The Early Bird Gets the Rum!

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They say man isn't meant to live underwater.

Well I survived my first few ocean dives. Previously I had only dove in a small man-made lake in Ohio for my certification in June. Reef-diving in Belize is a little different!

Belize has the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere and the largest in the world after the Great Barrier Reff in Australia. I stayed on Caye Caulker, one of the main islands off of Belize mainland, about a half-hour boat ride from the unfortunate capital Belize City (i will put off my experience of this city until next time). The island itself is supposed to be a tropical paradise...and it is pretty, though I didn't really like staying there because of the noise and there are all these decrepit characters lying around whose main job seems to be to be obnoxious. Maybe i just haven't found my appreciation of the culture yet. But one thing I love is you can go around barefoot...in fact, they encourage it. I remember a long time ago when i was married and my ex always berated me for going barefoot. But I just don't like wearing shoes. I know that doesn't sound too exciting, but this aspect of island culture hit my joybone.

People here encourage the slow life...if you are walking too fast or bicycling too fast, someone will yell out to you, "Go slow, mahn." One morning at dawn i was walking along the shore and a reggae looking man with a guitar on his back cycled toward me and said, "Hey, mahn, the early bird gets the rum!"

Ostensibly i came here to do the blue hole but i realize that it is more of an advanced deep dive and i needed some practice first, so I signed up for some moderate dives. To be honest I was quite nervous because it had been so long since I had put on and used the apparatus, and the deepest I had gone was about 20 ft. What if I forgot to do something, like breathe?!! Lots of things can go wrong when diving and like skydiving I suppose if something does go wrong there is not a whole lot you can do about it!

So I stepped off the boat into the sea with a little bit of trepidation. When I first went down about 15 ft. i didn't think I was going to be able to do the dive. My ears weren't equalizing and they hurt right away. That didn't bode well for the depths. I lamented that i would have to sit the dive out surface-side and hear all about the others' wonderful experiences. But i just took it slow and my ears finally adjusted and we descended to about 50-60 ft.

What a different, amazing world the ocean is! It really is foreign and you feel like an alien visitor. The visibility was amazing...you could see for 50 ft or more.

I saw all sorts of tropical reef fish including blue tangs, spanish hogfish, goatfish, porkfish, nurse sharks, green moral eels!, seargant majors, blue chromis, jacks, various types of angel fish, yellow and bluestripe snappers, sting rays, octopus hidden in the nooks and crannies of the coral, giant puffer fish, huge 5 ft. barracudas, stoplight parrot fish (one of my favorite)....plus sea urchins and anemones and marine vegetation like purple sea fans, turtle grass, various types of coral like fire coral, staghorn coral, and brain coral. I've included some of my own underwater photos, but some didn't really come out, so I have also included stock images from the internet of some of the things I saw. I am still learning the bewildering diversity of wildlife down there.

It is really an undescribable feeling to be down there among the fish and rays and sharks and eels floating along to the rhythm of the ocean current.

Count me among the addicts!

Next up: From Ocean to Forest Wildlife

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