Diving in Belize and Other Adventures

Okay, it's day 5 in this condo in San Pedro and I'm starting to feel like I could live here and figure things out pretty quickly. I'm getting a sense of being "at home" in this place. I told Bryan when we get home we need to have some serious talks because I have become quite fond of this country and I still think it would be a place to relocate to or at least purchase vacation property. I have some ideas....And Kitten would love it here, too!

Anyway, Scott and I were able to dive on Wednesday with a company called Chuck and Robbie's. Our bartenders at a couple of the nearby spots recommended them so we thought we'd try them out. Plus, they are steps outside the condo doors. The dive master took the two of us diving and brought along four people, including Bryan, for snorkelling. The trip out itself was quick, as you can seen the edge of the reef from shore. I imagine there are tons of diving opportunities out there and I don't think I would get bored of going down and watching the sea life in action, but I digress.

The first (and only) dive was out to Hol Chan, a Mayan word for "little channel". This spot is really just a shallow channel in the coral connecting sea life out to the deeper ocean. It's a bit of a drift dive as well, as we were quickly taken out to the edge of the reef by the current and then had to fight our way back against it. It was fun, though not difficult, and watching the fish try to work their way back up the channel was pretty cool - they formed a single-file line and stayed as close to the bottom as possible. Even a little ray was fighting that current very well!

As mentioned, this was a shallow dive, only 25 feet at the maximum, so it was over quick and didn't really give us too much to see. But I'm happy to have gotten out because the weather was not looking good for further trips, especially to the Blue Hole while we were here.

The second stop was just for a snorkel, called Shark Ray Alley. It is pretty shallow there and I don't think it would have been a great dive, but the guys on the boat brough out some bait to coax the fish out and suddenly we were in the middle of 5 nurse sharks and 3 big sting rays. I've never seen rays feed but they were incredibly aggressive, ripping apart that bait like it was going out of style! And they're so stealthy, just appearing in front of us without warning.

The nurse sharks were so elegant; I "pet" one as well - she felt sort of rough but not in a sharp manner. One shark had to be bigger than me because when she swam underneath I thought I could ride her! Of course, everything looks bigger under the water.

After diving, we hit Sandbar for lunch. I'm sure I've mentioned it, but the boys are always looking for a sports bar, so here they were in heaven - pizza and sports, just like at home!

I like the dogs at Sandbar: one older dog, Stella, and the puppy, Lola. True to nature, that puppy would not give Stella a moment of peace!!

 

Scott isn't as used to walking as much as Bryan and I so he decided we should rent a golf cart for the day. For $50 US, we got one for 24 hours and the guys were super excited.

As it turns out, it was probably a wise investment for that particular day as we needed to go talk to one dive shop about the Blue Hole that was way down the beach and then we had heard about a bar called Palapa that was across "the bridge" on the other half of Ambergris. (I learned this is pronounced am-ber-griss, with the accent on the ber.)

People told us Palapa was just across the bridge but I think it was more like just across the bridge and then keep walking for another mile! It was far down the road and I think I may have given up if we had tried to walk there (and that does not happen often).

The selling feature of Palapa is their inner tubes in the water, so you can drink and hang out in the sea! They even have a rope system to serve your beer down from the top bar level! Bryan and I were intrigued but of course we have our opinions on what would make it "better", haha. It's definitely a fun way to spend a hot afternoon.

While there, we ran into some people we had seen in Hopkins. They, of course, remembered us because of Bryan and his sling. (He's our monster, no one forgets us when he's around!). They had met another couple so all of us spent a few more hours together in the water until the one guy asked if we wanted dinner. He'd either caught or purchased freshly caught fish right there and the restaurant cooked it up with rice, beans, coleslaw, etc. The fish was super tasty, unbelievably so! I think he said it was snapper. They coated it with a light coconut batter and fried it, but it remained fresh-tasting, light and absolutely not greasy.

 

A fun afternoon spent with new friends, we all had a fabulous time. The sun makes everyone happy, right???

 

 

Thursday was a down day for all of us. My sore throat was back (probably from acting as the horn for our golf cart on the ride back from Palapa) and the boys were tired. We had a lovely dinner in the condo of macaroni and cheese and were off to bed around 9. But, we had an early morning to be ready for...

 

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