It was a beautiful late June day when we landed in Belize in Central America. We descended the stairs out onto the tarmac with heat waves dancing above it and then transferred to an incredibly small puddle jumper to head for Ambergris Caye. Ambergris Caye is one of a series of small islands referred to as "Cayes" (think Florida "Keys"). We clambered inside the aircraft and buckled flimsy seat belts. I wasn't feeling real secure when one side of the belt popped off from it's attachment to the seat. Our dive master, Jerry, helped me pop it back on the attachment. The five of us from Houston were crammed inside. Then plane's propellers coughed to a start and the tiny plane lurched forward.
"Ah, this is the life," our dive master, Jerry said. "Check it out, we're so low you can see what the people are carrying in their hands. Look at the fish that guy caught! Wow!"
“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.”
Paul Theroux
Okay, I'm not a big fan of heights but I managed to gulp and peer out the tiny window. Sure enough, you could see two men in a fishing boat. One had just reeled in a huge fish, I'm not sure what it was but it was big enough he was lucky to reel it in. We saw another boat where a couple fishermen were tossing a net overboard. Best part was the water was so beautiful and clear. I couldn't wait to jump into the water and go diving -- especially with the incredible clarity of that water!
Shortly, we landed at Ambergris Caye and disembarked. There were few vehicles on the island, mainly bicycles and a few golf carts. We gathered our belongings and began to hike along the one major road in San Pedro along the outskirts to our tiny hotel. The building was a cheerful pink and aqua blue, and looked every bit the exotic island home away from home along the shoreline.
Later that evening after we had settled in, we hiked into San Pedro and walked out onto the dock where the dive company was located. Just off the dock in the crystal blue water swam a large sea turtle and occasionally a manta ray would glide by as a variety of fish swam by, some in small schools. The sandy bottom was littered with starfish and conch shells (most still with the conch living inside). The dive team had a grill set-up and told us they had prepared "grilled chicken" and fried conch. All the while Jerry kept whispering mysteriously to his best buddy and chuckling as the rest of us helped ourselves to the cook-out. There were sides of beans, rice and delicious exotic fruit. After everyone had eaten we were informed that we hadn't eaten grilled chicken, it was iguana. Oh well, if that was the truth, all I can say is that it tasted just like chicken and was good.
The next morning we boarded a boat seating ten divers plus crew and headed out to where the American barrier reef meets the Atlantic. I'm the type of person who can float on water without really trying. I can lay upon the water with my arms out to each side, my toes poking up out of the water and just float along providing the water isn't too rough. That's great fun, but for diving, it posed a very dangerous dilemma -- when you emptied the tanks of air, they also become buoyant and pull the diver up towards the surface faster. If you don't stop every 25 to 30 feet to decompress, you risk getting the bends, which is when dissolved gases escape from your lungs and bubbles travel into the rest of your body, and can get into your bones and organs. It can cause terrible pain, even paralysis and death. Also, there is the added problem that a lot of great diving sites are far removed from civilization where they have hyperbaric decompression chambers to battle the bends.
It was a gorgeous day, blue sky, a few stray clouds and a delightful breeze keeping us from getting too hot. And, yes, it was hot, Hot, HOT! But everyone of us tourists were from Texas. I have to say we Texans felt right at home -- back home we're accustomed to triple-digit summer days and folks speaking the Tex-Mex mix of Spanish and English. The Belizians spoke Spanglais there (their similar mixture of Spanish and English) plus they ate similarly to the coastal regions of Mexico. Yum!!!
Thrilled, we couldn't shimmy into our flippers, BCD's and tanks fast enough. The BCD's (bouyancy compensators) had the tanks attached and mine had weight-filled pockets to keep me from from careening upwards to the surface too fast. And when I say it had weighted-down pockets, I mean I was wearing ALOT of weight. More than anyone else on the boat. Everyone else wore dive belts with weights inserted in them. When I first jumped from the rocking boat into the waves below, I initially sunk pretty far down. My inflated BCD finally brought me back up to the surface where I bobbed along waiting for the rest of the divers. After everyone was in the water, had their masks on and regulator in their mouths -- we all made the OK sign and at the signal we all headed down.
I deflated my bcd and then swam down head first. It was amazing! I never imagined that fish could swim so many different ways. Some fish undulated the fins on their sides and steered with their tails. Others undulated the fin on top of their back and used their tail like flippers. Other fish swam like a combination of both of the above. The coral was spectacular and so beautiful, home to clown fish and parrot fish. Tiny schools of silver fish swam about, encircling us and then dashing away.
Away in the distance where the visibility petered out, you could see what looked like mountain tops and something flapping in the foggy distance. Manta rays! They were so beautiful, as if they were flying underwater, following one another in a parade-like fashion. They approached closer and closer until we suddenly realized they were at least 10 to 12 feet across. Just huge! And so beautiful... They are so gentle and soft -- they feel like velvet!
One of the company divers motioned for us to gather around. He had two sharks on either side of him above a higher outcropping. He methodically rubbed their tummies and the sharks didn't move, not a twitch. Their skin was covered with what looked and felt like miniature beads. But the beadlike skin wasn't simply grey, some were black, others were white and the rest were shades of grey. I rubbed their bellies methodically and you could feel them just relax into your hands. Of course, these were just Nurse Sharks, otherwise I wouldn't have been anywhere near them. My dive buddy, Pat, motioned off to the side down in a ravine on our right. A large bull shark hovered, scarcely moving. My veins turned to ice and I froze. That shark was huge, at least 8 feet. The sharks' eyes freaked me out. It was hard to tell where they were focusing. Is it looking at me or that fish over there about 15 feet to my left? Fighting panic, I fought to stay as motionless as I could. If you're diving around sharks, always face towards them and stay motionless with your extremities tucked in close to your body, you don't want them to think your fingers are shrimp or your arm is a fish.
We swam in the opposite direction of the bull shark with powerful flipper kicks. I was feeling greatly relieved and enjoying watching the varieties of fish, starfish, sea cucumber and coral surrounding us. At least until a H-U-G-E grouper approached (almost as large as me). The over-sized filet turned it's head to peer intently at me with one eye and then, coming ever closer, it turned it's head and peered at me with the other eye. The whole time it's bulbous lips were working open, closed, open, closed. Chills raced down my spine when I suddenly realized it was looking at me like I was an appetizer -- yikes!!!
We'd been having loads of fun but now most of the divers were running out of air and the empty tanks on my back were becoming buoyant. My dive buddy, Pat, and I ascended 30 feet and hovered. We were watching our bubbles ascend when suddenly someone grabbed our ankles and our dive master, Jerry, was tugging on them, pulling us down. We hadn't realized were had started shooting upward. Unless you have a landmark, it's difficult to tell whether you're ascending or descending or just hovering. Two more stops and then we bobbed out of the water topside. A minute later Jerry came up, popped the regulator out of his mouth and stammered, "You started ascending too fast, I'm just glad I got there fast enough to grab your ankles and stop you!" The rest of the day everyone was very kind and fussed over us to make sure we didn't develop the bends. It was a great group of divers to be with.
On our way back, we stopped at areas developing into tiny islands. Sand and debris had accumulated on top of dead coral reefs and sometimes just a coconut palm tree was the only sign you initially saw that told you an island was growing there. We got out of the boat and walked on an island that was 2 feet below the surface of the water. Conch, starfish and a sea turtle traveled along the sandy bottom as I walked alongside. It was nature in action, giving birth to an island.
We reboarded the boat and the captain took us further on up the coast and nearer to where the American barrier reef met the Atlantic Ocean. All the Texans splashed into the water but I didn't stay there as long as the others. There was such an intensity of the wave action from the ocean side of the reef, the power pulling you to and fro was immense -- nothing like along the Gulf of Mexico or around the Cayes. The sound of the Atlantic and the waves on the outer side of the barrier reef were mesmerizing and a bit frightening. I thought of my aunt and uncle in their 52-foot sailboat with my cousins on board, sailing from Jamaica to Galveston. I remembered their stories of the rogue waves rearing up out of nowhere, only to come crashing down in the deep valley the water formed in front of it. Or the time their boat was bobbing up and down among the waves, then gliding up on a wave only to see an oil tanker ahead right in front of them and a couple waves later, not seeing it anywhere. The power of the ocean is tremendous and I have a great respect for water. The feeling of awe from that day by the Atlantic barrier reef has never left me to this day.
