Belize Pre-Port Yesterday Evening
The Bamboo Dance at Crew Talent Show
After leaving Guatemala the day before yesterday, where we had the trip up the Rio Dulce, the ship spent one day at sea. This was more because the class schedule needed more time than for any logistical reason, it easily could have been another back-to-back port. It actually felt good to have a day to recover from the four days of traveling in two different countries. We were off the coast of Belize City much of the day yesterday, with the Belizean passport control people coming on board late in the afternoon to get the paperwork out of the way ahead of time.
We also had our last pre-port meeting where they explained the tendering process — which is where instead of pulling up to a dock, the ship anchors off the coast, and ferries come out to the ship to carry everyone to shore. The reason they have to do this in Belize is because the extensive coral reefs and shallow water around the city prevents the ship from getting close to the shore.
After the pre-port meeting, the crew put on a talent show, with some singing and some dancing numbers, with the show ending with the best performance, a traditional Filipino dance, the Tinikling (or bamboo dance), where two performers lift and move these bamboo poles, while the other two performers jump and dance over and between the rapidly moving poles.
The Ship Viewed from the Tender
Coming into Belize City
I had been e-mailing with a snorkeling/dive shop in Belize, named Sea Sport Belize, but at first they said that we’d need a minimum of four people for them to send out a boat and then when I had found two other people to go they said that we’d have to pay in full in advance and they were fairly expensive at $90. Plus their trip would be 4 hours of snorkeling, and given how the Costa Rica snorkeling trip went, Stephanie wasn’t sure that she’d want to go out that long considering how she had to go back to the boat to after 20 minutes in the water. Furthermore I wasn’t excited about paying in full ahead of time with the possibility of having the weather make the experience unpleasant. I discussed it with the two other people, and they concurred, and we all decided to wing it, and just get up and take the tender in, and arrange a trip once we got to the pier.
The Pier in Belize City
As we took the tender in, we talked to others on the tender and discovered that quite a few of them had the same plan. Along the way we could see a thunderstorm off in the distance, with lightning striking every few minutes. But that shouldn’t be a problem because salt water doesn’t conduct electricity, right?
The tender employees directed us to Carlos, a guy with green shorts and blue sunglasses, saying that he could set us up. The other people on the tender said that part of their group didn’t get the tickets for the tender we were on and would be coming in on the next one 30 minutes later. We made a plan to meet back on that location in a half hour at 10 o’clock and then go out snorkeling.
Horse Drawn Carriage in Belize City
French Restaurant Sign
Stephanie and the ship’s nurse and I walked around a very small piece of Belize City to kill time. We were asked if we needed a taxi, or wanted to book a tour, or to take a carriage ride, at nearly every step of the way. We got back to the group at the pier at 10:00, met up with those we were waiting for, and went with Carlos to pay for the trip. It was $60 for two snorkel stops, a stop where we could buy lunch, and free rum punch. It took a while for him to process all of the payments, and before he had finished another group of students showed up wanting to go with us, but first they wanted to check into their hotel. Aarrgh, more delay.
Waiting for the Snorkel Boat to Appear
Water Taxi with other SASers
After they got back from checking in and paid, Carlos walked us over to the dock and started bringing over the equipment, coolers of water and the rum punch. (Some of the girl students who were with our group were all about the rum punch.) While we stood on the dock waiting for the snorkeling boat to appear, a water taxi came in, loaded up with other SASers, and left.
The other group’s plan was to take a water taxi to Caye Caulker, and book a snorkeling trip once there. I thought it would be faster to book with a place that takes you there, handles the snorkeling, and brings you back. We loaded the gear and were ready to go when five more students showed up and wanted to go, so Carlos brought them over to the office to pay, while we sat there and waited some more. Eventually around 10:45 the boat finally pulled away from the dock. I was really thinking other group who took the water taxi had probably made a better choice.
Finally on the Boat
Trying on the Equipment
The trip was to go to Caye Caulker, with the first stop being a coral snorkeling swim, followed by a short jaunt to shark/ray alley where we’d be swimming with sharks and stingrays. The Caye was about 45 minutes away by boat, and along the way we passed the water taxi that had left,which was puttering along at snail’s pace, having engine problems. Maybe they hadn’t made a better choice after all.
Upon arrival at Caye Caulker we first stopped on shore for a 20-minute nature break, and to place orders for lunch, for later. After that it was back in the boat for a lengthy equipment and safety briefing. Once again upon seeing the provided snorkeling gear, I was happy that we had brought our own equipment. Eventually, finally, at last we were able to get in the water around 1:00 P.M. All I could say was “Wow”.
Small Striped Fish- Bluehead Wrasse
Fan Coral
The water was much, much calmer, and much, much clearer than in Costa Rica. I immediately started snapping pictures with the underwater camera, not paying much attention at first to where the guides and our group were, and just being fascinated by all of the different corals and brightly colored fish that were there. Often it was difficult telling whether the fish was even in frame, due to the too-low brightness of the screen on the back of the camera, made worse by the waterproof housing and the bright sun overhead.
A Passing Scuba Diver
I saw fan coral, brain coral, staghorn coral, soft corals that waved in the slight current like plants, even a large coral that looked like a giant pile of spaghetti. I also saw parrotfish, blue tang (like Dory from Finding Nemo), yellowtail, french angel fish, queen triggerfish and many other small brightly colored fish. I also encountered a group of scuba divers swimming by beneath me. I couldn’t tell if they were from the ship or not.
Spaghetti-like Brain Coral
After about fifteen minutes I caught up with the tail end of our group, and found Stephanie gave her the camera for a little bit, before asking for it back and moving off again. Stephanie was having a much better time than in Costa Rica, although having two waterproof cameras might have made it even more enjoyable. It seemed that whenever she had the camera I saw something that I wanted to get a picture of, and vice-versa.
School of Blue Tang
I next saw a moray eel moving around at the bottom looking grumpy and bitey. I tried to follow it enough to get pictures of it, but not enough to piss it off, and managed to get a couple of pictures of it before it hid in a crevice, but none of them were very good. I continued for another 20 minutes swimming after fish trying to get good pictures, but as I would swim closer fiddling with the zoom control, trying to make sure the fish was in frame, the darn fish had an annoying tendency to swim off . It was much easier to take pictures of the coral.
Female Stoplight Parrotfish
Finally after about 40 minutes, I noticed that the group was heading back to the boat. I started in that direction, stopping every so often for more pictures, but somehow I took a wrong turn, and was on the wrong side of a ridge of coral from the group and the boat. I swam along the ridge until I found a slightly deeper spot (that still was only about 18 inches deep), and swam through as carefully and shallowly as I could, to avoid damaging the coral (or myself).
I returned to the boat and was one of the last few to climb aboard; where everyone was talking excitedly about all the different things they saw.
Guide in the Water with a Stingray
We then motored a short way to a place called shark/ray alley which was a non-descript area of 5-foot deep water, that for some reason nurse sharks and sting rays like to hang out. (Maybe because the snorkel guides feed them sardines there regularly.) In any case the stingrays and the sharks seemed acclimated to the guides enough that he could gently hold or move them around without them getting upset enough to sting or bite. .
Stingray Swimming By
Even before entering the water you could see dark shapes moving around in the water, but once you got in you could see them clearly, one coming this way, another passing close by going that way. The stingrays were fascinating to watch, looking like alien creatures from a SciFi movie as they undulated their wings and flew and turned effortlessly in the water. More chilling were the sharks that were swimming around.
Nurse Shark
Sure I know that nurse sharks are mostly docile and harmless, but do they know that? After about 25 minutes most everyone got out, including me, but Stephanie kept swimming around taking pictures for another 5 minutes or so, and during this time she saw a barracuda swim up and pass close by, surrounded by a cloud of small fish like a hip hop star surrounded by his posse.
.
I’m a Barracuda, Yo
Lunch and Rum Punch
After everyone was aboard, we went back to the Caye to the restaurant we had ordered at to have lunch. Along the way the cooler of rum punch was tapped, and it was flowing pretty freely, with some students even filling water bottles to bring to lunch. At the restaurant, the dish I had ordered was curried barracuda, which was delicious but a little tough, and very bony.
Dive Shop next to the Restaurant
With lunch I had a Belizean beer, Belikin Stout, which was my favorite beer of the entire voyage, and the first Central American dark beer I had come across. The lunches came in styrofoam boxes like restaurants use for a doggie bag. When I was waiting to pick up mine someone else got theirs and a part of the fish’s tailfin was sticking out one end of the box and its mouth with its little pointy teeth was sticking out the other end.
Faculty Meeting
We had a little time after that to walk to the end of the island where there is a beautiful sandy beach. While there, we ran into Garrick, and he and Steph had a brief Systems Engineering “faculty meeting” while standing in 18 inches of water. The beach is called the Split because there is a narrow channel between the end of Caye Caulker and the next piece of land some 80 feet away.
Beach at End of Caye Caulker
It was a really pleasant beach and a welcoming, happy, fun little island. We talked about staying the night on the island and trying to figure out how to get back the next day in time for our SAS trip to the Lamanai Mayan ruins. However since we didn’t have a change of clothes or even much money so we decided to go back to Belize City with the snorkeling boat.
Stopping for a Pee Break
Rum Punch
While on the boat back to Belize City, the rum punch was again flowing, with several of the girls climbing out the front porthole to lie on the front deck of the boat. At one point the one girl who had been drinking the most said she had to pee (well duh) and the boat stopped to let her climb down into the water to do so. Eww.
Katie with her New T-Shirt
We got back to Belize City after the 5:00 tender had left and we had to decide whether to try to get on the 6:00 one, or wait until the one after that at 7:30. We walked around town just a little and ran into a few other SASers, including Garrick’s two girls, who had been getting their hair braided for about five hours, and Katie, one of our “extended family” kids. However we found that pretty much everything was closed, so we went back to the dock to wait for the 6:00 tender. We went rode back to the ship with the sun setting over Belize City, and arrived as the sky was growing dark. Stephanie was so tired from the day, that she went right to bed without even getting supper, and slept until morning.
Returning to the Ship after Sunset
Bob Voyage 
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