Saturday Night Fever

So we grab a quick bite, pizza again, and zip back to the dock for our night dive. And here I reflect on the great part of being guys. We went fishing all morning, docked, jumped in our little golf cart, ate pizza, drove back, threw on swim trunks and split for the boat. The ocean was our bath, and the salt air was our cologne. At least as it seemed to me. Maybe if you were there you would say that the "fish juice was your bath, and diesel smoke was your cologne." But you weren't and this is my flashback. Also for some reason in Belize I remember being 6'4" and build like a linebacker...

For the night snorkel we are reacquainted with our fist Ho Chan guide, Enrique. We really liked him, and were happy to see him again. Also, its just Sander and I on the boat, so again, its like the ocean is ours. We had to arrive at Ho Chan early to set up shop before dark and then just sit and wait for the sun to go down. Sander, by the way, is so excited that he's jumping up and down, waddling around with his flippers on just chomping at the bit to get in. That's him, holding his flash light "like a light saber." You might think he put on the mask and snorkel for the picture, but you'd be wrong. I'm telling you, he was R-E-A-D-Y. Finally, its time to get in. I have to be honest, normally, ocean night swimming makes me a bit nervous. Well, to be a bit more honest, it totally freaks me out. I mean, people are already a bit helpless in the water (there's a reason fish don't vacation on land), take away the ability to see what's around you (or more to the point, coming AT you) and you wind up feeling like, like, like, well like something that's blind and helpless anyway (I tried desperately to come up with the right analogy here. Tried a bad, a Helen Keller, but I felt wrong even thinking about that one, a piñata, even a mole, but nothing really worked. So yes, I quit). But for whatever reason, I didn't feel like that at all in Belize. I think its a daddy instinct. When you're in the goofy spot with your child something kicks in that keeps you calm and focused. So I when I entered the water, I wasn't the least bit spooked, but it was bizarre.

And awesome! Its very difficult to describe underwater snorkeling. With all the swimmers at the surface, when you look around all you see is darkness and flashlight beams. Its kind of like one of those Post Apocalyptic movies, where its all smoggy and all you can see are futuristic helicopters and their search lights. Anyway, when you see something of interest, you have two choices. When you're calm, you point your flashlight beam at the object and kind of wave it around drawing attention to said object. When you're real excited you yell through your snorkel and grab franticly at whomever your swimming with. And here's where you see the difference between an eight year old boy, and his 37 year old father. It's a maturity thing, and can't be helped so you should cut everyone a little slack, no need to make fun of anyone or anything. So when Sander saw something, he did a great job of patiently waiving his light at it so I could enjoy it too. A great example is the second picture. He kept waving his light around that lobster, but I thought he was just waving it a rock. Actually I thought, "Why is Sander's light flashing on that rock? Is it moving because he's cold? Is he looking somewhere else and that's just his light bobbing in the ocean? Come on Sander, focus." Somehow, through the night ocean and a snorkel I felt him sigh and so I dove down and took a closer look. Lo and behold, it wasn't a rock, it was a Spanish Lobster, or what I like to call a "walkie rock."

While Sander and the guide did a great job of pointing with the light, I tended to get Sander's attention with the second method, which sounds like this, "HRMSANDBLER, HRMSANDLBER! OOOK, OOOK! HRMSADBLER!" With me grabbing at him and waving my flashlight all over the place, but in looking at him I inevitably drifted in the current away from what ever I was screeching for him to see, so by the time he swam up next to me, I had to refind the object. All in all a very cumbersome method, but he was very patient with me. That's him swimming in the third picture. Which brings me to my final point about snorkeling. Since the reef is so close to the surface, it actually sticks out above the water in some areas, there's no real benefit to SCUBA. You can easily reach whatever you need in one breath, and because you're not making any bubbles and noise you can get much closer to the fish. You can also really explore the reef because you don't have to worry about all your gear dinging the coral. And yes, in four years when Sander can night dive, I'll be writing about how great night diving is in Ho Chan compared to snorkeling. No hobgoblins trouble this little mind. No siree. Last picture is of some huge crab that Sander found. Somehow I didn't see it at first. I'm telling you, I would be barracuda food in 17 minutes without the boy to look out for me.

Speaking of, Ho Chan is a channel. You start out on one side, snorkel around for a bit, then cross the channel. The channel is where all the big fish hang out. We saw huge grouper, tarpon and giant snapper, plus some other big fish of the big fish variety. And the channel is fairly wide and deep. So we're swimming across it looking at all the large fish and currently labeled "sucker" SCUBA divers when the guide taps me and shines the light near the surface and lights up a barracuda. A big one. Now if you're paying attention you've already guessed that a snorkel is not the longest device in the world, so when I write that the barracuda is at the surface, what I mean is that he's eye level. And just for clarity when I write that he was "big" what I mean is that he was as long as Sander. But he's lit up real nice and I can see him. Then he swims out of the range of my little flashlight and I lose him. Then he swims back into range, then out. I'm telling you, he's messing with me. Like a puppy darting real close, getting down on his front legs, and then jumping back when you go to grab him. Except puppies are cute, and barracudas are like big silver bullets with huge nasty teeth. Keep in mind, I probably killed this guys cousin about four hours earlier, so I'm hoping that with my mask and snorkel he doesn't recognize me. As a precaution, I put Sander between me and the guide as we finish swimming through the channel. Later, bristling with pride, when I tell Sander that I put him between me and Enrique to protect him, he quickly find the fault in my little Maginot Line and points out that the barracuda could have swam up between us because the front and back were open. Hey look kid, I'm just happy I saw the thing. But it was definitely weird to see one in the water with us.

So finally he swims off, the barracuda not Sander, and we resume our looking on the other side of the channel. But then we start to notice that this side stings. A lot. At first I didn't really notice it, but the stinging sensation ramped up pretty quick. Enrique told us to turn off the lights, but it didn't help. It was time to get out, no way around it. At the boat, Enrique said we swam through a bunch of sea lice. Later we found out that see lice are actually jelly fish larvae. Fun. I'll let you imagine what its like when they get down your shorts...

So we had to cut our swim a bit short, but it was a great time. Kind of a "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" evening.

So we go home and order room service. But we're both too tired to really eat it so we pick at just enough to not go to bed hungry and rack out. It was our last night, and it was like all the others. We hit the bed happy and exhausted.

Next up, homeward bound.