Headed for Paradise...

Glover’s Cay

We woke up early, after a rough night, with two choices… to find a better spot and chill for the day, or head out into the rough, open sea for a couple of hours before reaching the shelter of another Cay… well, as Tadd put it, “it could get worse!”

That clinched it… keep moving! Rough? Yes, a little. But not a bad angle on the waves, so we weren’t shook around too much and the strong winds certainly make some fun sailing. And after all, from what we read in our guidebook, we were headed for paradise! A nice resort, with excellent facilities, amazing diving, kayaking, fishing and snorkeling… and most importantly the quintessential white sand beach, shaded by coconut palms that swish soporifically in the wind. We could spend the night… the next day… and if they had internet…. Perhaps even a couple of days!! It sounded like the perfect place to hang our hammocks and relax.

CRACK! “What was that??!!” I asked. “Just a wave hitting the dinghy,” Tadd replied calmly… “Really? Oh, Ok.” Followed a few moment later by… “oh crap”… not just a wave after all… one of the pulleys holding the dingy off the back of the boat on the davits had gone… luckily we had tied the dinghy securely with several lines to stop it swinging… one of the lines had stopped it dropping all the way to the sea, while the other end was still hoisted high on the back… now that could have been SO MUCH worse…. Feeeewww!!

Back on track until we could see the tiny cay from a long way off… unfortunately the it was almost directly to windward so, a few tacks, and we finally gave in and turned the engine on. It looked so wonderfully enticing!

Using our trusty sailing guidebook (I think we’re getting better at reading the hand drawn charts and translating them to what we can actually see!) we made our way through the gap in the reef and wiggled between coral heads and sand banks to get up close to Southeastern Cay of Glover’s Reef.

Awwww… well it still looked like the promised palm-fringed paradise… but a definitively out-of-season paradise…. No umbrella-ed cocktails for us.

We relaxed with cocktails on Third Aye after anchoring in the wonderfully calm lee of the cay and decided to chill on the boat for the night, leaving the exploring for the following day.

The morning was filled with repairs and domestic chores… so after lunch we stuffed books, glasses and hammocks in a dry bag, filled a flask and snorkeled our way to shore. The caretaker came down to say hello and we learned that the owner hadn’t opened the resort for 3 years and was supposedly going to do some rebuilding, but there was no sign of anything happening soon for the imminent Caribbean season…. What a shame… the island already had a slight neglected feel to it.

In any case, we found a few appropriately shading palm trees and slung our hammocks… a perfect spot! Well… almost… if it weren’t for the sand flies… strangely, they seemed to lose interest in us mostly once we were established in our hammocks, so we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon reading.

On The Move Again

All the assignments handed in, skills approved, certifications checked, and exams passed… and we are now PADI Divemasters!! But, unfortunately, a potential employment situation didn’t work out, so it was time to get on the move again.

It was a little sad saying goodbye to our friends at Ecologic, but it was time to head out (and anyway, we’ll be back at Christmas to meet my family).

We didn’t necessarily pick the calmest day… but then again the wind had been blowing pretty consistently since we had arrived. But the extent of the conditions only became evident as we headed out through Tuffy Channel in front of San Pedro… against the incoming waves and sea swells that seemed to tower over the bow at times... especially when that one wave crashed full force over the bow… and the hatch to the companion way was open and the hatches not secured… yes a tad soggy and salty down below.



But we fought our way through our trial by fire and got back into sailing mode quickly as we headed south to Turneffe Cay.

We had been there for the dive and seen mooring balls down the western side of the cay, so we thought it’d make a good stopover for the night and wouldn’t be too tricky arriving after dark…. Well, we spent a good hour or so searching for those maldito moorings, while avoiding a rain shower or two, and we never found them… so back to the hook once more. Fortunately it was almost a full moon so there was a lot of light to play with, but once anchored the wind and the sea started to kick up… so needless to say that wasn’t our best night’s sleep!

Gleb… Gleb… Gleb

Christ of the Abyss, Ambergris, Belize

It was a little strange being in San Pedro without Dave and Corinne (happy travels!) but we found something to help fill the void.

Tadd and I had talked about continuing our PADI training in hopes of having some fun and also making ourselves even more employable, so having talked to a bunch of dive shops on the island, I set out to get my Rescue diver cert with Crazee Eddie.

The whole thing only took a couple of days and Tadd was able to come along for a free dive one morning so not too shabby. Eddie was fun, but being slow season here, he didn’t have many students lined up, so we decided to go with Ecologic Divers (next door) for our Divemaster certifications as they had a steady stream of people through their doors.

It may not have been the cheapest place in the world to divemaster, but we were already here… with a free place to live.. and had begun to get to know the island a little and where to get cheap food and shopping. And as we were going to spend 3 weeks training we reckoned the number of dives we would get to do would outweigh a cheaper location that would just push us quickly through the course.

So we began our life as, “lower than whale sperm,” Steve Lee (one of our instructors at Ecologic).

The diving was great and we got lots of dives in! We spent just under 4 weeks hanging and training with Steve, Junior, Shelley, Juanita, Charlie, Marcos… and all the other quirky characters at the dive shop.

We got to go to lots of the different sites outside the reef with the long finger canyons of coral reef that reach out east from the Meso-American Mayan Reef (2nd biggest in the world) that stretches south from the Mexico to Belize and beyond) and dive with up to 14 nurse sharks at once, spotted eagle rays, turtles, moray eels, giant grouper and dozens of other multicolored species of fish, corals and sponges. We even got to go dive the wall at the Elbow of Turneffe Cay, as well as exploring the Hol Chan channel by night (Tadd’s first night dive!).

But one of the most memorable dives was the day I spotted a poor yellow-tailed snapper with a hook in it’s mouth… I pointed it out to Tadd who gestured to indicate that it was done for… and so he grabbed the end of the fishing line dangling from the hook (hoping to trail the fish back to boat and for our dinner!) … but the snapper was having nothing to do with that plan and began to swim around like a crazy fish… Charlie the divemaster reckoned he could get the hook out and took over… at which point a big, black grouper came close by… and then out of nowhere the black grouper whizzed up from somewhere beneath us and inhaled the snapper, the hook, the fishing line and almost Charlie’s hand in one huge, and amazingly audible gulp… and it was all over!!

The challenges of underwater fishing I guess!