Caye Caulker Day #5

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Today we awoke with the roosters again. Didn't get a sandwich from amor y cafe since we were moving a bit slow this morning. I felt like I could sleep another 5 hours at least. Still tired from yesterday. We got to the shop & today our dive masters were seriously on a roll & ready to roll as compared with the go slow crew from yesterday. We were with George, Eli & Willem today. The group of divers was all young, which made for a completely different feel on the boat & everyone was pretty experienced divers too. We had a few slices of bread & some cheese & called it a breakfast. Yum.

The water was smooth as glass today. I slept almost the whole way out to the Blue hole which is about 2 hours southeast of caye Caulker. We arrived at the Blue Hole & to all of our surprise there was not one boat out there with us. Just us! It was spectacular. You could see the outline of the top of the hole that makes the perfect circle. The water was so calm & flat & perfect. It really makes diving easier when you can just chill in the water & not have to fight the waves at all. Thanks ocean! I was nervous!!

So, Eli gave us our dive plan & they both told us stories of people going a bit "nuts" that deep due to the increased nitrogen in their blood. They said sometimes people would try to offer their regulators (which is what you breathe with) to the fish swimming by or they would try to dive deeper or just stop & try to talk to you. They said we basically need to keep an eye on our buddy & if things look nutty, let them know. Ok, scary pep talk. Then we jumped in. We dove down about 50 feet to a little sandy bottom that juts out from the wall & regrouped. Then we went down to about 140ft & swam through incredible stalagtites that were probably 20-40ft long & that would take about three people to wrap their arms around them to touch one another, in the area we were in. We swam under a little lip in the wall that had smaller stalagtites. The stalagtites were different than anything I've ever seen because they were spiral & looked like they had been twisted. Like twisty candy canes. It wasn't dark down there but it wasn't bright either. There were a ton of grunt fish swimming around & massive schools of 6 inch blue/yellow/black fish, probably hundreds of them. It was a little weird being that deep. You could see another ledge that poked out from the wall that George said was about 160ft deep & after that it was complete dropoff into black/blue water. I started to feel a little funny & thought I was hearing things when we were down that deep. Geoff & I saw a huge fish come out of the depths of the hole to check us out but you could only really make out his outline & no distinguishing features. He was BIG! The wall was incredible & there weren't too many fish swimming around with us but it was an experience. We were only down there about 8 minutes & then we started working our way up. We ascended slowly & did a long safety stop to get us somewhat back to normal. It was crazy! I had a more difficult time breathing that deep, as soon as we went up a little above 100ft I could breathe so much easier & I stopped hearing things.... weird....It felt a little like being slightly drunk when I was that deep. I was a bit relieved when we started our ascencion. Safety first please!

Afterward I asked George (who's uncle owns the dive shop) if people really truly freaked out under water & he told me a story about a girl who dropped down to the second ledge (160ft) & was laying on her back moving her feet around like an upside down turtle & just laughing away. He said he had to go down & bring her back up but she was ok after that. Shesh. Scary. I'm glad I asked about it after the dive...

We got to the surface & we were still the only boat out there. It was a perfect weather day. The absolute best diving conditions I have ever been fortunate enough to be a part of. Not even a slight wind, mostly sunny, perfectly calm water. We hung out for awhile in the hole, jumped off the boat, swam around (after we all took our dive gear off of course). It was great fun. Geoff was jumping off the top of the boat of course, as were the other guys. Super fun. We all got back on board & headed to our next site. Geoff & I & a couple other guys sat on the top of the boat for the ride over which was amazing. The water was so calm & so clear we passed sting ray & all kinds of fish that you could see from the top of the boat as we were going by. We also saw a nurse shark that we slowed down to have a good look at.

Our next dive was Half Moon Caye Wall. It was truly a wall. It was a vertical wall that just dropped down into the depths to where you couldn't see anymore. Kinda like the Blue Hole. We descended onto a sandy flat & then went over the edge & followed the wall with the current. It was difficult to keep track of your depth because you'd be admiring all the coral or the fish & look at your depth gauge & be at 90ft (which I did once) or 110ft (which Geoff did once). Ooopps! When people got too deep Eli would tap on his tank & get us back up to a more reasonable depth. We all came upon a turtle just sitting there & he just took a look at all of us like "what the hell are you guys doing here" & then after thinking about it, he swam slowly up & away. He was beautiful! I love turtles. We saw another spotted Eagle Ray, glowing purple & blue coral-like anemone things. The tube sponges were literally 5-6ft tall & bright yellow. Brain coral everywhere, huge barrel coral again. A ton of fish. At one point I was staring at some beautiful coral & shifted my gaze to the left & was literally looking into the huge eye of a very big squirrel fish. I think I scared him more than he scared me, but hard to say for sure. After that dive, we decided that was by far the best dive we had yet to do. It was amazing. The wall was so immense & the life was so diverse. I had a raging headache afterwards, but didn't care because it was just too much fun.

We stopped at Half Moon Caye & parked the boat to have lunch on the Caye. It was truly a tropical island in the middle of the ocean. You could walk across the Island in a few steps & the water was glowing blue as far as the eye could see. The never ending blue water was unlike anything I've ever seen. It's part of the Reserve & had some picnic tables set up & a trail to see the red footed booby birds. Those birds were seriously cute.
Yet another delicious lunch of stewed chicken, rice & beans & of course my new favoritest drink ever: Orange Fanta!! What will I do without Orange Fanta? I hope it's everywhere in Central America or I may start to get the shakes from withdrawal. I have at least one a day. It's my fruit serving!

We climbed back on the boat & headed to our last dive, Long Caye Reef aka "the aquarium." It was like an aquarium because of the amount of fish we saw. We swam under the reef, around the reef, over the reef. It was perfect. It was another wall dive & a Huge turtle came up out of the darkness below & then disappeared again. I saw the giantest crab I've ever seen. His legs lifted him about 1 ft off the ground. We saw a free swimming green moray, which was cool, I've only seen them in their caverns & hiding spots. He was really graceful & didn't look as scary swimming. Once he saw us above, he started doing the open your mouth close your mouth eel thing in attempts of intimidation. We saw more spotted eagle rays & a beautiful pipe fish swimming in the coral plants. Another great dive.

We headed back to Caye Caulker & Geoff talked with George for most of the trip. I fell asleep again... I asked George how many times he's dove & he thought about it for a second & then answered, 9 years. 4-5 times a week, 2-3 dives a day. That's a lot. Wow.

Once home we got cleaned up & per George's advice on where to get the freshest seafood in town, we ate dinner at Rose's. It was a great place. You walk up & look at the table of the days catch, choose what you want, & it gets BBQ'd to perfection while you wait. We had grouper & a couple of those ginourmous crab legs that we saw today (hopefully not the same crab, poor guy). It was our most expensive meal since we left home ($40) but so well worth it. We were apparently one of the few people to brave the elements. It was downpouring huge huge raindrops in sheets since after our shower & we literally ran down the street without shoes to get to the restaurant. Once we got there & picked out our food, the waitress gave us each a hand towel to dry off our very wet selves. It was really fun. Geoff bought me some dangly earrings for a few bucks & we stuffed ourselves silly on the delicious food. The crab claws were the biggest I've ever eaten & delicious. (sadly I can still see that crabs face from our dive... guilt). After dinner we were able to stroll home, the rain had stopped, it makes walking so much nicer.
We weren't as tired from the day of diving. I really think the calmness of the ocean made it so much less work. I've never experienced diving with a flat, calm ocean. Now I know what are the best diving conditions for sure. Tomorrow we're heading out on another adventure & leaving our favoritest Caye & probably one of the best places we've visited yet. We were going to stay for 2-3 days & we spent 5 nights here....

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Photos

Sunrise
Sunrise from the dive boat.

The Blue Hole
The Blue Hole. Do you see it?

Just dove The Blue Hole
Check and Check!

Lunch
Surface Interval Lunch break on Half Moon Caye.

Red Footed Booby
Boobies!

Half Moon Caye
On our way to dive The Aquarium off Long Caye.

Dinner at Rose's
After 6 dives in 2 days, this sounded better than Wheaties.