February 19th-Day trip to San Pedro

Can I really compare a Caribbean island in Belize to the island of Manhattan? Maybe it’s not such a stretch….

We set out early on Sunday morning on our bikes to catch the water taxi. We would spend the day on the neighboring island of Ambergris Caye. For $16 each (USD) each way the water taxi would deposit us in San Pedro, the islands town. Once to San Pedro we walked through town and found a golf cart to rent for the day.

After being on Caye Caulker, San Pedro seems very large and extremely busy. It’s similar to the feeling I get when I take a trip from Brandon to Manhattan, so great is the difference. We rode around for a time, just re-familiarizing ourselves with the town. We headed south of town since that’s where the church we wanted to attend was located. The roads were a lot rougher than I remembered. I wondered several times how the golf carts here held together, and several passed us at (what seemed to me) an unreasonable and dangerous rate of speed on these roads although it couldn’t have been more than 20 mph.

We finally arrived at church about 20 minutes later and pulled our golf cart into the tiny parking lot. The road leading to the church may have been the bumpiest road I had ever been on in my life, so everyone here must be fully committed. The crowd was pretty diverse. At least 75% were Belizean with the rest being either tourists or resident Americans or Canadians. The church itself was nice, with A/C, plush chairs, and a large stage. The service was not so different from a service in the U.S. with some touches that are decidedly more Belizean.

After church we found some BBQ near the beach for lunch and then continued our ride around the island for a couple more hours. We stopped a few times along the way, but mostly we just rode. Ambergris Caye is a large island, and a busy one. It’s beautiful in its own way and there is certainly always something going on. Many people prefer it to Caye Caulker, but after spending time on Caye Caulker I now have the same thing to say about this busier island as I do about the busy island of Manhattan. It’s a nice place to visit but….

link to the video of the day           https://youtu.be/WqM88yYzxSE

February 18th…. now with memories of the magical on top of the horrific

Saturday had a dive scheduled but that wasn’t making me feel any better. I always think that this date is not going to affect me anymore, it’s just a number! Of course for a while just saying the date brought tears to my eyes, so at least I’m beyond that. I’ve never thought there was so much sentimentality in me about anniversaries. But the anniversary of the hardest and most painful day of my life seems different. I can’t help replaying in my mind images of my twisted arm with bone pieces coming out or that terrifying emergency room scene that I can remember clearly but still can’t put down in words. Don’t get me wrong, God had been faithful and I honestly feel I’ve gotten more good than bad from the whole experience, but this day marks the beginning and the very worst part.

But I tried to put on a good face and get ready for the day. I’m not sure how successful I was, Christian of course didn’t comment on my mood anyway.

We boarded the dive boat under a warm, sunny sky. Today we were joined by a couple from Wisconsin and I was distracted from my grim thoughts as they told us stories of their travels in Indonesia and Thailand.

On the way out I was mostly trying to stay quiet wit’s most of my talking being in my head in the form of prayer. But the warm wind and turquoise water were already softening my mood. As Bert guided the boat into a small cut through of an uninhabited island, he slowed the motors and suddenly 2 dolphins appeared. We were all excited (especially me I think) but they didn’t hang around too long. But before we even resumed the trip Mike spotted 2 manatees. We kept seeing the sandy trail they were leaving on the shallow bottom but were unable to glimpse the animals themselves. They finally emerged briefly, a mom and a baby, which explained the shyness as she protects her calf. Somehow I could feel this day getting better already. I was hopeful that the dive may also bring more excitement.

As soon as we dropped down on our first dive we saw lionfish lined up under ledges as if they were waiting for us. By the time Bert got down with the zookeeper, Christian had killed 4 lionfish. And it didn’t stop there. The guys were shooting lionfish as fast as they could while I enjoyed the underwater landscape and looked for something out of the ordinary to video (something I didn’t already have hours of footage of anyway). More than halfway through the dive, Bert signaled that he saw a ray resting in the sand. Sure enough, a small sting ray was just below us, but that’s not really out of the ordinary. But then Bert motioned that he saw another ray, this time in front of us, which usually means an eagle ray. Bert can spot things no one else seems to be able to and I even often have trouble finding what he’s pointing out. I finally saw the beautiful ray gliding through the water in the distance. We see eagle rays fairly often, but are rarely able to catch much more than a glimpse since they are generally very skittish around divers. But that didn’t keep me from trying. I swam forward with the GoPro to see if maybe I could see him well enough to get a shot. I swam toward him and to my surprise he only glided in a slow, graceful arc toward my left. I followed very closely and he seemed to almost slow down, making it possible for me to keep up. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, I ended taking almost 2 minutes of video of this exquisite creature.

The dive was over shortly and we spent the surface interval talking about the success of the dive and eating lionfish ceviche. The second dive would prove even more exciting than the first. The lionfish were again there, but we also came across a large sea turtle that literally swam in circles around me while I videoed. Then there was the hungry, free-swimming eel (they are usually hiding) who fought to pull a lionfish of a spear, and the longest trumpet fish I had ever seen! I thought it couldn’t get better until Bert spotted another eagle ray just before we surfaced and I was able to also able to get close enough to video this one!

Wow!

The boat ride back seemed to be as magical as the rest of the day with the ocean displaying more varied shades of blue than I would think possible, and after we returned home and showered, John treated us to dinner at the loveliest restaurant on the island, which we had never visited.

I intend to remember this day when the next February 18th rolls around. The other memories will always be there as well, but now those memories will be tempered with thoughts of the charmed day I’ve had, and just when I needed it. God is still faithful!

link to video for the day       https://youtu.be/xmtwABf_2oU

The Art of relaxation

Re-lax-a-tion
Noun
1. The state of being free from tension and anxiety. Synonyms : calm, tranquil, peaceful, loosening up, unwinding
2. In Physics- the restoration of equilibrium following disturbance

I haven’t always considered relaxation an “art”. As a teenager I could lay around for hours on end reading or watching T.V. (We didn’t have Netflix then). But somewhere in the middle of job-marriage-children, I no longer believed I should have any down time. My self-worth became dangerously entangled with busyness. It’s a common trap in our hurried culture (at least for adults/parents, teenagers don’t seem affected) that we must be always accomplishing something. Even on vacation I always had a plan. When my children were young and we took a trip to Disneyworld, I had every moment planned so we could get the most out of our vacation (6 year olds don’t need a nap anyway do they?) Now I can’t say I regret any of it, we did have a lot of fun and saw a lot of stuff, but fun and relaxation aren’t the same thing. Even now I tend to think we need a goal for every day of vacation. It could be diving or sightseeing but unwinding somehow does not seem a worthy goal for any day. So with this in mind, we decided to spend several days “relaxing”. The question is “How do we even do that?” I’m not looking to be bored, I just need to remind myself how to get away from schedules and busyness for a few days. It’s amazing that it could be so hard, but it’s worth a try.

The first day without a plan I kept thinking, “ok, it’s __ o’clock and what have we done today?” I hate the idea of wasting time, but is relaxing wasting time? While a few years ago I would’ve said YES without hesitation, now I don’t really think so. I think the rest of my life will go more smoothly (i.e. my attitude will be better) if I learn to relax. So I decided I was not going to even look at the clock or think about what time it was (we do have the luxury of that here).

This is not to say we layed around and watched Netflix for 4 days. Even just to have something to eat here requires biking, which I really enjoy and definitely counts as relaxing to me. So during our 4 days of relaxation we
-spent time on the beach/pool deck/sofa reading
-biked through town numerous times
-visited the Belize Estuary
-had dinner with new friends on their spectacular rooftop deck
-shopped and cooked
-spent an afternoon “swimming” in the ocean (it was really just floating in the water)                                -sat on a dock to watch the sunset in the evening                                                                                     -edited some video
-watched a few movies
-visited with John and Susan

So our relaxation was a success! (It seems I still can’t stop judging the “success” of a day). But I do feel more “chill” and tomorrow we will dive again….

here’s a link to the video of the Belize Estuary                 https://youtu.be/AQLLcsOo3RI

February 5th and 6th

Sunday is definitely a day off in Belize- tourists or no tourists. There are a few restaurants open and lots of BBQ-ing on the beach going on (much of which is for sale), but generally it’s a low key day. No diving, just relaxing. We rode our bikes around the south end of the island. It’s much less developed with houses here and there that all have their solar panels, wind turbines, and water catchment systems thanks to being totally off the grid. Once around the south end we came back to the airport and into Bahia, the neighborhood where many local Belizeans live and a few ex-pats.

Seeing the way different people live always interests me (also one reason I like home health). Very few locals seem to have air conditioning, which is hard to imagine in this climate, and leave doors open and spend time outdoors (esp on a Sunday). Some houses leave me with the feeling that’s there’s a strong sense of community, but the houses in poor condition and often with trash in the yard are a little sad and seem to be surrounded by a cloud of hopelessness. Of course I think the same thing about homes I sometimes see (or visit) in rural Mississippi during a workday.

The Super Bowl was the big event for the evening, so we went and got pork chops and chicken from one of the guys who grill down on front street (what we jokingly refer to as beach meat). The game was, of course, exciting. But we were probably more excited about our day tomorrow, we seem to have a little different perspective here.

Monday morning was maybe the most beautiful one yet. Clear skies, warm air and a slight breeze greeted us as we rode our bikes to the dive shop. We “parked” our bikes in the little lot and stood around talking to Burt before we headed for the pier. Out dive spot today is a spot just south of the island but is not frequented by many divers for some reason. The short boat ride took us to what looked to me like the same spot of water as we’d been before (of course the short ride told me differently). I wonder how in the world Burt and Mike can tell one piece of gorgeous water from another, but they say they’ve been doing it so many years it comes easy- guess I’ll just have to take their word for it.

The dives were once again spectacular! Much the same but also completely different. Different types of coral formations but an abundance of every kind of tropical fish imaginable along with Lionfish, eels, turtles, rays and more. In between dives as the guys were making Lionfish ceviche, I couldn’t help but jump back into the crystal turquoise water with mask and snorkel. Not in any hurry but just floating around. We stop inside the reef for the interval because the water is calmer, and there is a largely white sand bottom with small rock formations covered in coral with colorful fish around them. Sting rays tend to glide along these sandy bottoms and a large one hung around the boat eating the Lionfish scraps as they were thrown back into the water.

After returning to the island we took a bike ride around town and down side streets just to explore. We stopped by our favorite fruit stand for some freshly squeezed orange juice and went by the market before returning home. These days can be very tiring and dinner in the guest house and a Netflix movie ended the night perfectly. I wonder if it would even be possible to tire of this…

Strong rain woke me around 5 a.m. and of course my first thought was our scheduled dive today, but the shower ended quickly and the sun brought only a few clouds and gusty winds. Once at the dive shop Bert assured us the water looked good and the winds would die down (and of course he turned out to be right). We headed out to Spanish Bay for the day. The 45 minute boat ride south of the island took us past countless uninhabited (and a few inhabited) small islands surrounded by impossibly turquoise water. Today would be primarily about Lionfish. Since this spot is not heavily frequented by most dive shops, there are plenty of the beautiful fish around. Lionfish are an invasive species in the Caribbean with no natural predators. They reproduce quickly and can eat large amounts of reef fish. Because of this, they are the only fish that Belize allows to be speared while scuba diving (all other fish can be taken while snorkeling, free-diving or fishing traditionally only) and there is no limit and no license required. Lionfish are beautiful to see in the water with numerous colorful spines waving all around them, but they are venomous to the touch. Since they have no natural predators, they do not typically flee when you get close to them. They do like to hide under ledges and indentations in the coral, so you have to do a little searching. The dive group today was me and 5 men, so I gladly took my usual job of videoing while they “hunted.”

Although Lionfish were the goal of the dive, there were also spectacular coral formations in the form of huge fans waving in the current hiding every color and description of tropical fish. We also spotted a giant stingray burying itself in the sand, a spotted moray eel, huge crabs and lobsters, and graceful sea turtles and spotted rays. The visibility seemed even better than usual and from 80 feet you could clearly see the boat on the surface and the large schools of blue wrasse in the distance.

We came up with a large catch and the crew made us Lionfish ceviche during our surface interval. This is always one of my favorite parts of these days, sitting on the boat in this beautiful water with no land in sight, getting to know the other divers and crew a little better and eating the best ceviche I’ve ever had. Today’s divers included Mike from Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Jack from Australia who is backpacking through Central America by himself for a month during his summer break from University in Melbourne. Everyone has a story, whether it’s Jack from Australia or one of the crew who have lived in Belize their entire lives- and hearing them is one of the things I love about traveling.

Our 2nd dive was a huge success as well and all to soon we were headed home. We sped into the wind with choppier water but the same gorgeous views. We took some Lionfish home for dinner at John’s and were joined by his other renters from Canada for the evening (yet more stories to listen to). Lionfish are so unbelievably mild and flaky with the most delicate flavor that cooking them is simple.

Days spent with friends (old and new) and doing something you love in such a beautiful setting is something I could never tire of and I don’t take a minute of it for granted.