Dynargh dhe'n Blogofrob

Tuesday 5th April 2011

I feel a bit silly now, getting so worked up over seeing one measly turtle in Roatan. In our snorkelling trip to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve off the coast of Caye Caulker in Belize we bobbed around with loads of them - along with dozens of rays, barracuda, a huge and terrifyingly confident groupa and plenty of other fish of various shapes sizes and colours, all going about their daily business over Belize's barrier reef. Hopefully a record of this menagerie will be on the Underwater Instant camera we bought - that is if it really was waterproof, and if I didn't put my thumb over the lens every time.

The snorkelling trip consisted of 3 further dips off the side of the boat, in different spots around the reef, one of which was in "Shark Alley", where we shared the water with a few nurse sharks, some up to five foot long, all sinister long bodies and opaque blue eyes.

Caye Caulker itself is a Caribbean island, just under 2 hours by boat from Belize City. It's much smaller than Roatan - there are no cars, only golf carts bumbling up and down the sand streets. We stayed in a guesthouse very near "The Split", where a hurricane split the island in half about 30 years ago. The guesthouse boasted its very own deck, extending into the sea. In an attempt to escape the sun's furnace I jumped from the deck, intending to swim around the side of the island and through the Split. After experiencing initial problems owing to the water only reaching up to my shins, and consequently swimming with the seabed brushing my chest, I reached deeper water and swam around to the small artificial beach on the side of the Split (which, owing to the bar at one corner is Spring Break central ("SPRING BREAK!")). I then turned to swim back and found myself in a bit of difficulty. Battling against a very strong current, I just about managed it around the corner of the island, but then found myself splashing around in a choppy and cruel sea. Spluttering and coughing up sea-water I labouriously made my way back towards the deck. After 20 minutes of struggle, seriously worried I could go on no further, I felt I had no option but to tread water for a few minutes, in order to recover my dwindling strength. I put down my legs, only to find myself standing in waist-high water. To complete my humiliation, I found a sea louse sticking to my foot when I climbed out.

Caye Caulker also offered us lots of cocktails (after too many of which I gleefully drew all over the tables and walls of a pizza joint that encouraged the practice), excellent pizzas (see above), playful local dogs and unbelievable amounts of almost unbearably hot sun, at least for our timid North Atlantic complexions. This nourished my/our innate laziness, and apart from our snorkelling excursion we did very little else in our five days there, even ruling out a kayak excursion to the mysterious far side of the Split, where crocodiles lurk in a lagoon, and boa constrictors hang in the trees. Our North Atlantic, or at least Anglo-Saxon, attitude may have also rendered us slightly aloof, on an island where people are forever cycling past trying to get you to buy some cashews, or beads, or lunch at a particular restaurant, or cake (although The Cake Man's cake was amazing), or, and most persistently, tamales - "HOT Tamales, I got HOT tamales, chicken, vegetable, pork TAMALES". At first we felt obliged to politely decline, but over the days we simply ignored the constant solicitations, muttering instead to ourselves, "I don't want any fucking tamales. What the hell are tamales anyway?"

Caye Caulker

148 - posted at 19:30:03
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