Belize, Day 4

We went to Pepper Bites for breakfast this morning. I had French toast which was really really good. It was made from this cinnamon swirl bread, so it was like a cross between French toast and a Cinnabon. Mmmm, I could use some French toast right now.

We went to Hol Chan Marine Park to dive today. It is way down south on Ambergris. Since it is so far south, we did not return to the dock during the surface interval.

Dive 1: Eagle Ray Canyons

Today Peter was giving a class to another couple, so we stuck with Israel. We saw one eagle ray here, as promised. I also noticed lots of cool shrimps, which is funny because before the night dive, I had seen next to none. I noticed that in the little pits on the outside of big barrel sponges, there were lots of cool critters – tons of coral banded shrimps, and one really interesting one which I think was a squat anemone shrimp. I also found some of corkscrew anemones. I also started to notice that arrow crabs seem to pretty reliably be found near the orange crinoids.

Surface interval

On the surface interval, we snorkelled a very shallow area in Hol Chan (we could stand the whole time), although no snorkels actually participated :P There were nurse sharks and a variety of fish. There were scattered coral heads, some in surprisingly good condition, with lots of little fish hanging out around them.

Dive 2 : Pillar Corals

I thought that the shallows at Hol Chan were actually in worse shape than elsewhere, but that the deeper portions were better. Unfortunately we did not spend too much time very deep on this dive. But there were lots of huge barrel sponges, plus more of the small critters from the first dive. And I believe we saw at least one eagle ray.

In the afternoon, we rented a golf cart, to drive around the island and check out the further reaches. We went up north past the cut, and drove up a ways until it got rather desolate. At one point we found a little path to the beach big enough for the cart, and we drove down the beach, which was better than the sometimes-flooded dirt road. We didn’t see anything particularly interesting up there. Then a bit before dusk, we drove down south in search of crocodiles. We got rather lost on the way to the pond that was described to us (because of a road being closed), but we just happened to end up there. At the time, we thought we were just at a different pond, but turns out it was the one. Anyway, I saw something on the surface, and it was a crocodile! Pretty cool. I’ve never seen an alligator or crocodile before.

For dinner, we went to Sunset Grille. The service was appallingly slow. We got there, and were seated in the back corner (which was right on the water). Someone finally took our order after 20 minutes (no one ever bothered to take a drink order). Then about 15 minutes later, someone brought bread. People kept coming by and asking if we’d ordered yet. Then another 10 minutes later, our appetizer came. Shortly before that, our waiter came and asked if everything was alright (uh, everything being the bread and water?). I asked if we were ever going to get our food, and he made some excuse about our appetizer being poached by the server for another table. So finally we got our appetizer, and then our entrée came in another 20 minutes. I wasn’t in love with what I got (snapper with a mango salsa) because it had some herb I wasn’t a fan of. But I think it was a good dish, I am just picky about herbs. Rob got a really tasty shrimp pasta dish. By the time we got our entrees, I just wanted to get the hell out of there though. The place did have good ambience, but being shoved in a corner with no service was pretty annoying.