Ambergris Caye - Day 4.5 Report - 05/19/03 05:47 AM
(Sidenote: Completely forgot to mention, go check out San Telmo Living Arts...there's a sign right next to the Bamboo Furniture store that points to where it is. It's run by this guy named Jose Pacifico.. basically he's turned his land into a kind of walk through sculpture / art exhibit. Really really interesting art pieces and Jose's a strange cat unto himself. I think if you looked up "weathered" in the dictionary you'd see a picture of him. The man's made of leather. Anyway, it's free to walk around and look at, a nice "off the beaten path" sorta thing)
Listen up and I'll tall you a tale of ex-patriate Cajuns and wayward crocodiles.
Day 4 -
Woke up early to head down to check and see if any of my underwater photos came out. THEY DID! Some great shots of sea turtles, big schools of something or other, big groupers, bonitos, coral, purple sponges... you name it. Great to have some good diving shots to take home.
Checked in with Amigos del Mar and noticed something funny. Just above their door is a picture of the 1993 Austin Bud Girls and lo and behold, there's my ex fiancee in the back row. Geez, you travel 2000 miles from home and you still run into a pic of your ex... strange stuffs.
Decided to do a two tanker, first one was at Toffee (Coffee?) outside the reef. Holy crap those swells suck! Everyone was getting seasick, but after suffering through it for two hours on the Blue Hole run the day before, I did much better this time around. Dive was fairly uneventful...not much to see.
Dive Two was just outside the reef at Hol Chan - GREAT DIVE! Sea turtles, big rays, and a couple of large (4-5 foot) remoras shadowed us for awhile. The best part of the dive was a 20lb black grouper that "adopted" us for the entire length of the dive.. swam inside of our group for 45-50 minutes...never more than 2-4 feet away from us. That was really really cool...it was like a pet dog or something. Naturally this was the time I forgot to bring my camera along. DOH!
Got back..relaxed a bit and had a pulled BBQ chicken sandwich at Lagniappes. Met Ms. Lagniappe ( ;-)) and traded Cajun jokes with her for a bit.
About 4:30 made it back to BB and we decided to go check out this crocodile thing. We were thinking it was some sort of nature reserve, roped off park kinda thing with an organized feeding. NOPE! It's like the Belizean version of cow tipping, I think. Basically, you buys your chicken parts and tosses em at this monstrous 14 foot saltwater croc that lives in the mangrove swamp by the water tower. No ropes, nothing...just walk out to him and toss some food at him. Lemme tell ya, it's one thing to see em on Discovery channel, quite another to see them up close (maybe within 8-10 feet). He was "movie prop" kinda big. Some of the kids were wading ankle deep into the water and tossing out chicken tied to a string.
Secretly I was sorta hoping one of em would get chomped...Darwinism at work to stop that sort of moronic behavior.
Anyhoo, pretty impressive / dangerous / all of that.
Last night in town and we head over to Fidos from some music. Had a cover band playing Steely Dan, Rush, Janis Joplin tracks..really really good tunes. We met up with a bunch of our dive buddies and eventually had a good group of 8-10 people that we had met over the week. Good times...good times.
Oh..you've got to try the fish and chips at Fidos...EXCELLENT!
About 12am we wondered back over to Jaguars to dance the night away. Tua met up with us over there to have a few beers. He's one of the bartenders at Banana Beach. 300lbs of ass kicking hawaiian. Nicest guy in the world tho..always smiling and joking with ya.
Headed back home way late..,
Day 5 - Time to go. :-(
Got up and relaxed on the beach - checked out early and headed down to BC's for the Sunday BBQ. GREAT FOOD! Sausage, chicken, pork chops, ribs, shrimp...really good stuff. Met Peter (who runs CocoNET Internet Coffee Bar - where I've been making my reports from). Showed him some of the diving pictures...
'Small fish...big fish, some small fish...a few bigger fish. Great Daylon...when was your return flight again?'
;-)
Finally got home about an hour ago..and I'm missing Belikins and the island already. After driving a golf cart around for a week I almost forgot how to drive a 'normal' car.
Can't wait to get back. Thanks for all the pointers and info guys.. I'll post up pics of the entire trip soon.
Listen up and I'll tall you a tale of ex-patriate Cajuns and wayward crocodiles.
Day 4 -
Woke up early to head down to check and see if any of my underwater photos came out. THEY DID! Some great shots of sea turtles, big schools of something or other, big groupers, bonitos, coral, purple sponges... you name it. Great to have some good diving shots to take home.
Checked in with Amigos del Mar and noticed something funny. Just above their door is a picture of the 1993 Austin Bud Girls and lo and behold, there's my ex fiancee in the back row. Geez, you travel 2000 miles from home and you still run into a pic of your ex... strange stuffs.
Decided to do a two tanker, first one was at Toffee (Coffee?) outside the reef. Holy crap those swells suck! Everyone was getting seasick, but after suffering through it for two hours on the Blue Hole run the day before, I did much better this time around. Dive was fairly uneventful...not much to see.
Dive Two was just outside the reef at Hol Chan - GREAT DIVE! Sea turtles, big rays, and a couple of large (4-5 foot) remoras shadowed us for awhile. The best part of the dive was a 20lb black grouper that "adopted" us for the entire length of the dive.. swam inside of our group for 45-50 minutes...never more than 2-4 feet away from us. That was really really cool...it was like a pet dog or something. Naturally this was the time I forgot to bring my camera along. DOH!
Got back..relaxed a bit and had a pulled BBQ chicken sandwich at Lagniappes. Met Ms. Lagniappe ( ;-)) and traded Cajun jokes with her for a bit.
About 4:30 made it back to BB and we decided to go check out this crocodile thing. We were thinking it was some sort of nature reserve, roped off park kinda thing with an organized feeding. NOPE! It's like the Belizean version of cow tipping, I think. Basically, you buys your chicken parts and tosses em at this monstrous 14 foot saltwater croc that lives in the mangrove swamp by the water tower. No ropes, nothing...just walk out to him and toss some food at him. Lemme tell ya, it's one thing to see em on Discovery channel, quite another to see them up close (maybe within 8-10 feet). He was "movie prop" kinda big. Some of the kids were wading ankle deep into the water and tossing out chicken tied to a string.
Secretly I was sorta hoping one of em would get chomped...Darwinism at work to stop that sort of moronic behavior.
Anyhoo, pretty impressive / dangerous / all of that.
Last night in town and we head over to Fidos from some music. Had a cover band playing Steely Dan, Rush, Janis Joplin tracks..really really good tunes. We met up with a bunch of our dive buddies and eventually had a good group of 8-10 people that we had met over the week. Good times...good times.
Oh..you've got to try the fish and chips at Fidos...EXCELLENT!
About 12am we wondered back over to Jaguars to dance the night away. Tua met up with us over there to have a few beers. He's one of the bartenders at Banana Beach. 300lbs of ass kicking hawaiian. Nicest guy in the world tho..always smiling and joking with ya.
Headed back home way late..,
Day 5 - Time to go. :-(
Got up and relaxed on the beach - checked out early and headed down to BC's for the Sunday BBQ. GREAT FOOD! Sausage, chicken, pork chops, ribs, shrimp...really good stuff. Met Peter (who runs CocoNET Internet Coffee Bar - where I've been making my reports from). Showed him some of the diving pictures...
'Small fish...big fish, some small fish...a few bigger fish. Great Daylon...when was your return flight again?'
;-)
Finally got home about an hour ago..and I'm missing Belikins and the island already. After driving a golf cart around for a week I almost forgot how to drive a 'normal' car.
Can't wait to get back. Thanks for all the pointers and info guys.. I'll post up pics of the entire trip soon.
