Belize - Tobacco Caye - Saturday

Tobacco Caye - this tiny island is home to about 20 full-time Belizeans - no school building of course so any children spend the week on a nearby island and come home only on the weekends!! There's very little space on this island that isn't occupied by something - in fact, Hurricane Mitch leveled most of the island in 1998 so most everything has been rebuilt - which is ALSO hard to believe!! Sand, sun and salt are certainly hard on the buildings!!

Even though I slept so badly, I awoke early as Glenn had headed out the door a little earlier to fish!! I crept outside to take this picture of the brightly colored chairs, noting the gray, cloudy skies at the same time!!

Here's a picture of our little cabin - Joleen and Martin were on one side and we were on the other side!!

One thing I immediately noticed about the island were the abundance of conch shells - those beautiful pink large shells!! In fact, there are hundreds and hundreds of these on the island and they're used partly to decorate and partly to put along the shore to help keep the island intact!! I loved how every tree was surrounded by these beautiful shells!!

Soon the dinner bell was clanging - yes, the cook had a western type triangle that she used when it was time to eat and of course you could hear it all over the island!! Breakfast was great and we were famished once again - sausage, scrambled eggs, fry jacks and juice!!! The fry jacks were kind of like a fry bread and they had the best mango jelly to put on them!! Now coffee was another story - it was instant!! But we weren't complaining!!

Jo and I took a walk around the little island to check it out - I think it took all of 5 minutes to circle around!! We saw this huge nest on top of this old building and pretty soon this large bird flew out of it!!

The skies soon opened up and it rained off and on all day - I was really hoping to see the sun but it just didn't happen on Saturday!! Below is a picture of the smallness of the island - I am standing on the boat dock where we came in last night - and on the other side you can see the ocean - amazing!!! The red building is where we ate our meals - I LOVED all the brightly colored buildings!!

Here's a picture of the little bar - the sun must have peeked out for a moment because the background sure looks bright!!!

The two guys and Joleen fished quite a bit - I of course opted to read - I believe I was on book #2. Here's the catch of the day -which of course was cooked for dinner that evening!

Even though the sun hardly came out and we didn't feel like snorkeling with no sun on our backs, we did enjoy the day and it was very relaxing!! Lunch consisted of meat patties (these deep fat fried pockets with fish inside - delicious!!) coleslaw and fruit and it was all very good!! I was surprised when the darkness arrived, about 5:30!! Once again we used our flashlights when we walked over to eat!

I think the guys look a little grumpy in this picture - but actually they were SO hungry that they didn't even want to stop eating to smile!!! It's amazing what "island life" does to your appetite!!

We headed over to the bar after dinner to have one quick drink and even though the guys really thought they should head to bed (at 7:30????? on vacation????) we told them they HAD to come back to the dining room to play a game with us!! I had brought Phase 10 to play, and my IPOD and docking station and we cranked the music up and had a great evening together!!!

No storm on Saturday night - no breeze either - but I slept like a rock.........To Be Cont'd.......