Belize Day 3 - Diving Day and Night

We slept for 10+ hours again. We must really need our sleep. We headed right to breakfast because we had another morning dive today. They debuted their buffet breakfast again today. It was great and is included in our stay because of Alison’s Hilton status. I never say no to a free breakfast. They even had some Belizean fry bread with fresh homemade pineapple jam - delish. 

The weather could not have been more beautiful. It was a perfect sunny day. We drove to the dive shop and our gear was already loaded in the boat. They make diving so easy!

Today we were doing one dive and one snorkel. Both took place in the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. This area is protected from fishing and usage is limited. As a result it has abundant sea life. The sea life was unbelievable. We dropped into the water and immediately saw a sea turtle grazing on the sea grass. We swam along a sea wall. Going out there was quite a strong current. We tried to stay low and we had to swim pretty hard to keep momentum. This dive wasn’t too deep. At the deepest we were at 25 feet but portions of the dive were only 8 to 4 feet deep. We saw so much sea life. We saw  sting rays, Eagle rays, lobsters, fish and more. It was quite remarkable. 

The good thing about the strong current going out was that it was easy coming back in. This was an anchor dive, which meant we anchored the boat, dove, swam away and then swam back. On our way back we saw two more turtles eating sea grass - so cool. In all we were in the water ~40 minutes. 

After our dive we rode in the boat for around 10 minutes to section B of the Hol Chan Reserve. This area is known as shark ray alley. When this area used to be a big fishing center the fisherman would come here to clean their catches. The sharks learned this was the area to come and get a free meal. When they hear the sound of a boat they come. We snorkeled with the nerf sharks here. We don’t really care for snorkeling, but I loved seeing the sharks. We also saw a sting ray. 

After diving we drove around town a bit in our golf cart. We are on the south side of town and there isn’t much here outside of a few resorts. Most of the food and establishments are north of the San Pedro airport. 

We were back at our hotel by noon. We changed our swimsuits and picked up our beach stuff and caught the 1pm boat to the beach club. 

It was another day and another afternoon day bed for us. Once again we relaxed and ate food. We read some books and enjoyed the tranquility of the ocean. 

We had evening plans so we had to take an earlier boat back. We took the 3:30pm boat.  It turned out a lot of people wanted to take this boat as well. They had two boats and filled them both. It is first come first serve and they even turned a few people away. Fortunately we got in line early enough to get a spot. 

We had a little time so we went into town and bought new flip flops for me. Side story - the day before I left I realized I threw away my old flip flops in Africa. They were hammered. Anyways I forgot and by then it was too late to order some. Turns out it is hard to find flip flops in store in Utah in November. I finally found some in Walmart. They cost one dollar. They lasted two days before starting to fall apart, but not to worry I found some in Belize. We also found some sunglasses for Alison. 

Tonight we were going night diving. We showed up at the shop at 5pm. They got us loaded with all the gear. We went back to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. We watched the sunset from the boat. Shortly after sunset we entered the water. It is surreal to descent into the darkness. We each had lights so we could see the other members of our party and the sea life. The sea life is so incredible at night. So many huge eagle rays would glide past. At one point an Eagle ray came right at us and then went right through our group. We also saw tons of sting rays mostly hiding at the ocean floor. We also saw lobsters and crabs. There were blood worms that lived our lights and would swarm and get kind of annoying, though they were harmless. If you turned your light off for a minute they would disperse. This was one of my favorite dives. We were exploring underwater for around 50 minutes.

Ascending to the surface was a cool experience. We turned off our lights and floated in the ocean looking at the stars as one by one we handed up our gear and climbed into the boats. The beauty and stillness of this moment made quite an impression on me. This was quite the way to end our day.