Belize is famous as a dive destination, but there’s more to this Central American country than what’s underwater.

Photographs by Scott Wintrow.




About 60 miles off the coast of Belize, over fields of brain coral and schools of multihued tropical fish, lies scuba diving’s crown jewel. It measures more than 1,000 feet in diameter and is hemmed with underwater vegetation. Its color is a shade of blue not found elsewhere in the azure Caribbean Sea. And on a topographic map, it is the closest cousin to an intergalactic cosmic fissure.

It is the Blue Hole, the result of a seismic anomaly that occurred during the last glacial period, nearly 110,000 years ago, when sea levels were much lower. Yet it wasn’t until 1972, when Jacques Cousteau motored his trusty sleuth, the Calypso, over the opening to chart its depths, that the Blue Hole became a household name in diving circles.