June 22nd 2012 – Advanced Open Water, Caye Caulker

OK well as much as I dislike doing this blog at the moment I have been informed by Jane that it is a permament record of our experiences on this trip, so even though it is SOOOOOO tedius to keep doing this I have to keep going.

In Egypt in 2010 I did the first three dives of the Advanced Open Water (there are 5 in all), I had little time and I was flying the next day, so to be on the safe side I never completed the whole thing. But I was informed that doing just three of them would result in the Adventure Diver Certification so I did that instead.

Fast forward 2 years and here I am in Belize with the opportunity of completing the last two dives of the AOW with a local dive shop in Caye Caulker. I won’t mention them because I was pretty unimpressed with thier attitude. Anyway I signed up for two dives, Deep Dive (which is mandatory for AOW) and Multi Level Dive. They told me to arrive a 8am to start. I arrived on time and they kept me waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes, I was pretty pissed off by this time.

Anyway… we set out to our first site “Raggedy Anne” for a deep dive. It was quite a plain reef and not much life but then again I was here to dive deep, not to look at pretty fish. I kept an eye on my guages – I didn’t want to descend too fast because I still have problems with my ears. But I managed without incident and for the first time in my diving I reached a depth of 30.2 metres!!! So that’s one mandatory dive done. Cool.

My next dive was a whole different ballgame… this dive was my Multilevel dive, where you start deep and make your way to shallower waters or”levels” with the use of a computer, the idea being that your body starts to expell nitrogen gradually so you can dive safely and don’t have to do too long a safety stop on the way back.

Our next dive took us to “Booring” which to me looked like the hills and mountains of Glencoe – only under 130ft of water, it was truly a sight to behold. We started the dive at Level One (the deepest part, about 27 metres) and glided effortlessly through the underwater plant life and through narrow sand gullies all the time keeping an eye on my guages so as not to inadvertantly go deeper than my first dive of the day (not good).

Half way through Level Two (about 20 metres) the instructor gestured to his ears pointing at them. I assumed he was having trouble with the water pressure. Until I heard it. The unmistakeable sound of sonar, a series of squeaks and clicks. The kind used by whales and dolphins to find thier way (and thier food) in the ocean. We both looked around but the water visability wasn’t perfect – about 10 metres, so we carried on with our dive. Again I heard it and I looked into the blue to see if there was any sign of a whale or dolphin. And suddenly I could see huge outlines ahead, but couldn’t make them out. Was that a group of Pilot Whales? Closer they came… closer… then bam! four HUGE bottlenose dolphins came straight for us, bombing around the rocks and plant life. Initially I thought they were feeding unil of course one blew a bubble ring right in front of me and proceeded to spin the bubble round until it got bigger and bigger then swam through it. Totally incredible! They darted past us, they span around doing forward rolls and pulled things from the rocks just to show they could. I copied them as much as I could to try and keep them interested in us (a trick I learned in New Zealand – Kaikoura), so I did forward rolls and spins, I made high falseto sounds from my throat so they could hear me and made shapes with body, arms outstretched like a starfish, waving my hands like a madman. But it worked, and one of them swam right up to me for a good look, straight in the eyes… so cool. About 10 minutes of total joy for them and for me. By  this time my instructor had basically nicked off and left me, I didn’t see where he was, so I assumed my Multilevel Dive skills were forgotten about once the dolphins arrived. I checked my guages to find I was nearly out of air (a big no no), so I made my way to 5 metres and stayed there for 3 minutes as a safety stop. As I surfaced, the boat  pulled around and I got in. A truly magnificent day and easily the best dive of my life so far. I became an Advanced Open Water Diver that day, how? I’ve no idea, but don’t tell anyone.

June 11th 2012 – Caye Caulker Island

Well here we are, on yet another island, but this time we’ve rented a house – it was time for a bit of space and a kitchen was a priority as we are so bored with eating out, so we’re really looking forward to cooking our own grub. Belize doesn’t seem to have an identity when it comes to its food, its just rice and beans…with something, no seasoning or real flavour, so hopefully we can do better:)

Our home for a month – Valerosa

It only took an hour to cross to the island which sits 21 miles from Belize City. Caye Caulker is part of the barrier reef and sits in a shallow sea only 1 mile from the outer fringe where the coral wall ends and the deep ocean begins. Its really small, about 5 miles by 1 mile at its widest point and basically its just a sand bank held together by mangrove tree roots.

The framework of this island – Mangroves

One of the many jettys

Its really chilled here and we’ve fallen into the ‘modus operandi’ almost immediately, but there is One Big Issue and that’s the insects!  It was really breezy for the first two days, so we were in ignorant bliss just bummin’ around our house, and then it turned still…and the nightmare began! I never thought I’d say this but mozzies are the least of our problems here. The culprits on this island are the sand flies, so small you can barely see them and they are everywhere. Over two days we got so many bites (Jane counted the ones on her legs and gave up at 200) that it was pretty depressing. The agency sent a guy with an arsenal of insecticides, and at the same time the authorities sprayed the streets with a toxic mist that smelled like cat piss. Jane is a bit peeved that we are not living the ‘organic’ life, but I say kill the bastards by whatever means:)

We seem to have stemmed the invasion and things have settled down a bit (we look forward to windy days) but we still get a couple of bites daily. Then there’s the cockroaches – we only seem to have one in the house – it spread its wings and flew around a bit (freakin’ Jane out) before disappearing under the fridge – but we had a whole load of flying roaches squawking around the outside of the house. Our ‘pet’ indoors kept answering back – loudly! Its a wierd noise, like a dog savaging a squeaky toy, no kidding.  Anyway we’ve got used to our cockroach calling to its mates outside. Oh, then there’s the rat I spotted nibbling on my toast in the toaster, and the lizard sitting on the shelf when I opened the kitchen cuboard…life on a small tropical island eh:)

We haven’t booked any diving or snorkling trips yet, but as we are here for three weeks there is no hurry. I will definately be diving the Blue Hole (ear probs permitting it’s 40 metres deep) and we really want to see the mannatees and sharks…so watch this space.

Aaaalllllriiight mon!

June 8 2012 – Belize City

This is a small city with the main area centered around the mouth of a river, called Haulover Creek. We arrived after 6pm and everything seemed to be shut around the dockside, so it was a relief to see the hotel really close by. The guy at the desk told us that there was a restaurant next door, but that it shut at 7pm, so we dropped the bags and headed straight in – we were starving! A slight moment of worry when we couldn’t get the door open – they had it bolted, so you are starting to get the picture of life in Belize City after dark 🙂 – but then an old guy ambled over and let us in. It was just us and a small group of old creole men talking boats. The menu was chicken, beans and rice, Pork beans and rice , or…beans and rice…or just rice. Not the most varied diet. Anyway we settled on the chicken version and ate the lot.

Our hotel sits right on the river, next to a historic handcranked swing bridge – the only one in the world – and made in Liverpool! So its cool to sit out on the veranda and watch the world go by, and see the scissortails dive for fish in the river. Dolphins and Manatees come into the river mouth sometimes, but mainly they are out in the lagoon area between the mainland and the islands.

Our hotel in Belize City

The view from the jetty ouside our room

We explored the main area the next day, streets of low clapboard houses and old colonial churchs and government buildings – not that we got much peace to look at them. The hawkers were out in force. We soon clicked that everyone thought we had just ‘got off the boat’, literally, a criuse ship had just docked and everyone thought we were rich Americans. Two days later, as soon as the ship was gone we were left alone. But meanwhile we got to know some real characters – first there was Prince Charles (his real name) who gave us an animated and very eloquent history of Belize for the fair exchange of BZ$1.50, about 50p. It was worth more but it was all the change I had. Then there was a guy (I forget his name but he looked like Carlos Santana) who made me a necklace out of a piece of shell that I found on a beach in New Zealand, then threw in a rap song for free. Next was Edwin, the blue eyed, black creole guy, who along with his life story, sold a shell to Jane (which I accidentally broke, sorry Pet). But the best has to be Lilly who talked Jane into getting her hair done Creole style. I haven’t laughed as much in ages. I did get a pic but if I put it on the blog she’ll kill me 🙂

The Belize City Swing Bridge – Hand cranked 🙂

Back in the ‘right next door’ restaurant (its really safe in the city through the day, but there’s a general recommendation not to go wandering after dark) we met an Australian woman in her late fifties, who was travelling alone (guts or what, good on yer Heather!) or should I say escaping and spending the inheritence, after years of looking after her elderly mother. She was sharing a table with an old local who had worked with Jacque Cousteau in the 60’s when he dived throughout the Caribbean. We invited her to join us when the boatman left, and had a really good night with someone who thinks just like us. We seriously over stayed our welcome by staying until 9pm, which is the equivalent of 2am to a Belize restaurant, before walking Heather back to her hotel across the bridge, with no problems at all.

After 5 days in the city we are really ready to cross over to the island of Caye Caulker. So tomorrow we travel 21 miles across the sea to a tiny island that measures 5 miles by 1 mile at its widest point, and just 1 mile off its shores is the Belize Barrier Reef, the largest reef in the Northern Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. And my next dive destination… Cool.