Day 7 & 8 Blue Hole Flight and flying home

And before we knew it our trip was coming to an end. We had one more day of adventure and then we would be traveling home.

Once again we slept in and had breakfast at the resort. 

After breakfast we drove our golf cart to the airport. We were scheduled to take a scenic flight to see the blue hole. We checked in at the airport. There is no security or anything in San Pedro. They didn’t even ask for identification. They asked for our names and handed us our boarding documents. 

We were in another small 10 or so person plane. It was a nice ride. It got a little bumpy in the middle, but not too bad. We flew over San Pedro. It was fun to see the beach club, dive shop, and Mahogany Bay from the air. Then we flew out to the blue hole. From the air you could see the scope of the Belize Barrier Reef. It is the second largest barrier reef in the world and it is immense. 

The beach club

The Belize Pro Dive Center

Mahogany Bay is the group of white/grey buildings

I loved seeing the shimmering reefs below. One interesting landmark we passed was an old sea freighter stuck on the reef break. 

Seeing the Great Blue Hole from the air was really cool. When you are down inside it you wouldn’t even know it. It just looks like ocean and you can kind of see the curvature, but it is hard to see. From the air it is an unmistakable sight. It is also interesting to see that it is in the middle of the Belize Barrier reef. We also couldn’t tell that when we were in the boat, but from the air it was easy to see. 

We also flew over Half Moon Caye. This was more interesting since we had visited this pristine island a couple days earlier. 

Then we flew back to San Pedro. It was a great scenic flight. 

Another view of Mahogany Bay Resort from the air

After the flight the weather wasn’t great. It looked and felt like it was about to rain. We stopped on the way back to the resort to get some gas in our golf cart and then headed back to our room. We waited out the weather in our room. 

We didn’t really feel like taking the boat over  to the beach club, plus it wasn’t very sunny, so we decided to hang out by the pool. It was a nice change of scenery. We ordered food, I finished my book, and we lounged the afternoon away. 

While we were hanging out by the pool the resident crocodile floated over. I enjoyed watching him swim around the lagoon. We also saw a couple of iguanas exploring the pool area and we saw a seahorse in the shallow waters of the lagoon. 

A seahorse in the shallow waters

As evening neared we shared a Mayan brownie. It is the signature dessert at the hotel. We tried to order one the other night but it was already gone for the day. Today we were in luck. It was a delicious treat. 

It started to rain around 5:30pm and we retreated to our hotel room. Good thing we did because soon it was pouring rain. I waited out the rain for about 90 minutes. When it slowed I ran to the Chicken Coop to buy a couple of orders of chicken wings for dinner. They hit the spot.

The next morning we woke up and packed our bags. We got one more breakfast at the hotel. We also stopped by the hotel gift shop to purchase a trinket for our curio cabinet. 

Then it was time to leave. A hotel employee came to our room to pick up our bags. We drove our golf cart to the security hut at the front of the resort. The company we rented from would come and pick it up. We settled our bill with the hotel and then a taxi took us to the airport. 

We had a short flight from San Pedro to Belize city. This time I was in the copilot seat. That was kind of fun. We went through immigration in Belize City. It was easy. Then we had to wait for a couple of hours for our flight. While we waited I found someone to trade me BZD (Belize currency) for some USD. I like to collect a little local currency from each country we visit. 

Finally it was time to leave and we boarded our flight to Atlanta. It is only 2.5 hour flight. It was the best kind of flight - uneventful. I spent the whole flight editing diving video and listening to a book and Alison finished her second book of the trip. 

We landed in Atlanta and got through immigration and customs. We had to go through security again. We didn’t have much time between flights so we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and headed to our home bound flight. We were upgraded because of Alison's status so we were in lay flat seats. This flight was fairly short, but lay flat seats are always better than not lay flat seats. When we landed we got our bags and Debbie was waiting to pick us up from the airport. It was great to see her and be home.