Honduras And Belize: White Star Guides Diving [Paperback]

Roberto Rinaldi (Author)

Book Description

Series: White Star Guides | Publication Date: April 5, 2005

Both experienced divers and beginners will delight in this colorful guide to the underwater paradise of Honduras and Belize, one of the few books to offer in-depth coverage of this remarkable corner of the Caribbean Sea. With over 400 nautical miles of sea and 800 miles of coastline, the neighboring countries of Honduras and Belize are linked by the second largest coral reef in the world. The reef has reached an extraordinary level of development, and the thousands of cays supply divers with sensational encounters and lively sea floors. This guide, complete with practical information, spectacular images, and full color three-dimensional maps, supplies divers with all they need to make the most of their trip.

Whether a diver likes exploring sunken shipwrecks or colorful thick coral masses, swimming with dolphins or sharks, or admiring unusual fish and plants, this guidebook has tours for all tastes, and covers 32 of the most exciting dive sites. Easy-to-follow maps and descriptions of each site guide the diver in discovering its treasures, while information on what to see at certain times of the day or night helps with the overall planning of tours. Beautifully illustrated cognitive species cards of 106 fish and plants round out this thoroughly engaging guidebook.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roberto Rinaldi, born in 1963, spent years taking fascinating journeys around the world with the legendary Calypso. He has enjoyed a successful career as a freelance journalist working for numerous Italian, French, German, and Japanese magazines, as well as for National Geographic. He has collaborated either as a co-author or photographer on many books about the sea.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: White Star (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8854400572
• ISBN-13: 978-8854400573
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.5 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,977,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A complete and utter failure., April 5, 2009

By 

Ned Middleton (British professional underwater photo-journalist & author) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Honduras And Belize: White Star Guides Diving (Paperback)

The Belize Barrier Reef is almost 200 miles (320 km) long and is the second largest Barrier Reef in the World. One would, therefore, be forgiven for thinking that at least ONE dive site from along that impressive natural structure would have been included in a book which purports to be a diving guide to that country. Not in this book! Belize also has 3 incredible offshore Atoll Reefs which, along with Banco Chinchorro - a few miles to the north in Mexican waters, are the only four true Atoll Reefs in the entire Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. I thought I would add that fact because it is missing from this book - like so much else.

Sixteen dive sites from in and around those Atolls have been both selected and numbered at random in such a way as to suggest the mapping-out process for this book was decided by a group of swinging pensioners during a beach party in which they were cavorting naked under the stars and thinking of the good old days when they looked much better in the flesh. This is a product which proclaims from the top of highest building in the world of diving, "we need to do something on Belize but we can't afford to visit this remarkable diving destinations and do it justice."

Whilst the artwork has moved back into focus from the Corsica guide in this series of books, the depiction of the Blue Hole underwater looks as though the divers are swimming below a huge forest of cooked cabbage.

As for the Honduras half of the book, remarkably the same comments apply. The mainland is avoided at all costs and the questionable choice of 16 sites to represent this country simply are not the best available diving in yet another fantastic submarine destination - and I know both locations very well indeed.

Throughout the book there are several pictures of dismal quality which should never have been considered for publication. Right at the end we find those 24 pages of reconstituted wadding, stuffing or padding (call it what you like) which are repeated from other books. As I have said before, this is where the publishers fill out an unacceptable product with that same old list of fish found in other works in this series. What, no Great White Sharks in this corner of the Caribbean? Oh, I almost forgot, they are all in Corsica.

Altogether this book fails to give the diver a reasonable taste of what might be expected in either Belize or Honduras. There is more information in any decent magazine article about these two fantastic diving destinations where, at least, the information is both relevant and up to date. As a diving guide, therefore, this book is a complete and utter failure.

NM

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not so happy with the book, May 7, 2007

By 

Captain Mike (Hillsborough, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Honduras And Belize: White Star Guides Diving (Paperback)

This book had too little information about what I needed. I'm taking a trip to Roatan, Honduras this year and wanted to get some information to prepare me. There was only 9 pages about the place I was going to, so I returned it.