Belize - Snorkeling Tour

A serene view of the dock taken in the early morning!! We woke to clouds - bummer - this was our snorkeling day trip and we all wanted sunshine - but it was NOT to be!!

Glenn fixed us a nice breakfast scramble of bacon, eggs, potatoes and cheese and it was delicious!! Then it was out to the dock to wait for the boat to pick us up!! 3 other people were on the snorkeling tour with us and soon we headed out across the ocean to the reef!! It was breezy but still warm of course.

Soon we were out to the reef and I was dismayed at the waves - oh my - did I really think the ocean was going to be calm??? I guess so since the shoreline was as smooth as glass!! As soon as we got out there Joel, our guide, pulled over to the ranger (yes, there was a ranger stationed in a boat out there - I questioned Glenn about it and he said of course there was - just like we have rangers in our parks, there are rangers out at the reef also!!) to check in and soon we were getting on our equipment and crawling into the water.

Oh my, the waves were bad - I panicked for a little while and didn't have my mask tight enough so kept swallowing salt water - finally we got it tightened enough that it was secure and I felt much better then!!

It was a guided tour by Joel and we kind of followed him in the water and he would stop and point out certain things in the water that we would see!! At times the water was quite cloudy - and Joel explained that because of all the rain, it made the sea water cloudy at the top - if you would dive down about 5 feet, it was crystal clear - but I didn't do that!!

There were lots of places though that it was clear and we saw lots of brightly colored fish and it was amazing that they just swim right by you!! We saw eels and a shark and lots of coral on the reef - the colors weren't as vibrant as we had hoped since the sun wasn't shining through on them but we enjoyed it all the same!!

Going out to the reef was easy as we were going with the current - coming back was another story as you had to actually swim against the current to get back to the boat!! Glenn did great for the little time he had to practice and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the reef and all the places that fish could get under and break his line when he's fishing - it's a whole other world down below!! I felt like I was on the movie set to Nemo!

It was back to the boat after our time was up and it was REALLY cold as the wind was blowing and there was no sunshine!! Joel drove the boat another 3 or 4 minutes to Shark Ray Alley!! Some of the people jumped in right away with their snorkeling gear but I opted to stay in the boat a few minutes to take pictures!! Joel threw some chum out and before long, the sharks arrived and were eating away!! It was hard to capture the sharks but at least this picture turned out pretty well!!

We snorkeled around the boat for quite a while and soon it was time to head back!! We took pictures (that are on all accounts pretty bad!!) of what we looked like after we pulled our snorkeling gear off and were sitting there COLD!!!

Then it was back to the condo to wash off the seawater and head downtown for lunch!!

We picked up a few more grocery items that the guys hauled back as were spending the afternoon shopping since it had cooled off some and was cloudy!! There were a lot of nice shops we browsed through and I even found my Christmas ornament - I love it!!! Also picked up a nice pair of brown wooden earrings to match a necklace I have and another shell necklace with earrings to match!! A mango/pineapple smoothie rounded out the afternoon before we walked home - and just in time too as it started POURING not long after we reached the condo!!

We headed back downtown late afternoon for drinks at a local place and then came back home for fish tacos, guacamole and cerviche!! Joleen had said before we went that she would do the cooking so I do the clean up - works out great for both of us!!!

We finished our game of Phase 10 and once again Joleen was the winner -it's time to replace her winning streak with someone else I think - ME!!!!! To Be Cont'd....................