Couldn’t Swim So We Took a Boat… To an Island So Remote

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Belize is a place where, if you sit still long enough, fish will snuggle with you in the ocean, hummingbirds will find the sweet juices  of the flower in your hair, a dolphin will peek his nose at you and the lizards will play their squirrely games right around your toes.

We had a few days to decompress, which meant me taking photos of all the greenery around us… because it’s nothing like the sagebrush on the prairie.

So basically…..We did nothing. I can’t remember the last time I did nothing. It’s been years. Nothing is amazing. (Fear not though, we had some of the most amazing adventures later.)  My dino dude started off in the pool at eight in the morning, directly after breakfast. He loved the infinity pool. Brady and I pulled up a couple of loungers and parked ourselves between two palm trees for the majority of the day. I drank my coffee by the sea that morning,  and coke in the afternoon and a cocktail as the sun went down. I read a little, but mostly just sat and watched the waves go up and down. Trying to void my headof all thought. Later, after many hours I suppose, I walked out into the warm warm Belize waters. I’ve never experienced such warm ocean water…warmer than all the pools. It was like one giant hot tub. It made all the water sports well worth it and much more fun.  I could have swam out there forever, if a certain 7 year old wouldn’t have needed my attention for a grueling game of Marco Polo in the pool (which two out of the three of us got hurt playing, as it’s all fun and game until someone gets poked in the eye.)

It rained cats and dogs on the 4th day, we had to reschedule excursion trips, but it was wasn’t a downer at all. We all laid in our king bed with the purple blanket and read and used wifi to it’s greatest extend….for games. We rode our bikes again to town after the rain stopped.  4.5 miles again in the humidity, but much cooler weather. We wandered a little, there wasn’t much to bring home with us that we don’t already have.  We were on the look out for turtles that would have come out after the rain.  We didn’t find any. But we did see a little grey fox run into the trees. Went to “Starbucks”  (a place that made us banana frappachnios  specially, any which way we wanted) It was owned by a woman from Oregon that had never gone home from vacation. She told us stories about tarantulas  in her house and scorpions in the bathrooms.  Lo and behold on the way back to Roberts, we stopped our bikes and my husband found a baby tarantula hiding in the bushes. (at least that’s what we guessed it was, since it was big and hairy and gruesome)
We came back and went straight to the pool again.  We took out a little Hobi Cat sail boat later, which we were terrible at sailing. True to our name, we were stuck several times trying to get the thing turned around, and instead we just sat out in open water bobbing up and down. But when we were moving, thank god the water was warm, because  we had a lot of water in between waves flowing over the boat. The Dino dude and I laughed and laughed every time water was coming at us, like it was a carnival ride!

Finally we got to go on an excursion.

And it was very much worth the wait.

We took a little boat with about 10 other people to an island in the middle of nowhere. It was truly like something you see in the movies.  Pretty much like Johnny Depp.

We went for a snorkel excursion in some of the clearest water I have ever seen in my life. The little dino dude was scared at first, but for a 7 year old, he held up very well for first trip around the Island. Watching your child underwater experience sea wildlife is kind of like a dream in slow motion. Watching his reaction to Barracudas and Nurse Sharks swimming next to him was absolutely priceless (this was at the same time a rather large jelly fish drug himself down the length of my leg, thank god it was not his tentacles) We had lunch on the island and everyone else went out for a second time around, further out. My little man was tired, so he and I got to spend an hour by ourselves on the little island. It was an hour that will be forever engrained in my brain as one of the most beautiful. We sat in the clear water watching the fish around us. Pretty soon they would nibble at my legs. (Not sure why the animals were attracted to my legs, I shaved and everything!) It was beautiful. When everyone got back, we boarded the boat to head out to one last spot… to try and find see turtles. And sea turtles we found. Sea turtles are HUGE. And they eat conch shells (which are everywhere!!!) We found two eating at the bottom (along with several more sharks) and watched them quietly. All of a sudden the big guy turned his head and looked at me… and I remember thinking “he looks JUST LIKE CRUSH!!” and then quietly he made his way straight to my son. Now this part was AMAZING and SCARY at the same time. You can’t touch the turtles as they can take a hand or an arm off in a single bite. Their jaws are stronger than a shark. But this guy decided out of all the people, my son would be the one he was intrigued with and looked him straight in the eye before the guide pulled him out of the way and the turtle went right back down to his shell. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. And my son as well…and it made me want to get an underwater cover for my camera. But for now, it’s just a beautiful memory.