Customer Reviews

Honduras And Belize: White Star Guides Diving

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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

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.