We woke up early this morning, without effort, when the sun came up. Doc visited the dive shop at 7 a.m. to get fitted for his BCD and to pick up his tanks and other equipment. The one thing that we forgot to pack was his wetsuit, so he used one of the dive shop’s shorty suits, and let me tell you, he looks pretty damn tasty in a shorty! Then he joined me for breakfast. I have a hard time eating this soon after I get up, but I managed to pick at a small bowl of granola with homemade yogurt (awesome!) and toasted coconut on top, and a glass of orange juice.
We got on the dive boat with all our equipment, and took a very bumpy 30-minute ride out to an atoll on the Belize Barrier Reef. Kat and I got off the boat with Giovanni, one of the dive masters, while some other divers from Pelican Beach Resort on the atoll boarded the boat. The divers went out to their dive spot, while Kat and I went to the other side of the atoll to snorkel. We put on our fins, masks, and snorkels, and walked out into the water. The first 20 feet or so of water had a sandy bottom, and then there was a large field of sea grass. After that, the coral reef began.
It was hard work getting out to the reef because the current was really strong. I felt like I was being pulled parallel to the shore the whole time. The current let up a little once we made it out to the reef. The reef itself was really incredible. It’s just like what you see in pictures or on TV. Some of the coral looked like giant yellow or red brains, some like lacy red and purple fans, and some like saguaro cactus. Fish surrounded us everywhere we turned! We saw a large barracuda, a spotted moray eel, bright yellow parrotfish, blue tangs, a huge lobster, and a conch in its shell with eyeballs poking out, among other things. I took some photos with an underwater film camera; I hope they turn out.
My mask kept fogging up really bad, and every minute or so I’d have to flood it with water to clear it. I forgot my mask defogging solution, and the spit technique wasn’t cutting it. Eventually I learned that if I kept just a little bit of water in the bottom of the mask, I could tip my head forward to slosh it around the inside of the mask and that would clear up the fog. Unfortunately, the water doesn’t stay in the eyepieces; it also migrates to the nose compartment. If I’d had a nose plug then I probably wouldn’t have accidentally inhaled a big snoot full of seawater. That hurt like hell. It went all the way through my sinuses and down the back of my throat. ,
I really should have brought my wetsuit boots because the fins hurt my toes and the tops of my feet. I strapped them on pretty tightly but they kept slipping off anyway. The up and down motion of the waves on the surface made Kat a little seasick so we escorted her back to shore, then Giovanni and I went out a second time. After 20 or 30 minutes, he said that the current was too strong and we’d have to head for shore. It was a long time and a hard swim before we made it back.
Apparently when you get water in your sinuses, there are little hidden pockets where it can stay without you realizing it. Every time I bent over for the rest of the day, seawater would come dripping out my nose.
We walked back to the dock side of the island and met up with the divers who were on a break between dives. We drank grapefruit juice from a cooler and ate chocolate coconut cookies as a snack. Doc wrote “Katy + Doc = (heart)” in the sand with his toe, but from upside down the heart looked to me like a light bulb. I knew what it was supposed to be, but I decided to be funny and said ‘Katy + Doc = light bulb?” Then Kat chimed in that it looked like a butt, and Brett said it looked like garlic. So all week we’ve been saying “Lightbulb butt garlic!” to each other as a joke.
The current was too strong to snorkel anymore, so Kat and I waited on the dock while the divers went out again, for about an hour. Giovanni got back on the boat and C-Dog stayed with us; he couldn’t dive anymore because he was too hung over (har!). We decided to wade in the shallows around the dock instead, and he took a nice long nap under a tree. I got sunburned a bit sitting out on the dock. The sun is so intense that it feels like pins and needles on your skin. I’m not sure how much sunblock I’d need in order to not burn, but it was more than I had on, apparently.
While we waited, we watched minnows swimming in the shallows, as well as little black and yellow striped fish, long bluish fish with really long blue needle noses, who would occasionally spit water, and a few other interesting things. A couple of pelicans were diving for fish. They circled the shallows, then dropped out of the sky like a spear and because it was shallow, it looked like they were coming straight down and BOING! getting their beaks stuck in the sand on the bottom. But they were agile and managed to scoop up their meal, turn upright and sit on the water while swallowing. Huge frigate birds circled high overhead; they looked like pterodactyls. I pretended they were.
Doc says that he enjoyed the diving for the most part. He and Brett went down to 60 feet, although Brett was having trouble equalizing the pressure in his ears and mask (maybe he had a cold?). They saw sea turtles, colorful fishies, and some other nifty things.
The boat ride back to the mainland was much calmer than the trip out. We showered and changed, and had lunch. I took my book out to the beach and laid on the sand under a palm tree and read for a while, drinking lots of water (the seasickness medication patch I was using makes my mouth feel very dry). Then I fell asleep for I don’t know how long. Doc wandered around with his camera for a while. Taz, the beach cat, laid down next to me for a bit while I was sleeping. Doc got photos.
Later, we sat on our balcony and talked to Doug and Nish on the next balcony over. We looked at pictures of their 16-month old son, Rohan, which they had on a memory stick that we put into our MacBook Pro for a little slideshow. He is the most adult-looking baby I’ve ever seen, and incredibly cute. Nish visited the bar and brought me back a drink called a Monkey LaLa, which I think probably means something vulgar in the local Garifuna language. It was fantastic – a frozen drink made with coffee, cream, Bailey’s, maybe some Kahlua, maybe some sort of fruit juice, maybe a little coconut.
A while later, we all met for dinner (black bean soup, lasagna, key lime pie, coffee, more Belikin). We invited Kurt and Megan, divers from Wisconsin, to sit with us. They seem really nice. Kurt graduated from Plano Senior High in 1988. Small world!
After dinner we were pretty tired, so after stopping by to see Kat and Brett’s treehouse, we came back to the room and went to bed.
