Following the reef

I think we're realizing we are terrible at keeping up a blog. Only a few computers have crossed our path and there's always been other things to do. But, here we are in San Ignacio, near the Guatemalan border, and waiting for our bus with internet galore.

Belize is home to the second largest barrier reef in the world so that's where we headed after our first day in Belize city. We motored out to Caye Caulker, watching mainland Belize recede in the distance and a tropical island come into view. Our pace dropped a notch with the discovery of a hammock on the beach. Caye Caulker is a mellow island, split in two from hurricane Hattie. Most of Belize was ravaged, scarred then reshaped by hurricanes Hattie and Mitch. The evidence of these storms is visible in the landscape and heard in the stories of the people we talk to that survived them. Caye Caulker is small so that by evening we were meeting familiar faces and had gotten to know the key locales around the island-- navigating around the piles of empty conch shells and taking the oceanside cemetery shortcut (with "sunset" and "sunrise" instead of "born" and "died" on the tombstones).



We happened to stop in to a shop that we'd seen advertise for a one way 3 day sail out across the barrier reef, stopping to snorkel, fish for dinner and camp out on little uninhabited cayes. And lo and behold, the trip had been delayed and was leaving the next day, and needing two more people to make it go.

So we hopped on, joining 9 other travelers from Scotland, France, Seattle and Ireland and the two local crew. Dolphins surfed our bow (baby dolphin!), flying fish careened out of the water ahead of us like skipped stones and the wind filled our sails as we headed south along the reef. Everyone burned to a vibrant shade of pink. Our first snorkel was at a caye called Gallow's point, also a line from a Captain Bogg and Salty song--"from Port Royal to Gallow's Point we cultivated fear...".

We slept out under the full moon, with minus tides on a tiny island with 8 palm trees. Our yellow boat listed and ran aground until the tide came back to free it. And in the morning hundreds of schooling sardine minnows hid in the shallows off the island. Occasionally a school of large jack fish would plow through the sardines, raising a ruckus, and brown pelicans would swoop in to scoop up confused stragglers. We stopped to snorkel twice a day, hovering over fan coral, huge brain corals and iridescent fish aplenty. It was infinitely fascinating to splay out in the warm top layer of the Carribean and float there watching an intricate world of creatures living in and on other creatures. Plus, barracuda for dinner.



We pulled into Tobacco Caye the second night. Shore shower. Sea legs. We set up tents in the middle of the island town, trying to avoid the coconut trees and their heavy, irregular falling fruit. Everyone in a Belizian town knows the stats on how many people have been killed by falling coconuts. Tobacco Caye: One wounded, none killed. We headed to the little beachside tiki bar-- with a specials sign facing the ocean that just said "Obama". Two local garafunda drummers played hand drums like mad men. They started up a local dance that tells the story of finding a dead body on the beach and trying to wake it up. And so the stick used for the dance is passed to the next dancer. Lucas went up and did a mean, very respectable jiggle. Pictures to come. It felt like the first bit of old Belizian culture we'd seen so far. We fell asleep with the full moon framed in the upper window of our tent. Dangerous coconut trees swaying in the breeze.

Three of our group opted to stay on Tabacco Caye, they liked it so much. The remaining five of us sailed on, stopping to swim with spotted rays and a flounder, in and out of mangroves, like swimming through a forest. Jellyfish began to populate the water. Our last snorkel stop was the best-- with towering corals 10 feet high. We were so reluctant to leave the boat almost left us behind.

We arrived in Placencia and took the honeymoon ashore. Placencia is a peninsula of mellow beach town , with cute restaurants and so much peace. Francis Ford Coppola's beach mansion lighting up the far shore. We found a room right on the beach and relaxed into it. A thatched restaurant right next door. To stay another day or head up to the jaguar reserve? We met a guy at breakfast the next day named Tony who happened to be a volunteer at the Cockscomb wildlife basin, where we'd planned on heading that day. Tony is from the north of England, with red red hair, and a black renaissance outfit. He works in the forest there clearing brush. He can only see a foot in front of him, but doesn't wear glasses so he can regain his eyesight. He was headed back up there on the 1 o'clock bus so we took it as a sign to go with him. Packed up our stuff said goodbye to the coast and the beach and the Carribean vibe. We felt like the honeymoon portion of the honeymoon was over and the adventure had begun.