Hol Can Marine Reserve & Shark Ray Alley

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In the middle of the night we were awakened by very bright lightening and room shaking thunder. It was a nice, loud, tropical storm. We were worried we wouldn't get to go snorkeling because of the rain, but luckily when we woke up around 7a, it was sunny and nice outside.
We slathered on the sunscreen and got our swimsuits on and ready to go. We picked up some pastries from The Baker on the way to the dive dock. We got some cool flippers and ate our breakfast while waiting to get on the boat. There was only 2 other people going with us, and we went and got on our tiny little boat. The other 2 people were learning to scuba dive. Our first stop was Hol Can Marine Reserve. We jumped into the water at a place that was shallow enough to stand in. Adam and I followed our guide around the reef as he pointed out different types of fish and coral. There was so much stuff going on. We saw groupers, barracudas (Adam swore one of them was giving him the stink eye), some rays and even a shark, schools of red snapper and blue tang. We saw brain coral, leaf coral and finger coral. There were also a ton more fish and coral that we didn't know the names of, but in essence a ton of brightly colored fish and sea life all around. The reef was beautiful and time flew by. We were there for a little over an hour - I could've stayed even longer.
Our next stop was Shark Ray Alley, where lots of nurse sharks and stingrays hang out. When we first got there a huge nurse shark passed underneath our boat and our guides were telling us to hurry up and jump in the water. I did not want to, but eventually I went in (last). I am terrified of sharks, but managed not to lose my cool. They weren't too bad, but I didn't get close to any either. The rays were huge though! One of guides caught a giant one and we got to pet it. He snuck up on the other guy in our group and scared him. The guy screamed pretty loudly and we all busted up laughing. It was really funny.
The nurse sharks ranged from small to pretty large. A guide with another group caught a small one and gave it to someone to hold. Our guide tried to catch one, but it swam away before he could get it. The sharks didn't hang around for too long (the guides toss food in the water upon arriving to make them all congregate) but a few would swim back around sporadically. We got so snorkel around for awhile and we got to see a big loggerhead turtle swim by. It was pretty cool.
We got dropped off in front of our hotel after a couple of hours and took showers before we went to go get lunch. We had a few pink spots on our skin, but it looked like we hadn't got sunburned that badly.
We walked over to a restaurant on the beachfront called Fido's and both got some grilled Caribbean lobster tail with rice and beans. It was tasty. We had wanted to try some lobster at dinner, but it was half the price at lunchtime for the same thing, so we had decided to wait. Fido's has a great deck to just hang out on and enjoy the view.
We then went for an hour long walk checking out the inner streets and seeing what was around. We walked down to the supermarket past Ramon's Village and got some anti-itch gel for our bites. The store was huge! It had a lot of different kinds of glass bottled Fanta and Adam picked up a clear one thinking it might be cream soda. Luckily he asked the checker what flavor it was, because it turned out to be soda water. He would not have been pleased. Across the street from the supermarket is the Fanta & Belikin distribution warehouse. We walked over to check it out because Adam really wanted to get a case of Fanta. He ended up not getting one because the guy quoted him a price higher than it would have cost to get the sodas at the store. Plus, I can't imagine how he would've walked that all the way back to our room.
When we got back to the room, we noticed more sunburned spots on our legs and we decided to check our backs. PINK!! It took a little while to show up, but apparently we didn't escape getting sunburned. Adam's is mostly on his shoulders and upper back. Mine is on my shoulders and back (can easily see the swimsuit line) and on the back of my upper legs. NOOO!! I thought we did so well. Adam went to a pharmacy and picked up some aloe gel to help ease the burning. We gooed up and took a nap.
For dinner we went to a small Jerk/Jamaican Restaurant that we passed on the way to the supermarket called Jam-Bel Jerk Pit. I ordered a pina colada to drink, and it turned out to be enormous! We got some coconut curry lobster that was incredibly filling and fantastic. It was a cool little place to get some food. I think we may try to go back tomorrow for lunch and actually get a jerked dish and also try out their award winning key lime pie.
Tomorrow is our last day on Ambergris already and then we are headed over to Caye Caulker for the rest of our trip. It's supposed to be way more laid back than here, which will be a nice way to finish up our trip.

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Photos

Jam-Bel Jerk Pit
Coconut curry lobster

Jam-Bel Jerk Pit
Giant Pina Colada!

Jam-Bel Jerk Pit
side of rice and coleslaw