The day dawned clear and bright and with a sense of anticipation. Today was our first day of diving for this trip. We gathered our gear into various bags and backpacks and loaded them into our bike baskets for the 5 minute ride to the dive shop. Scuba Sensation must be the most quaint dive shop in the world. Right on the Caribbean and underneath huge palm trees it is one room of about 75 square feet. Painted with bright colors and surrounded by a small wooden fence about 10 feet from the building that defines the bike parking lot for the day. Bert, the owner and guide, is outgoing and friendly with a quick laugh and a clever comment ready for anyone who enters.

Today would take us to Esmeralda, a dive spot near the island of Ambergris Caye with huge coral canyons and an abundance of nurse sharks and marine life. Christian, John and I were joined on the dive by Asia and Wren from Canada. Asia is a commercial diver in the cold waters of Canada and fascinated us with stories of her occupation. The dives were fantastic. Amazingly clear, blue water as the backdrop to huge coral formations and sea life never disappoints. After both dives we stopped by San Pedro (the town on Ambergris Caye) for lunch. When you’ve been on Caye Caulker, San Pedro is like going to the big city. In reality Ambergris Caye is a small island, 25 miles long and a mile wide at its widest point. Much of the island has yet to be developed and its only “city” of San Pedro boasts about 10,000, with the island’s total population somewhere being around 20,000. So after being on an island with less than 2,000 people, this does qualify as “going to town” as my grandparents used to say. We ate lunch at a small restaurant called My Secret Deli, which struck me as odd since the place is not a secret (it’s on a busy street) and it’s not even a deli. But the one room restaurant with a kitchen in the back separated from the 4 tables up front with a counter, is a great little place with authentic Belizean food. After dining on grilled chicken and rice and beans (not to be confused with beans and rice which is a different dish), we took a few minutes to walk the narrow streets of San Pedro. The culture here is more similar to the Yucatán Peninsula than to other places in Belize (even than its close neighbor Caye Caulker), and since I’m endlessly fascinated by other cultures, I love everything about it.

The return boat ride was uneventful but always beautiful. Bert, Mike, and Garret from the dive shop make everything easy for us and will willingly take charge of all our gear for the duration of the trip, keeping everything clean and ready to go.

We decided a quiet evening at home after our busy day sounded just right. Cooking up some things we got at the produce stand and relaxing with a good book. Tomorrow promises another exciting day, but those seem to happen often here.