Following the Dream

Christian June 26th, 2008

Our last stop in Belize was to Caye Caulker, a small island about an hour ferry ride from Belize City.  We were lucky enough to grab the last double room at a favorite backpacker hostel located right on the beach. Our room had a huge king bed which took up the whole room and a nice fan, unfortunately, almost no windows except a little two foot one across the room. We would later learn that this equals hot nights with no sleep. The hostel has a dock right out into the water, and we promptly took advantage of the first sun we had seen in weeks and put on our swim suits to relax.

We were blessed with nice weather are whole time there but also cursed since it was so hot. Our only relief was the cold water only showers. Our whole purpose for coming to Caye Caulker was to dive the famous “Blue Hole”.  So we found a dive shop and booked our tour only to find out that we had to be at the shop by 5:30am for the 2 hour trip out to the Blue Hole. There were 5 divers including us and we were all unsuspecting of the trip ahead. The part the dive shop fails to mention when booking is that the 42 mile boat ride is through a channel and  extremely rough seas. 5 minutes into the trip and a wave crashes over the boat soaking us all. The captain laughs and mentions that this is an unusually calm day. After another hour and half of bumping up and down on a hard bench, we are all getting a little sore and tired. Luckily, neither of us are seasick, but one lady is holding on for dear life trying not to puke. We finally arrive to the deep blue colors of the Blue Hole. It is actually a collapsed cave that Jacques Cousteau made famous when he explored it in the 70’s and said it was one of the “must dive” locations in the world. We dove down about 130 feet to find overhangs of stalagmites and sharks swimming in a navy blue abyss. A very different dive for us, but very interesting. Atmospheric is the word we used to describe it.

Next we headed to Half Moon Caye, a beautiful protected coral atoll island about 15 minutes away. 

We did another dive there enjoying some beautiful coral formations, tons of brain coral, and we saw lots of rays. Next we enjoyed lunch on the island with the most beautiful setting. The turquoise color of the sea is unbelievable. After lunch we were once again on our way to the last dive of the day. Known as ‘The Aquarium” it is populated with tons of fish. As soon as we were in the water we were surrounded by fish. The dive master also fed the fish some rice and he was instantly swarmed with fish so that you could barely see him. They have no fear of the divers and will swim right up to you. While not a huge diversity of fish, what you do see you see tons of.  Overall we had a very good day of diving but were also very tired. By the time we survived another bumpy boat ride back, we both couldn’t wait to get our feet on land.

  The rest of the days on Caye Caulker were spent relaxing and enjoying the sun.  We decided to head to Mexico a day early just because there really isn’t all that much to do there and we were ready for some conveniences.

• Belize
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