Belize's Blue Hole - What's all the fuss about?
Posted By Vladimir Soto on 23 November 2005
We all crave to be special. If we were a city or a country, it´d be no different. A doctorate in dwarf albino nudibranchs' reproductive systems, a grand canyon, a Calatrava-built bridge, an Eiffel tower, tall, dark and handsome...whether we are human or geographical location, we crave something that will set us apart from the rest and make us special, or better yet, irresistible in the eyes of the beholder. Cozumel has its currents, Truk has its wrecks, Galapagos has everything except warm water, Belize has its Blue Hole.
Belize is already fortunate enough to have running along its shores the second largest reef system in the world, and if the gorgeous blue hues of its waters or the picture perfect single coco- tree Lilliputian islands sprinkled all over its domain weren't enough to make Belize feel sufficiently special and pretty, it has The Blue Hole to draw attention to it. Kinda like Cindy Crawford's distinguished, memorable and highly differentiating mole.
If you've been around the sport or even sport practitioners, chances are you've heard about the Blue Hole. Its fame is such, it has practically become homologous with diving in Belize. "Hey, you're back! How was the diving in BelizedidyoudivetheBlueHole?" And if you've been around the sport or around Belize much you could probably expect one of two kinds of coloring to tint the response to such a question: passion or contempt.
Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Belize's Blue Hole's magic is in the masked eyes of the diver who explores it. So, is it worth it? Is it cool? What's the fuzz all about? You be the judge.
The Blue Hole is actually not that unique to Belize. Just as other supermodels or even girls next door might have an attractive mole, other countries have their own blue holes. Even Belize has more than one, but the one we constantly hear about, the Big Blue Hole, is unique because of its size and depth. But more on that later. First a bit of geological history.
The Blue Hole is a geological oddity, so much so that in March of 1996 it was declared a World Heritage Site and later declared a National Monument in February of 1999. The Hole used to be, once upon a time millions of years ago, a complex system of dry caves. Scientists believe there were a couple of peculiar events that made the Hole what it is today. First, an earthquake of such force it might have tilted Lighthouse Reef, the area where the Blue Hole is located, to an angle of 12 degrees. Secondly, the melting of the last Ice Age flooded the cave system. Eventually, the porous limestone ceilings of the caves became incapable of supporting their own weight and they crumbled, leaving an almost perfectly round and deep hole in the process.
The Blue Hole is almost 1000 feet in diameter and over 450 feet deep. Its walls are almost perfectly vertical and fairly smooth, except at a few points where there are large ledges and overhangs. It is here that we find enormous stalactites (hanging down), stalagmites (building up) and columns (when stalactites and stalagmites meet) dating from the Pleistocene period. Due to the earthquake mentioned above, some stalactites hang at a 12-degree angle, cluing scientists such an event happened since stalactites cannot form except in a perfectly perpendicular manner. Some formations that happened after the earthquake are indeed perpendicular, and in some of the stalactites that formed before the earthquake one can see the top parts being at an angle and their bottom parts, which kept forming afterwards, being perpendicular.
Jacques Cousteau made the Blue Hole famous in 1972, when he took his famous research vessel, the Calypso, into Lighthouse Atoll and traced a route that is used by dive boats to this day. In fact, it is erroneously often mentioned that Philippe Cousteau, his son, was killed during this trip. However, that happened while he was operating a light-wing plane in Lisbon, Portugal a few years later.
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
