Day 3 (part two)

Everyone was still abuzz when we pulled into the reef for lunch. Fun thing about this lunch trip is that the Park Ranger’s boat isn’t working. So our guides jump on and fix his engine. Then we lash our boats together, along with another boat, and share food and drinks. It was like a tailgate party in the middle of the Caribbean. Our guide refers to everyone as a “cousin” and I think he means in literally. During lunch, some fishermen show up and our Captain asks if we’re all done eating, and gives the guy, his cousins, what’s left over. Here’s where I begin to somewhat understand the dynamics of this ocean. The fishermen keep an eye out for whale sharks; tell their cousins (the Captains of the tourist boats) where they are, and the Captains take the swimmers over to see them. Beyond the obvious economic boost, the tourist boats also provide a nice lunch to the fishermen and a break from the monotony of hand fishing all day. So the fishermen are motivated to help the Captains and the Captains are happy to share what the tourists paid for with the fishermen.

Back to lunch, the way of the boat is that you toss all your food overboard for the fish (one of the benefits of eating regular food). The fish dig this. And so do we, its fun to watch them swim up and swarm the food. After eating, Sander asks if he can go swimming around the reef? Sure says I. Then we notice a small barracuda swimming around. I tell Sander to hold some chicken in his hand and see if he can feed it so I can get a picture. He looks at me with huge eyes and shakes his head vigorously “no.” I love it when he totally misses a joke, but at least he’s no fool. He also asks that no one throw any food into the water now. We all agree. Anyway, I jump in and we swim around the aquarium reef for a while, with the barracuda finding a friend and the two of them just swimming around with us. We joke around that maybe they’re a father and son barracuda on vacation excitedly talking about swimming with two humans. Again, Belize amazes us. Alone, this would have been an amazing experience that we talked about forever, but after a whale shark, and before what happened next (patience), it was just another cool thing we did.

So after lunch, we saddle up and head back out to look for whale sharks. This time, the captain basically threw the divers in the water and kept us snorkelers in the boat saying that we should be ready in case a fisherman sees a whale shark. I guess he finally decided to do away with any pretext of the magic bubbles. My final, cynical thoughts on the magic bubble dinner bell? I figure the guide services can charge more scuba than snorkeling, so they provide this service, but it’s all basically luck. The reason they don’t really use the fish finder is that the whale shark swims to fast to locate, get the scuba divers in the water and off to where they need to be in time. The scuba crowd is just too slow. My bet is that if we did see a whale shark on the surface during one of our “lookie” sessions, the captain would have just put the scuba divers in the water as snorkelers. Also, I’m totally convinced that this whole thing is fisherman based. That, or he just didn’t feel like putting us in the water, who knows?

However, our own little fish asked if he could swim around while we were waiting. For some reason, this just blew everyone away. So Sander jumps in and swims around. When the captain had to move the boat, Sander held onto the ladder and the captain slowly drove to the new local, with Sander giving updates on the scuba diver’s location and state of the current. I went in with him and I have to say, it was beautiful. Without straining my eyes and looking down for whale sharks, I was able to appreciate this ocean for the first time. It’s an amazing color blue, and deep. But clear and you can see so you don’t feel claustrophobic or scared like you can in the Gulf of Mexico (Not that I’m ever scared, I far to manly for fear). It almost like looking into the sky. It just seemed to go on forever, with only various colors of blue to tell distance or get a marker. Speaking of sky, the two blended together in the distance, adding to the feeling of being in space. It’s very difficult to describe the feeling of infinity, but that’s how it seemed. I felt like an astronaut. Then, within this feeling of infinity, all of the sudden life appeared. It was almost jarring at first, but two dolphins swam up and began investigating the boat, and Sander. And these were huge dolphins; I’m guessing 7’ each. They swam towards us, getting closer than I’ve ever been to dolphins in the wild. At one point they were almost close enough to touch. I started wondering if they were going to stop, and had visions of holding on and swimming with them. But like my dreams of playing in the NBA, they soon vanished into the blue. I would have missed this experience, like the other people on the boat did, if I hadn’t been swimming with Sander. I have to admit, I was whomped, and full, and wanted to stay in the boat and chill. But when your eight year old boy calls out, “Come on Daddy, lets swim!” and your belly’s full, and your tired, and you don’t really want to, you start to hear, “The CATS in the cradle with the SILver spoon, little boy blue and the MAAAAN in the moon…” and you get into the water. I’m so glad I did. It is such an amazing experience, swimming with dolphins 30+ miles into the Caribbean ocean with your son. And since we were the only ones in the water, it felt like the experience was all ours. Beautiful.

Soon the divers come to the surface, spotting nothing. Again. OK, I hate to keep reflecting, but reflecting does it to you. If it weren’t for Sander not being able to scuba, I definitely would have been a scuba diver. Cool gear, you get to go deeper, and you put out magic bubbles, its more expensive, so surely it must be better, right? But since we weren’t able to scuba, we became snorkelers. Mask, snorkel, fins that’s it. But we were fast and natural, and we saw a huge turtle, a whale shark, two barracudas and swam with two gigantic dolphins. No one else could say that. No one. And with our lack of gear, I felt more a part of the ocean. No wetsuit separating us from the water, no regulator noise and no distracting bubbles to scare the fish and block our vision. Just us, and what we saw and felt. I have to admit; I thought we had the short end of the stick on these trips and was trying to make the best of it when we set out each day. But it turns out we had the best of it. We gad a great time and saw the most sea-life. We were just father and son, with simple equipment and Sander’s relentless joy in and for the water. Turns out that’s all you need.

Well, that and a chocolate smoothie.