This vacation was originally planned to celebrate Helen’s 75th birthday, but because of the passport issue(s), the actual trip dates fell over mine. My birthday was our last full day before we flew home, and we decided to spend it snorkeling a few miles off the coast.
Belize is dotted with about 450 islands cayes connected by the world’s second longest barrier reef. Most of the islands are tiny, but there are a handful that support local populations and/or tourist resorts. We obviously preferred using a sleepy fishing village as our home base, but we aren’t above checking out that scene for a day. So we arranged to have a little boat meet us at the local pier around 8 am that morning.
Our decision to go out to the islands that particular day was only partly because it was my birthday. A bigger reason was that we were threading the needle between two “storms.” They were really more like cloudy days with a bit of wind, but the climate is typically so perfect in Belize this time of year that the town has a pretty low bar for what constitutes bad weather. And that morning was characteristically delightful.
As we got situated on the boat, our guide and captain introduced themselves: Tough Love and Sexy Dawg (he didn’t clarify the spelling, but I got strong “awg” vibes). I had no problem calling them their chosen names around my kids. It was all lost on them. But I’ll admit that I did blush a bit whenever I had to say that around Aimee’s parents.
Which reminds me, the unofficial cocktail of Belize is the Panty Ripper. It was unfortunately quite delicious, so we had to resort to euphemisms quite a bit (“Could I please have the unofficial national drink of Belize?”) to minimize the number of awkward conversations at the dinner table.
But back to Tough Love and Sexy Dawg. They got us loaded up and asked if everyone was a good swimmer. My kids shouted, “yes!” after a week of killing it in the 3’ section of our hotel pool. So I then followed that up by subtly asking if there were life jackets the kids could wear. My Arizona-raised children were blissfully unaware of the differences between splashing around indoors and keeping afloat in choppy water 25 feet above a coral reef. Tough Love assured me that there were without actually taking them out (yes, I’m foreshadowing), and we set off on the one-hour journey to the cayes.
The conditions were still delightful as the morning progressed, but the wind had picked up enough to cause a bit of chop on the water’s surface. It wasn’t much, but neither was our boat. The fiberglass 15-footer was getting tossed around, and of course, so were we. Our kids were loving it, but the bruises on their upper arms from Aimee and I clamping down on them still haven’t healed. It was extremely reminiscent of our Cham Island trip, and I tried to tell Aimee with my eyes, “I’m sorry for doing this to our family (again).”
I can’t say it was the most pleasurable cruise I’ve ever been on, but we eventually made it. But all was forgiven as he gave us an orientation as we looked around the incredible surroundings.
He then handed out the lifejackets (they had previously been doubling as seat cushions, so at least the boat would be fine if we capsized). He gave one to Quinn that easily reached down to his knees. I asked Tough Love if there were any smaller ones, and he turned to Sexy Dawg, “Do we have any smaller life jackets?”
Sexy Dawg: Nope.
Tough Love: We really need to get some smaller life jackets, bruh.
Oh boy.
But after some heavy strap adjustment, we made it “work.”
The first of two snorkeling sites was a quick and easy one. Tough Love just wanted to gauge our swimming ability. Once we got life jackets on half our group, we did great. Until then, it was very much touch and go.
That first site was picked for convenience. It was the beach pier of one of the of the smaller island resorts. So there was enough sand and shore for everyone to get comfortable snorkeling before we headed out to open water. After dialing in straps and goggles, we floated over an artificial reef built by the Smithsonian as part of their conservation projects in the area. The only tricky part was not stepping on the fragile but important seagrass growing nearby. To be honest, I didn’t see much of the aquatic life during that part of the trip. Most of my attention was focused on keeping Mimi and Quinn’s comically oversized gear from destroying critical habitat.
It’s hard to find much good news about the oceans these days, but the Belizean reef is actually doing relatively well. It’s shielded from some of the bigger temperature shifts affecting the rest of the oceans, and the Belizean government has done a remarkable job protecting the natural preserves. In fact, Tough Love warned us that we might be stopped by a Coast Guard ship at some point on our journey to have our permits checked. “Don’t worry, they look like pirates, but they’re not.” Quinn and I were both a bit disappointed they weren’t around that morning.
After another round of strap tightening on the kids’ life jackets, we headed out to open ocean. We were about 25 feet above the reef at that point. The chop had picked up a bit more, but it was still easily swimmable, even with a 5 year old suckerfish perched on top of Aimee and/or I for most of the trip.
The first big sighting was a 3’ reef shark. It was the perfect size. Large enough to captivate the kids, while still being 3’ short of making the morning any more terrifying than it needed to be. The rest of the swim was delightful.
We floated around looking at a huge variety of tropical fish, as well as a giant lobster pointed out by Tough Love. He was extremely knowledgeable about everything besides children's life jackets, and it was a delight to learn from him.
The boat ride back was a bit less delightful. At no point were we actually thrown from the boat, but there were a few times that were a bit closer than I would have liked. The ever-increasing wind on our wet bodies also took a toll. I was almost, almost a bit relieved when our boat stalled out halfway back to shore. But thankfully(?) it was only because of any empty gas tank. Once Sexy Dawg refilled it from the red can in the back, we were again underway. But I don’t think our kids’ upper arms will ever recover.
