Today was a solo day for me since Alyssa doesn't dive and the boat I was doing my dive tour on wanted to charge her $145USD to come with me and snorkel. Our boat left at 5:30am so I got up nice and early so I could get ready and walk down there. "Breakfast" consisted of sliced bread with jam at the dive shop (a far cry from my usual food rituals when I dive- I get bad motion sickness and a full stomach really helps with that). Then the 15 of us that were diving and our 4 guides piled into the boat for the 2+ hour boat ride to the blue hole.
It was a very bumpy ride on the way out there because passing over the reef makes the water extremely choppy. Once we were into the open water it was a little calmer, which is good since where we were sitting in the tiny boat couldn't have been less comfortable and people kept getting banged around. Our first dive was at the blue hole. I was especially excited about this since it's so famous but a little worried considering the depth they take you to. We reached 140ft at the bottom of our dive, which was not to the bottom of the hole; that is considerably lower. We did get to swim through some stalactites that are at about 135ft and saw tons of reef sharks. The sharks are totally intimidating and will come right up to you, but apparently they don't attack people.
Once we were done with the blue hole dive, we headed to the half moon caye. There we did a dive of the half moon caye wall, which had much more to see because of the reef. There were sea turtles, eels, manta rays and of course tons of fish! This dive was only a max of 60ft so we were able to stay down much longer and explore. After the second dive, we went on shore at half moon caye to check out the island. As I walked around, I found hermit crabs everywhere! Every shell had one inside and they were moving all around.
The caye is a refuge for the red-footed booby bird and so I went to check out their colony. There were tons of them up in the trees and I could also spot lizards up there waiting for an unprotected nest to steal eggs from.
We had lunch at half moon caye and hung out for an hour so that our surface time would be long enough before our next dive.
The third dive was called "the aquarium" and was another reef off of an island. Unfortunately it rained the entire day so there was no sunlight which made the coral and fish much dimmer than they would have been otherwise, but it was still beautiful to see. We only went to 50ft on this dive so we spent a lot of time playing around under the water making air rings and hovering upside down. After the third dive, we headed back toward Caye Caulker, all the while drinking gallons of rum punch. I had read some sketchy reviews about the dive company I used (Frenchie's Dive Shop) and ended up diving with them because they were the only ones with a dive available on the day I needed it, but I actually thought they were great. I always felt like their dive profile was conservative (which at the first depth was very necessary) and that they had a plan for every contingency. Plus, they were really funny. :). Once I got back to our hostel, I showered and promptly passed out in a hammock for an hour. Then Alyssa and I headed out to dinner at "Bambooze"; a restaurant that we had been eyeing mainly because you sit on a swing while you eat.
We had the coconut shrimp and mango glazed fish- yum! Tomorrow we wake up early to catch the water taxi back to Belize city and head to Guatemala. I am sad to say goodbye to Caye Caulker; it is such a beautiful island and everything here is so laid back. I hope one day I can return!
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