Would You Belize I Ran Out of Puns? - Friday, September 11, 2015

Alisa caught the sunrise; I caught some extra zz's. So, quarter to six, up and finishing yesterday's blog on the front porch. 

Breakfast was egg burritos - melon had started to grow on me, given that it's the major fruit source. We chatted about phone dictation mistakes, then had to report to the boat at 7:30 for our dives. Steve first took a picture then did a rescue mission to grab me my camera, which I had forgotten to charge until right before breakfast. It was in the hut by the boat, and he grabbed it and passed it just as we pulled out. 

Our sites were on the northeast corner of the atoll, which is a location we hadn't been to yet. Lindsey's Back Porch was our first. It was a bit of a wall, but after a week of diving, I wasn't getting a lot of deep bottom time, which was fine for the sites we were at. I hovered at around 50 feet on the ledge. 

Someone spotted a tiny drumfish with its elaborate head tuft swimming in its circles under a coral patch. It got really exciting when Denroy signaled for a shark!

It was a wide, 7-foot nurse shark, in the sandy patch between two coral ridges. With Denroy at one end, and a  tight swim-through at the other, it paced a few times before taking the exit route. 

Another little drum was spotted, and I coasted along with a scrawled cowfish. Apparently there was a spotted moray that I completely missed while I was distracted by the cow fish and its cute little horns. 

During the safety stop, Denroy got excited and started swimming in a direction. He heard dolphins, but they weren't in the mood to play with us, only the boat. John circled, but no luck at swimming with dolphins today either. 

Our last morning surface interval. Our last container of watermelon. The last time Ron would eat four cookies and Lee Ellyn would share her dark chocolate. The last swim between dives (while adding a bit to the ocean, if you get my drift). So bittersweet. 

We had taken shelter behind Lindsey's island, so we pulled out in front again for a trip down Lettuce Lane. 

The formations with sand around the outside make it easier to see rays. I spent some time hovering and watching a pair of them - the little one was being feisty and nibbling on the bigger one. 

There was also a boat motor on the ocean floor. As Alisa said, "I didn't realize we were going wreck diving."

The whole group was together for a giant blue parrotfish with a little yellow gobie on it to pop out of the coral and then disappear back in. I saw another indigo hamlet, but what everyone was crooning about when we got back to the surface was a juvenile boxfish. 

The little black-and-white fish was so little, it just looked like an incorrectly colored ladybug to me. Ron equated it with looking like a die. Either way, Denroy found the little thing, and bounced it out of its hidey hole. 

Lee Ellyn was getting picked up by her husband and fishing guide to do some fly fishing in the afternoon, so their boat swung by during lunch hour. 

John told a few final jokes, as he does, then the group started planning on what we would tell Lee Ellyn that she missed out on when we talked to her tonight. 

Well, we did see an eagle ray, as requested! We didn't see the submarine, great white shark, or a second Blue Hole, as we had discussed though. 

I felt like we were swimming fast through Cockroach Shallows, but it worked to see that ray. It cruised around us, doing a wide circle with Ron churning along in the middle, taking pictures. It was a medium-sized one, but had the distinctive white spots. 

I found two little sharpnosed puffers as I was swimming along. Denroy found a spider crab, but it was the size of a dinner plate. (Which reminds me - it was lobster night!)

We got back into the boat, and Denroy immediately started rinsing all the gear on the short ride back to the resort. They were going to drop it off in a few hours, then he, John, and some others were leaving on a boat tonight. 

It was time to do our final bout of relaxing with a drink in our hand. First, I tamed my hair with a quick rinse, then hung out by the lightly salted pool. Lee Ellyn came by, and we moved to the lounge chairs - theirs in the shade, mine in the sun to get that last bit of a soak in. 

We had managed to catch Steve the bartender in the middle of a restock, so it was a good 45 minutes of drink-less sunning and chatting. We exchanged a few pictures with AirDrop, then exchanged emails for the rest. 

Between the Rocket Fuel Steve had made me and the glass of wine, I was ready for those appetizers when they came out. I ate five of the little mushroom tarts, at least. Alisa and I spent the cocktail hour talking with Mark and Colette, then took a seat at what became the divers' table. 

It was a "reunion" of Denise, Ron, Steven, Haydee, me, Alisa, Lee Ellyn, and her husband, Richard, who had his own diving stories to tell (just not from this week). They had done a trip to the Galapagos, which sounds amazing... And is now on the top of the list. 

Mozzarella pie, pasta primavera, lobster tail, key lime pie. It probably lasted longer than usual because we were talking so animatedly about our week. 

It was 9pm, and Alisa and I weren't sleepy, so we walked to see the crocs  at the beach, then hung out with the hermit crabs, then watched the stars, then wandered by the boats (with Steve advising not to go skinny-dipping with the crocs).

 We took in our last night, then tucked back into our beachside cabana for the last time. 

I Belize (from "Book of Mormon") - Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015

The sunrise this morning was brilliant orange over the Atlantic - lots of clouds, but that made it more colorful. It apparently stormed last night - I missed it completely. 

I was super excited to get pictures off our veranda, but couldn't get Alisa's camera to work, so she ended up outside with me too. We got a "we woke up like this" pajama shot. Not sure that one is going to be all that public since my oversized shirt is billowing like a sail. 

But we did our typical morning routine - grab some internet, then sit in a lounge chair outside and read until breakfast. I studied some more reef fish as well - there are so many! 

Breakfast was omelettes, then the 8 o'clock boat time was a loose 8 o'clock as John and Denroy stroll up about five after. 

It was windy this side of the atoll, so it was back up to the Rendezvous area. We actually repeated a dive site! The glum weather was making me feel glum, and having a repeat site made me think twice about not just going on the Atoll Adventure program today to try to find manatees. The Terrace was blooming, though, and the water temperature is the same at 82'F whether it is cloudy or not. 

The first dive, we saw a free swimming moray. Wasn't quite the psycho eel of a few days ago, but it really got into Denise's face while she was taking a picture, but she didn't notice until it swam away. 

I didn't get as deep as the others, but I did see the big channel crab that the group was flocked around before it scurried under the coral. 

Today was "hamlet" day - Denroy wanted us to try our hand at identifying those small, longjawed, triangle fish. I saw an indigo one and a black one (actual names of hamlets, by the way), but he saw the butter and a tan as well. He's also got a few years of experience on me. 

We got a few little lionfish that dive, but left them for the groupers and the moray. We had drifted along The Terrace until we were at Molly's Folly, then John swung by in the boat. 

Up for a surface interval, some pineapple, and very nearly a nap on the bow, but then we were back into it.

The second dive had much more on my "checklist". (I say that because once I see it, I feel like I should have seen it, so I add it posthumously.) At the beginning of the dive, Alisa spotted a sting ray cruising over the coral. At the end of the dive, she spotted a spotted nudibranch. (Those are well-branded sea slugs - we saw some in Thailand.)

There were not one but three types of morays this dive - a green one swam right up to Denise's camera, then I found a spotted one with only its head out, but a similar size as the green. It is apparently more aggressive than the green though. The final golden tailed moray was a mite smaller - just his little head peeking out. 

I did a tighter swim through that Ron and Lee Ellyn had done. Not a lot interesting underneath except practicing the buoyancy and steering. 

What I was proud of that dive was spotting a resting turtle. Alisa had cruised right over the hawksbill, but his shape stood out to me for some reason - you seen these creatures in their natural habitat and you understand what camouflage really is. 

I was also excited to spot and identify a scrawled cowfish. They differ from their puffer cousins by having horns over their eyes (and they don't inflate when harassed). This is a very awkward-looking fish; its like a rectangular toaster strudel was made into a diamond, given eyes, horns, and a tail, then dunked in blue, scribbled on in yellow, and let loose again. 

So maybe that's a long, contrived process, but the scrawled cowfish was cool to bumble along with, ok?

Each of the dives today whizzed by, even though I was chillier and less impressed than at the beginning of the week. We all had ordered quite a lot of food for lunch, so we ate it on the bow while John amused us with stories of men and drawn out punchlines. Alisa abandoned ship to snorkel instead, the jokes were so bad. 

Our third dive was at an unnamed site south of Chasbo's Corner, which we did on Monday. It was a similar fish-filled wonderland. There were big schools of blue tang mating, and we saw another two hawksbill sea turtle on the ledge above the wall. 

Everyone was getting to the end of their bottom time, so a lot of us stayed at 40 feet. Ron and Denise - diving Nitrox - could still go deeper and later than us, but it wasn't too much of a sacrifice to hang out on the shelf instead of the wall. 

Ron found a rockfish - scorpionfish according to Denroy. I pointed out a shiny, funny-looking fish to Haydee, and she identified it as a hogfish. (She also laughed later in the boat that I was lucky because she doesn't know a lot of fishes, so I picked one she knew!) I found another huge tiger tailed sea cucumber. 

And then there were the lionfish. I found two big ones, but they were too close to each other, so Denroy only got one. 

We didn't see any big eel, just another golden tail, so we got to keep the fish.

We were nearly back to the resort when John called out dolphins! There were a few of us ready to jump in, but they were being shy, so I stayed on the boat while Alisa, Haydee, and Lee Ellyn floated in the water. We circled them with the boat a few times, trying to tempt the dolphins closer to the swimmers, but it didn't happen. Got a few fun pictures, but that was it. 

These were bottlenose - I knew the ones from Saturday weren't bottlenose, but I didn't know they were "spinners" until Denroy told us today. 

I might have harassed Denroy a bit to make sure he cleaned the lionfish so we could eat them. I've heard they are good, and the others have been lusting after some ceviche. 

So, we got back, I showered, then I went back to learn how to fillet a fish. Haydee popped over to keep us company and take pictures, and Denroy talked about how to cut off all the spines with neurotoxin, then get the meat off the bones. 

The carcasses were thrown ten feet out for the croc that would be there later that evening, but Alisa and I were planning on going on the croc walk with Abell. 

Abell really didn't want to do this walk - he was giving us a hard time about how much it was going to cost, but, after a dinner of barbecued pork, corn on the cob, and bacon-baked beans (with tres leches cake for dessert - with a candle for Jad's birthday!), we put on the longest sleeves we had and met by the pool. 

The first stop was the crazy amount of hermit crabs that came out right under the bats' nesting area just twenty feet behind our cabana. 

Then we started getting into the thick of the mangroves, and the second thing we encountered was mosquitoes. I got bit through my jeans and on my forehead - I'm getting itchy just writing this. When we weren't actively seeing something new and I was distracted, I was being driven to distraction by the mosquitoes. 

We passed a croc nest, with their leathery eggs empty inside. At one point, there were only 300 American saltwater crocodiles left; now, Turneffe Atoll is the biggest breeding site, and they are everywhere. There was a head of a "smaller" (only six foot) croc sticking up on the beach, then a slightly bigger one in one of the nesting ponds. 

We encountered some tarantulas, and Alisa saw an iguana sleeping in a termite hole. It was creepy-crawly central!

The big mama's nesting pond had her back in her little cave-y hole and Abell attempting to pick up a baby so we could pet it. They were a little too clever, and the half dozen whiny tourists that were getting eaten alive standing there (of which I was one) didn't have the patience to wait for him. 

I had heard there might be a boa, and I was very excited for that. As we were headed back (thank goodness), right at the edge of the trees, Abell saw the right movement and unwrapped the constricter from the base of a mangrove tree. 

It was probably six feet long, and weighed maybe seven pounds. Alisa and I got to hold it! Smooth, slightly slick scales, and beautiful muscle underneath. Oh, it was worth all the bug bites. 

It was 10:15, and we said hurried thank you's and good night's then I hurdled into bed, in the air conditioning, under covers where bugs would stop getting me. The protection of sheets, and I was out.  

Un-Belize-Able - Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015

Of course - the day that there aren't any clouds covering the horizon is the day I sleep in until 6:15 and miss the sunrise. 

I did get some deliciously sunny egg-in-toast for breakfast though. 

I had debated taking today off to do some relaxing, but it was only a half day and the first dive of the day was at The Elbow - the confluence of the north and south currents at the southern tip of Turneffe Atoll. It was one of Lee Ellyn's favorite dives (though nearly ever dive site is), and it was a favorite of Steven as well. He had the day off from shareholder meeting and joined us. 

The site was very rocky - it was a rough start. Alisa and I both took quite a bit of air to get down, but once we were under, the current was pretty mild and the visibility - at 50 feet or so - was fine. 

The coral were in a spur and groove formation - big ripples of coral that then dove into sandy "grooves" in between. These were bigger than most we've seen. 

DelRoy signaled that he had seen three eagle rays, but they were out of sight when I got the memo and looked. I didn't miss the sea turtle however - he was cruising along, until Lee Ellyn started cruising with him - then he went in a bit of a circle to steer clear of her. But that meant he swung around right by the rest of us. 

He wasn't the only green turtle that dive, though. DelRoy signaled and pointed right at one, but I looked past it for the first ten seconds, not sure what I was supposed to be looking at. 

Quite a bit of the diving is like that. You see something cool, you want to share, but your cool thing might be the color of a piece of coral, and someone else is looking for the fish they think you're seeing. The "dual point" method to allow the other person to triangulate was a good suggestion by Steven. 

Steven tried to join us on that dive, but he couldn't get a good seal on his new goggles and aborted. 

I was peering off into the distance randomly, and I saw the giant wings of a ray. I started hollering into my mouthpiece (an attractive noise, let me tell you) and Ron and the others eventually caught on. The ray cruised up the groove next to us, then continued on his way out of sight. I spotted him though!

There were hamlets, squirrel, trunk, parrot, damsel, angel, and butterfly-fish. Another thriving ecosystem. Because the current wasn't as strong, there was only one smaller school of permit. Permit is what all the fishers have been flying fishing for. The saying goes, the first time you hunt permit, it's for fun. After that, it's for revenge. 

Our second dive was at Tarpon Bay. Less choppy getting in, then just a slight bit of current once we got down - which I appreciate during drift dives. I can just sit back and relax and watch the tropical world go by. 

The visibility was pretty bad at only thirty feet. It meant that I missed the sea turtle and the eagle rays that half the group saw. I glimpsed the white underside of a fin once. Instead, I had grabbed DelRoy's magnifying glass and was peering at the ends of coral and sponges to find the skeleton shrimp. I never saw one... That I know of. 

Lee Ellyn pointed out some brittle stars that were inside a vase sponge, but that was probably my least favorite dive of the week. Good thing we had one night dive left still!

We cruised back into the resort via the mangroves and the giant lagoon in the middle of the atoll. The lagoon is kinda boring, since you know there aren't dolphins in it, but the mangroves are delightful. 

It was our first lunch in, and we had chicken/veggie potpie with Rich and Lee Ellyn and Ron and Denise. Rich and I might have gotten into a debate about how best to cut a pie if there are three people - a great computer science problem. He might have been right, but I needed him to walk through that explanation!

After lunch, I brought sunscreen and a book to the reclining beach chair that sits under a palm tree between our room and the ocean and lather up and read and napped as the tree filtered the sunlight. 

At 4:30, I awoke to Ron and Denise paddling a kayak past me. I popped inside, found Alisa just stirring from her nap, then started another round of sunscreen before our plan to go snorkeling. 

The drops of rain started just as I was finishing my last leg, and we went to sit inside while the five minute squall passed overhead. 

We'd heard that that just off the pier is great snorkeling, so we grabbed our gear from the boat and started. 

First, it was a lot of sea grass. (If only there were some sea cows that were grazing on it.) But then we saw our first mound of coral, then a second, then we were just peering up to find the end of one and the beginning of another. 

That fish book and our lessons underwater are starting to really take effect. We found urchin, lobster, fish, fish, fish, hermit crabs, anemone, corals and sponges, and something that gave both of us a little sting. 

I was playing with my camera, and saw we still had fifty minutes until our night dive was supposed to meet. I was interested to see what was by the sea wall, so I told Alisa and started swimming that way. 

Every so often, I'd get chilly, so I'd find a warm spot and hang out. When the current rolled my way, I was kicking along with, getting my momentum going. I'd back off a bit when it rolled toward me - wouldn't want a tired swimmer in five feet of water. (I was sucking in my stomach when going over some coral patches!)

Alisa was apparently being told back on the pier that there was strong current, so to keep an eye on me. 

I would've left me, but I guess enough people were keeping her entertained that she stood and watched. 

The sunlight filtering through the water was gorgeous. I turned and headed back once I saw a trumpetfish and something that looked like a barracuda. 

It was fifteen minutes until our dive when I got back to the pier. We ran back to the room to grab our bag with my dive log in it, then headed to the boat. 

The sun set at 6:05, in the middle of our debrief as we were a mile out from the resort. Denroy spent ten minutes explaining all the types of creatures - mollusks, crustaceans, fish, corals, anemones, sponges. I think he might have been delaying to get the water to get darker. 

I'm pretty proud of this dive. While Alisa and I are now a bit overweighted, it was good for this one. With only ten feet of water, we were just hanging out horizontal to swim along. Our typical safety stop for three minutes at fifteen feet - as Denroy put it, "let me take out the shovel." I didn't get below nine feet for that whole hour. 

But the beauty of it was that you didn't need to. A baby squid was right in our way as we hopped off the boat into grass. The first coral crop we saw had an octopus in it. And the dive pretty much maintained that consistency.  Shrimp, urchin, lobster, a bunch of sea cucumbers, and little fish that hit my face and mask. 

I was really excited when I saw a octopus approach a lobster, but then the pus veered away. No battle of crustacean versus mollusk today. 

The octopus and squid weren't the only mollusks we saw. When Denroy was giving our briefing, he mentioned a sea hare - looks like a yellow-y brown snail without a shell, with two bunny rabbit ears and two folding ridges along its back. If we see that, he said, we might as well stop looking. 

Well, we didn't quite stop looking, but at 45 minutes into the dive, the rattle went off (Denroy's noisemaker) and in the sand between corals, there was a thing of that description, about the size of a shoe. 

We headed back to the boat, and just under the boat was a pufferfish floating along, with its indignant big eyes darting around. 

On the way back to the resort, we peered up at the night sky. We could trace the Milky Way, but I couldn't find any other constellations I was familiar with. We're so far south, you can see the Southern Cross. A lightning storm was intermittently flashing in the distance when we got back to the dock. 

I rinsed, then headed to the dining room. The appetizers were out - some Mexican-inspired spiral. Then, the spicy sausage lasagne, with a apple-filled crepe for dessert. 

You'd think we'd be sleepy, but there was so much excitement that Alisa and I shared a glass of wine on our porch, chatting, listening to the surf, and watching Jim go by to scare the crocs back into the water. 

We saw 10pm. Crazy, right?

I Belize I Can Fly - Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015

Blue Hole day. Still up at 5:30, still had some time to finish and post the blog, early breakfast of cinnamon French toast, then on the boat at 7:30am. 

John was doing a great job of keeping us informed, but only what we needed. It was an hourlong boat ride to the site. 

That hour was choppy, with water splashing in. We closed the hatch and braced ourselves, quiet to keep our stomaches calm, but increasing my nerves.

Our briefing was thorough - down to the foot and the minute. Down to 130ft in the first minute or two. At eight minutes in, we're headed back to 80. Then chill at forty for a few, then a five minute safety stop. 

I've been the slowest equalizer, so I hopped in first and tried to get down to eight or ten feet to start equalizing - it took me a minute to relax enough to start sinking. I was blowing through my nose continually, huffing air and blowing out the bubbles. Though I was still about ten feet above everyone, I kept pace! 

The hole is shaped like a funnel, except after it narrows down, there's an overhang, and the stalactites are clinging to the top. We were there before I knew it. 

The clarity of the water and the lack of sea creatures made us look like dangled ornaments. Just the seven of us. If we could have made the right noise, the hole would've echoed back at us. 

The formations were over six feet in diameter. Alisa and I swam behind a pair; for us, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For many of the visitors this week (the shareholders), it's something that can be done every week!

During the dive yesterday, none of us had any symptoms of narcosis. Today, a few people admitted that they were a little loopy, but not anything that impacted the dive. 

I was peering around, and I hear the clicks of John's carabiner. I look down quickly and see the shadow of a reef shark below us fifty feet. He disappeared into the deep blue in a few more sinuous motions. 

I was watching the dive computer carefully, and headed up to 80 where we were meeting the group. The shelf levels out at 40, so we made it there and paused for a bit. There were scrubby patches of coral, plenty of sand, and assorted fish, but not in the amounts we've gotten used to.

With such a deep dive, we stopped at fifteen feet for five minutes as a safety stop. John kept Alisa entertained with Hangman on his slate. Once we were tossed back in the boat, Haydee started feeding the rimora that had been a great gatekeeper to the Blue Hole. 

As we sat up in the boat, a little plane was doing fly-overs of the Blue Hole - it must be amazing to see from the air when you can take the vastness of it in!

The ride to the Caye where our second site was had a school of sardines that was being attached from all sides. We could see the bar jacks flipping out of the water, and a bunch of birds dipping in, looking for their chance. A female frigate was in the feeding frenzy, her large, pointed wings dwarfing the other birds. Frigates are bullies, and like to harass other birds for their catches, but she was doing her own work in this case. 

Our second dive site was the wall at Half Moon Caye. It started with a gorgeous swim-through - surrounded on all sides by corals waving at you, fish darting in and out of your vision, and crawling creatures trying to keep pace. 

I was still about twenty feet behind John when he signaled for a turtle! One swam up the surface, while we watched from below. I trailed behind the group as it rocked with the swells. A minute or two later, it dove. It has not problems equalizing - it was down to at least 100 feet in 20 seconds!

Lee Ellyn found a lobster and a hermit crab that she shared with me. As we were kicking back to the ledge above the wall, we ran into some lionfish. 

These invasive fish eat everything, and have no natural predators, so humans have been acting as an intermediary. Firstly, by eating them ourselves - apparently a lionfish seviche is a great treat on the boat. Secondly, by trying to show the eel and the grouper that the fairly slow lionfish are edible, as long as you eat them face-first. 

John tagged one, then had another on the spear and waggled it at a giant Nassau grouper that we'd been petting, since it was clearly begging for us to do its work. When John released it, it was inches in front of the grouper. The lionfish sat, I hovered with my camera, and the grouper swayed closer and farther from it. I was hoping to see it grab the lionfish by itself, but no luck - still too much work for the grouper. 

A stingray was in the sand over the crest as well. With its sand coating, it looked pretty comfy. 

A few minutes later, a similar interaction happened, but the lionfish was killed by the spear and the grouper decided to not pass up a free lunch. Down in one gulp, that lionfish. 

As we headed out over the sea grass meadows in search of more turtles, little nests of coral still existed in the green. At one, I peered down to see a fish getting cleaned by a shrimp at what are called - aptly - a feeding station. We also ran into another stingray nestled into the sand, lurking. 

There was no luck with turtles, so we headed back to the edge of the ledge for our safety stop. At three minutes, Alisa and I started ascending, but I was giving myself some time for my ears to pop when I looked past John and saw a shark!

About twenty feet below us, gliding around with a small posse of bar jacks, it figured-eighted around the edge of the coral. I was at the surface at this point, one fin off, but face still completely in the water and entranced by the Caribbean reef shark. 

He disappeared into the distance, and I paddled back to that boat. Apparently they had been yelling at me to see if I was coming back in, but I heard nothing. 

Since we were so close to Half Moon Caye, we collected the others then headed to land for lunch. The caye also had a small interpretive center with some painting of the different sealife and a man-size red-footed booby, which nest on the island. We were told to bring cash for the gift shop - it was a dozen t-shirts and some shell jewelry, so Lee Ellyn was pleased that it wasn't as commercialized as she had feared. 

Haydee doesn't stop as feeding rimora - she fed birds as well, much to my chagrin. While we picnicked, a large iguana came out of a palm tree to peer at us. As Alisa and I walked to Sunset Beach (for a refreshing dip - being out of the water for over an hour is hard) and then to the Bird Tower, we saw the skitters of a little lizard, which then jumped over a foot between trees. Another couple majestic iguana made our acquaintance as well. 

The bird tower was fifteen steps up to a platform right in the tree tops, with a dozen frigate nests being tended to, and three red-footed boobies perched in the thick of it all. We had seen a tree full of boobies as well on our walk. You know a boyfriend is going to be jealous when I spent half an hour looking at and taking pictures of foreign boobies...

The last dive of the day was at Long Caye. "The Aquarium" was another wall dive, and I handed off my camera to Alisa then just hovered. 

I saw a few more honeycomb box fish, but didn't see their phase change; when they fed, they transition their triangular little bodies from honeycomb to spots and back. 

The others dove lower, but there was a bit of a thermocline at 50 feet, so I followed along above. It was serene - I did as little work as possible to examine the fans and brains, think of whether a fish was a parrot or hamlet, look in the cracks for more lobster or eel (nope - guess there are only fish in this aquarium). It was twenty minutes in, and time for everyone to get back to 40 or so feet when I see out of the corner of my eye, John swimming along, camera pole extended in front of him, chasing a pair of tarpin.

His eagerness made me laugh. After we all crested the wall a few minutes later, the rest of the group got to see the shiny big tarpin. 

I was waiting for another stunning moment during our safety stop, but no shark this time. Instead, just another hour-long ride back to the resort (both less choppy and less sickening because of the nausea meds) where Alisa got another coconut. 

Showered, attempted to blog by the pool, got pulled into conversation, and all of a sudden, it was time for queso. Our table was small last night - just the pair of us and Lee Ellyn and her husband as we ate steak (or fish, for Alisa) fajitas and creme brûlée. Alisa was falling asleep at the table, but I was psyched for the croc "hunt" that she said was happening. 

Turns out crocs are on Thursday. I took a picture of the bats drinking out of the swimming pool as my nature for the night. So I had thirty minutes of writing before being in a comfy bed got the better of me. Over nine hours of sleep - not a shabby night. 

Don't Stop Belize-ing - Monday, Sept 7, 2015

So there's a cast of characters I've alluded to - John, the dive master for the first half of the week, then he will trade off with DelRoy to captain the boat for the second half. There were seven divers with us the first day - Ron and Denise, a couple from Chicago that's diving with Nitrox, photographing everything, and knowledgeable about the Caribbean sealife. There's LeEllen, who was an original diver on the site and also a expert fish finder and identifier, then Haydee and Stephen, her husband, who have been diving for years and are experimenting with a GoPro and are shareholders and have some fish knowledge of their own. 

Once we get underwater, everything is gestures and clicks, but that just means that the conversation gets stored up for our hour surface interval. I've gotten advice on relationships, cooking, vacations, scuba, health, and raising children. And we're just on our second day!

Stephen had to go to a shareholders meeting, so our merry group of six headed to the northwest part of the atoll by Rendezvous Point. Our first site was The Terrace. Having LeeEllen along means that she knows all the sites and gets excited when they are announced. 

It was our checkout dive for Blue Hole tomorrow. I am a slow acclimater - it takes me and my ears five minutes to slowly creep our way down to forty feet, while Alisa and the others could be at eighty in half that. I'd like to see the stalactites at 100+ feet tomorrow, but there's a shelf at forty that everyone needs to be at in order to duck under and continue the dive. I'm prepping myself for the worst - that I get in and am too slow getting down to see the cave - but this dive at least assured me I don't get narcosis. 

I eventually got down along the wall with the others, and the nooks and crannies were exactly what was described. Giant Caribbean lobster, at least three moray eels free swimming along with us, then dozens of species of fish and coral and creatures. We worked our way back up the wall, and onto the shelf. 

It was far in the distance (so about sixty feet, the end of the visibility), but I caught the last shadow of an eagle ray. Alisa didn't get the memo quite in time - but she saw a flying fish take flight this morning, so we've got some healthy competition. 

In general, we are pretty good about pointing out the fun stuff, but it's always a crap shoot on whether we can communicate what it is we're pointing at. John has a slate - cheater (but thank goodness - no idea how he'd mime "white spotted frogfish" from the third dive).

On every dive today, we had sea urchin, parrotfish, squirrelfish (which are becoming my favorite - brilliant red colors and popping eyes... And I got a squirrel card for my birthday from Mark), blue tang, angelfish, butterflyfish, gobies, bar jacks. The diversity is incredible. 

I was sticking close to John, which meant that he tried to play connect the dots with my numerous bug bites during our safety stop. Good thing his marker doesn't mark on skin or I'd have constellations. 

Our first surface internal involved pineapple, and some great sun on the deck. I missed the outside of my thighs, so those are a little redder than the rest of me. 

Our second site was Mandy's Dandy - given the story of how LeeEllen's Melons was named, I'm not sure I want to know what was quite so dandy about it. Nevertheless, it was along the same wall, but with its own set of creatures. Most notably, John pointed out a juvenile drumfish, with a great mohawk fin complementing its zebra wear. I was proud of this dive, because I was the one pointing out the lobster, sea urchin, and the tip of a moray that I found. 

Lunch was our next surface interval, so out came the individual tubs of salad (or wraps or sandwiches - we pick each night before dinner). I slathered on more sunscreen (missing my legs, as noted above) then lay back on the front of the boat for some sunny relaxing time. While chatting it up, of course!

The third dive was at Chasbo's Corner. Another group had set up shop on the mooring line, so we got a little over an hour to chill while they headed down. We didn't see them while we were diving, but they might have been the reason for the psycho eel. 

We were about fifteen minutes into the dive - had come back onto the ledge after diving along the wall for a bit - when John found a white spotted toadfish, endemic to only this area. I had seen the spots and was clearing the way for Alisa to look when John took my elbow and pushed me upward just as a moray came free swimming toward me. 

For the next ten minutes, it was John using the GoPro on a stick to herd the eel toward a lionfish we had spotted as well. The eel was attracted to the light from Denise's camera and the scurrying fins of whatever diver he surprised as he was cruising around. I pushed Haydee out of the way once, then used my fin to guide him away from me as he was coming at me, teeth first. 

It was shocking, then fascinating, then just plain nuts how the eel was swimming around. Not sure we even had a spear to get the lionfish that we saw to fed it and placate it, but the attempt to give the invasive lionfish a natural predator is a great one, and morays top the list.

It is time to wean them off the people-hunted lionfish and let them get their own. 

Alisa and I proudly found trumpetfish and squirrelfish on our own. She pointed out a snail to me; John beckoned me over to see two of those peacock tony snails "doing the nasty," as he wrote on his slate. 

I counted twenty species of fish in less than a minute while hovering above the reef - and DelRoy was giving us grief for not knowing all of them back in the lodge this evening. I have now done two days of diving in the Caribbean. Give me a break!

During our safety stop, Alisa leaned over to check out my dive computer. I look down at it, and a giant green face is in mine! The moray swam up to 15 feet, still looking for his free lunch!

We hopped out of the water after an hour, and headed back in to the resort. Three dives a day is very nice - it gave me time to sit and finish my book by the pool while Alisa drank a coconut (and had them chop it open so she could eat it too). 

We washed all the salt off before dinner, then went inside to use some limited internet while studying our fish. I think I'll look for some hamlets tomorrow - I haven't been able to identify any of those. 

Dinner was pork tenderloin, with delicious glazed carrots and - for dessert - rum-soaked pineapple topping cheesecake. Yeah... I might have had two pieces since Steve the bartender didn't want his. 

Steve had made a drink of the day that was sweet, fruity, and secret; all I wanted was the banana shake I had requested at the beginning of the week, but they were out of bananas! So it was a pineapple shake instead. 

Jim went out to see crocodiles with us again, and I saw the eyes of a little one, but not the head like I saw Saturday night.

It was dark, I was done with people, and so lights were out at 9pm - we'll have to stay up a bit later tomorrow for our real croc hunt with Abell at 8pm!