If you are planning a dive trip to Belize, you may be wondering if there are any sharks in Belize.
The 7 most likely sharks you might see in Belize include the Caribbean reef shark, nurse sharks, whale sharks, the great hammerhead shark, tiger sharks, bull sharks and lemon sharks. But the most common sharks you are likely to see include the Caribbean Reef shark and the nurse shark.
The best way to dive Belize and to hopefully see more sharks, is by a scuba diving liveaboard. You can check the latest and best deals on Belize liveaboards using the following window:
The following article includes at least one video of each of the sharks encountered in Belize, as per the following list of sharks:
The Caribbean reef shark.
Nurse sharks.
Whale shark.
Great Hammerhead shark.
Tiger sharks.
Bull sharks.
Lemon shark.
Either before or after reading about sharks in Belize, you might like to take a look at Belize liveaboards in the following table:
This list of Belize liveaboards is in descending customer rating order, followed by Scuba Diving Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating, see below), so the liveaboards with the highest customer rating and the best SDE lux rating will be at the top of the list. If you want to change the list order, use the “Sort by” dropdown below.
The Scuba Diving Earth Luxury Rating (SDE Lux Rating) is explained on each liveaboard review when you click the “Discover Liveaboard” link, and is my own Liveaboard Luxury Rating I’ve assigned to all liveaboards. Choosing between liveaboards is helped by customer scores, and if you get stuck choosing between two or three liveaboards, where each one has a high customer score out of 10, you can use the SDE Luxury Rating to help narrow down your choice.
Think about it like using Booking.com when searching for the best hotel. Booking.com also use a customer score where each customer rates hotels out of 10. This is similar to the liveaboard customer rating, which is also rated out of 10. But let’s say you only like to stay in hotels rated 8 and above on Booking.com, but you also want the hotel to have WIFI or parking, or to have a swimming pool etc. The features each hotel has is usually secondary to the score out of 10.
The Caribbean reef shark lives in Belize
Possibly one of the most common sharks in Belize, and across the whole of the Caribbean for that matter, is the Caribbean reef shark. The following video is of a Caribbean reef shark in Belize.
One of the most common sharks, and possibly the most friendly of all sharks, is the Belize nurse shark. Nurse sharks are often encountered when snorkeling or scuba diving in Belize, as can be seen from the next two videos.
But having said nurse sharks are ‘friendly‘, you still need to respect them, as they can bite the unwary diver or snorkeler too. This can be seen from the next video, so be aware and respect wild creatures! I suggest you don’t touch them.
If you are lucky when you’re diving or snorkeling in Belize, you may come across the magnificent whale shark. I’ve included two videos of divers swimming with whale sharks in Belize.
One of the most amazing sharks that can be spotted when you’re diving in Belize, and if you’re really luck too, is the great hammerhead shark, as can be seen from the next two videos.
The following video shows that if you love to dive with sharks, and if you’re like me and absolutely love hammerhead sharks, always, always look out into the blue.
The following video shows how you might get rewarded if you do, and see a great hammerhead shark like this one in Squalor Martello in Belize.
Scuba diving with MASSIVE 15 foot Tiger Shark in Belize!
And if you need convincing about tiger sharks in Belize, here is a volunteer roping a seven-foot tiger shark so it can be measured, sampled, and tagged to aid in conservation efforts.
There are lemon sharks in Belize, as shown in the following video. Blink and you’ll miss it though! This lemon shark was spotted at Silk Caye, Placencia, Belize.
People ask if there are great white sharks in Belize too, which is one of the largest sharks in the world, after whale sharks and basking sharks.
Are there any great white sharks in Belize?
There are no great white sharks in Belize, as great whites prefer cooler waters. The waters around Belize are 27-29°C (81-84°F) and great white sharks prefer coastal and offshore waters with water temperatures between 12-24°C (54-75 °F) instead.
I hope you enjoyed this page about are there any sharks in Belize
If you have more questions either about snorkelling or scuba diving (or specifically about are there any sharks in Belize), please comment below with your questions.
Please share your experiences, plus dive sites, resorts and liveaboards you recommend. Share the time of year of your trip together with what you saw, the visibility, currents and dive operator, as this will help others who read this page.
There will also be many more pages and articles about scuba and scuba diving safety tips (and on snorkelling too) for you to read and learn about this fabulous sport.
Have fun and be safe!
Are There Any Sharks In Belize?
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Article written by Russell Bowyer who has been a scuba diver since diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1989. After his first dive he trained as a BSAC diver in the UK. He attained his Diver Leader certification with BSAC. He then went on to become a scuba diving instructor, teaching others how to dive and was voted as Diving Officer and Treasurer for the Saffron Walden BSAC club too. Russell has dived all over the world, including the UK, on liveaboards in the Red Sea, the Caribbean, South Africa and the USA. Russell is experienced in all dive types, including drift diving, deep dives that involved decompression stops and recreational dives too.
