range or at 40 foot/12mt range.
Gladden Split Whale Shark Diving & Snorkel
- dive with the largest living mammal in the
world the whale shark Directly east of Pla-
cencia at Gladden Spit, over 25 species of fish to book a couple of days for this dive.
gather to spawn during the full moon peri-
ods in the springtime. A large snapper re-
ferred to as black or cubera snapper gather to
spawn as well. It is the spawn from this par-
ticular snapper that the whale sharks come
here to feed on. This is the only site in the
world where you can witness large schools of
courting snapper and whale sharks while div-
Pelagics
Yes
ing. These gentle giants swim from the deep furry sea cucumber and lots of other juvenile
blue up over a wall’s edge that tops at about reef fish.
150 feet. Here is where the massive schools Laughing Bird North - On top of the slope
of snapper stretch across the top of this deep here are scattered coral patches on the sea-
wall occasionally spiraling up to 60 and 80 floor which makes it a perfect habitat for
feet. This is a blue water dive with the bot- the protected queen conch. The dive itself is
tom far below you and sometimes not visible along a slope running from north to south at
at all. Whale sharks can be observed below around 25 to 80 feet/8-24mt. Impressive wire
swimming amongst the schooling snappers, coral and lettuce leaf corals lines the side of
and will come up the water column all the this wall and forms a perfect habitat for spot-
way to the surface sifting the water as they ted moray eels, lobsters and trumpet fish.
feed on the spawn. Seeing a whale shark on Spotted eagle rays may also be seen gliding
every dive is not a guarantee, so it’s advisable along this wall.
Laughing Bird Caye Drop Off - At the 15 to
25 feet/5-8mt, sandy patches make this site a
perfect location for open water training and
checkout dives. A coral wall slopes down
gradually from about 25 to 80 feet/8-24mt.
Sightings here could include lobsters, barra-
cudas, lizardfish, Nassau grouper, angel fish,