Water 2, The Return

Now that the weather was on our side, we decided to pack the days chock full-o-fun. So we booked another snorkeling trip, which sounds much easier than it was, for it was Good Friday, or as Sander called it, "Big Friday." He was very curious why no one worked on "Big Friday." Then as I was explaining that it was the Friday before Easter, there was this loooooong pause, then a gasp. "Wait, I didn't know it was Easter this Sunday, no one told me THAT." Like he struck some kind of Faustian bargain with me and that this trip to Belize would require him to miss Easter and only eat spinach for the rest of his life. "Yes little boy, you got to leave the country and go diving on a world class reef like you've always wanted, but now, bwa ha ha, now you will have to miss Easter!!!!" I told him that the Easter Bunny would, indeed find him in Belize and not to sweat it. However, being Big Friday, I had to call around to every dive shop in town looking for a guide, to no avail. Then, and this is where those that say "Crime doesn't pay" are wrong, after Sander was done illegally driving in the "country" we passed a dive shop. Being the "never say die" types, we stopped in and asked if they would take us snorkeling on Big Friday. "Yes" came the reply. Now, before you get to the same place I was, which is, "do I really WANT to go out on a boat with the only guy working on Big Friday?" I had seen their boats all around the island, and the dive shop was located in a resort. Good enough for me in Belize I say. I mean it wasn't like we were going parasailing or anything. So anyway, if we weren't breaking international law we would not have stumbled on the little dive shop that could. Let that be a lesson to the kids.

So we booked our trip, and now it was time to go on said trip. We met another nice family on the boat and off we went. Let me just say that Good Friday was good to us. The first time we went to Ho Chan, it was a parking lot. There with people and boats everywhere. But this time, because all the dive shops were telling the tourists that no one worked Good Friday, and since those squares weren't the cool lawbreaking types they believed "the man," we were the only boat on the reef. Unbelievable. With less crowds there were less people to spook the fish, and the fish were everywhere. Check out this spotted eagle ray I spotted. Or this tarpon I swam up on. This last shot is my favorite, just the classic shot of a green moray eel. I also got a shot of the elusive Sandernaut (notice the distinctive blue shirt of the Belizian variety). Just incredible. All you could hear was either me or Sander shouting through our snorkel for the other to hurry up and look "over here," "over there," "over everywhere" and frantically pointing something out. It was like we had a reservation for the preservation (ok, I pushed that). Ho Chan was great.

But like I always say, when life opens a door, God slams a window shut. If you recall from the last trip (I'll wait while you consult your notes...) Ho Chan was followed up with a trip to Shark Ray Alley. Well, this time it was just Ray Alley. No sharks. This guide used a different method, and I don't mean "different good." The first guide had a pvc pipe pierced with hole and stuffed with some kind of dead sea creatures, I'm thinking either smelt or squid. Well, the pipe kept the jacks and the rays from eating the bait so the smell and "stuff" could seep out and attract the sharks. Today's guide just pitched small dead fish into the water, where they lasted approximately 1.5 milliseconds before the jacks got them. So there was nothing to attract the sharks, and like divas everywhere, if your not giving them special attention, they're not showing up for the show. So we swam around for a while looking at basically nothing, freezing. Funny how cold works. When you're in cold water excitedly looking at things, not so cold. When you're in cold water looking at seaweed, very cold. Anyway, we did this until a guide from another boat somehow caught a nurse shark and physically swam it over to his group, but he had to pass our group to do so. So we technically saw a shark and were allowed to leave the water and get into the boat. But really, what can you expect from the only guide desperate enough to work on Big Friday?

So that was our Friday morning. What's next you ask? That's right, Friday afternoon.