Downing
Contributor
We returned Sunday, and I'm pleased to report that once again we had a wonderful vacation, albeit at only a week and a half it was far too short.
We left Portland, Oregon two weeks ago Wednesday at six a.m. via American Airlines and flew to Dallas, where we changed planes and flew on to Belize City, arriving mid-afternoon. I was a little worried about the dive gear making the change as we were on the ground in Texas for only about 30 minutes because our first flight was a few minutes late getting in, but thankfully all the gear made it as well.
There have been several improvements to the Goldson airport since we were there two years ago, and the baggage claim area has been spruced up. The Customs process went smoothly and soon we popped out the front door, where we caught a cab to The Great House to spend the first of three nights there. I had been told to expect to pay $50 USD for the cab ride but it turned out to be only $25, a pleasant surprise.
I immediately headed for the bakery next door, got a cup of coffee and caught up with some folks I recognized who work at the Radisson. Then I walked downtown and strolled around a bit. Now that the sewer project's complete and the rubble cleared from a building that had burned down across the street from Brodie's the place is looking much better. The parks look better with with some new paint and fixtures. Overall, the commercial district is looking much better. It certainly appears to be thriving as there are people going in all different directions all the time.
The next morning I got up early and walked over to Tourism Village since a cruise ship was in town. After showing my ID, I made my way through the crowds and got some great shots of downtown from the TV pier.
Then it was on to the Baboon Sanctuary. A local guide took us into the woods where we were soon spotted and set upon by a family of Black Howler monkeys. The guide told us that they recognize his voice and always come down from the tree tops to check him out. I suspect the truth has more to do with him feeding them on a regular basis but whatever. In any case, Mom, Dad and all the kids were soon all around us, bracing themselves on our shoulders and arms and eating out of our hands. Definitely an up close and personal look at these guys. We then hiked around a bit more before heading back to the car.
Next up was cave tubing. We managed to avoid the cruise ship crowds by going to the Baboon Sanctuary first. After dodging their buses on the way out of the parking lot, this turned out to be a good move because we had the place almost all to ourselves. I thought it was going to be a series of caves but it turned out to be one big, long cave. There was a bit of a break towards the end of the cave where you could see some light, so we put out there and climbed over the rocks to check it out. I was told that you could hike up the trail for another couple of hours, then float back through a series of caves on the way back. I'll have to try that next time.
We ate a late lunch at a restaurant on the Western Highway just east of the Zoo. Can't remember the name of it but it's where some of the movie Mosquito Coast was shot and there was a photo of the cast and crew right next to our table. Turns out it's the favorite watering hole of our TIR dive master Brad since he lives in a nearby village.
The next day was devoted to the Lamanai trip, preceeded by another early morning stroll through downtown. The boat ride to the ruins was great, taking about an hour down the New River. We passed by a Mennonite settlement along the way. I didn't see anyone out and about but I had already spotted a few pickup truckloads of them in the City that morning.
I was told that there's a "very rough" access road to the ruins but hardly anyone takes it. Sounds perfect for my Jeep Wrangler. The ruins are surprisingly spread out with lots of jungle in between each cleared area. Huge dirt mounds are everywhere, so clearly there's more work to be done there. We came across some Howler Monkeys and entered into a howling contest with them. They won. When they get going, they get loud!
Saturday morning we checked out of The Great House and drove out to the Zoo. I ran into Sharon Matola, the "Zoo Lady," while she was feeding Junior, a jaguar who was just a cub when I was there two years ago. It was a thrill for me to meet her, although I did my best not to show it as I'm sure she gets a lot of that. We had a nice chat.
Then we drove back into the City, did some last minute gift shopping downtown and headed for the Princess Marina. We were supposed to be there no later than 2:30 to catch the boat to TIR. As it turned out, the boat trip was delayed for about an hour while we waited for some late arrivals. Some guests chose to sit on the boat and drink Belikins. Others chose to sit in the Calypso and drink Belikins. I chose to walk around for a bit while drinking a Belikin, checking out the other boats before hooking up with my wife at the Calypso. We then made our way to the boat and settled in.
Unfortunately, the 49-foot TIR boat, Miss Bella, was in the shop so they were using a rental from Hammerhead, the 43-foot Great White. Not sure you could get away with that name in the States without raising a few eyebrows. In any case, it's a rickety old tub compared to the Miss Bella and the fact that they were using a rental became significant later on our Blue Hole trip. But since we were the only returning guests, no one else besides us and the staff appreciated the difference. After another half hour or so the late arrivals finally made it and we were on our way.
After the usual meet and greet at the TIR dock, we settled into our cabanas, put our dive gear out on the front porch and set up our accounts with the managers husband and wife team, Matt and Morag. In their early thirties, Matt's a former New Jersian/Scotsman who got the diving bug after college and has been working in the industry since. Morag's from South Africa and has that wonderful SA accent that makes them sound so intelligent and genteel. They met while working on two different liveaboards and were married about two years ago. As to be expected, these are two highly competent and personable people who love what they do and do it well.
There were about twenty divers the first half of the week, so the two dive boats were at full capacity with ten divers plus a dive master and boat captain. It was the usual mix of relatively new and experienced divers. Although my wife grumbled a bit about the full boat, I didn't find it to be that big of a deal. But after mid-week we were down to four to six divers per boat for the rest of the week.
I absolutely love the diving there! The water was a consistent 85 degrees both at the surface and at depth, so I skipped my 2mm shorty about half the time. The viz ranged all over the place from 50 to 100 feet, often on the same dive. We did the Elbow, always a crowd pleaser, three times. The reefs are healthy and there's tons of coral and fish life. After not seeing many turtles or rays for the first few days, it got to the point where there almost too many and became routine. One overly friendly turtle acted like he wanted to kiss me, but I'm married so I declined. Besides the BH, there were only a couple of sharks, but I didn't really expect to see many there anyway.
Lionfish: didn't see any until we went to a dive site called, appropriately, The Zoo, which is the furthest TIR site to the north and took a good 15 minutes to get there. At that point, our divemaster was spearing and slitting throats as fast as he could go. Jeez. Not good. I told the DM that PADI should offer a spearfishing certification so those guests who are certified could bring their own guns and help.
The weather: some rain, some strong winds, but mostly calm and sunny. We had a terrific thunderstorm one night. No dives were cancelled and only one dive was delayed, for about 30 minutes, to let the wind die down.
The Blue Hole: usually done on Tuesdays, but so many divers were flying out on Wednesday that we went on Monday instead. We took the aforementioned rented Great White. The first thing I noticed was that instead of the usual snaking our way through the atoll we just headed straight out to sea on a northeastly course. I asked about that and was told that since the boat was a rental it was being captained by a Hammerhead employee and he chose the route. No big deal until as we were approaching the BH wham! he hit the reef. It obviously bent a prop blade as the boat started shaking like a leaf. Great. So we had to slow way down, and without the turbo kicking in diesel smoke started backing up on to the boat, cough cough. Wonderful.
We were the first to arrive at the BH, but a boat from Caye Caulker pulled up to the same mooring right after we hooked up.
The BH dive was the usual in/down/up/out affair. Viz wasn't great. A few sharks swam by.
Just as we were leaving the BH, a smaller boat flying two dive flags arrived. It was from Ramon's Village on Ambergris Caye. We then chugged our way, cough, cough, to Half Moon Caye so we could drop off lunch. After spending a few minutes on Half Moon Caye, we chugged off to dive Half Moon Caye Wall. Great dive. As we were leaving to chug back to Half Moon Caye for lunch, I noticed the Ramon's Village boat pull up.
We had just finished lunch on Half Moon Caye when a person ran up to us asking if there was a doctor in the group. We did have a doctor, but she was checking out the Red Footed Boobies so one of our group ran to get her. We were sitting aways from the dock but we could see a lot of activity going on over there and that the Ramon's Village boat was now docked there along with a couple of others. After a while, someone came over to us and said that one of the Ramon's Village employees was freediving and something went terribly wrong and he had died. We were told that he had taken some air from a diver underwater and then was seen unconcious in the water. He never regained conciousness. A Coast Guard boat arrived and took possession of the body.
Obviously, the Ramon's Village people were devasted. We stayed away from them out of respect for their situation and left right after the Coast Guard boat pulled away from the dock.
In the meantime our boat captain had managed to straighten out the prop blade to some extent, so we were able to do our third dive on Long Caye Wall and head back to TIR with no further issues other than some definite major vibrations from the motor. We were dropped off at the island and the GW went on to the mainland for repairs. Good riddance, I say.
The rest of the week was spent doing the usual eating, diving and relaxing. Except for one poor guest who took a tumble down 10 or 12 of the Lodge stairs early on and probably cracked a rib. We didn't see him again until it was almost time to go as he was stuck in bed for the duration.
TIR has made it easier to add dives, so I added two after confirming with the dive staff that more dives were fine with them, giving me 17 for the six days I was there.
The return trip home was uneventful. Since the Great White was still back at the Princess Marina, we crowded onto an even smaller boat, the Eagle Ray, where it was standing room only for several of us. Once on land, we went straight to the airport to catch our morning flight to Miami, where we spent the afternoon and night with some old friends before flying back to Portland on Sunday.
All in all, we had a great trip. I'm already in the early planning stages to return. I'm thinking we'll first head down to Palencia to see if we can catch the Whale Sharks in action, then drive up to Cayo for a few days and finish it off with another week at TIR. I wish there were a way to get my Jeep to Belize. I'd love to wench and four wheel drive across the entire country. That will be yet another trip, I suppose.
We left Portland, Oregon two weeks ago Wednesday at six a.m. via American Airlines and flew to Dallas, where we changed planes and flew on to Belize City, arriving mid-afternoon. I was a little worried about the dive gear making the change as we were on the ground in Texas for only about 30 minutes because our first flight was a few minutes late getting in, but thankfully all the gear made it as well.
There have been several improvements to the Goldson airport since we were there two years ago, and the baggage claim area has been spruced up. The Customs process went smoothly and soon we popped out the front door, where we caught a cab to The Great House to spend the first of three nights there. I had been told to expect to pay $50 USD for the cab ride but it turned out to be only $25, a pleasant surprise.
I immediately headed for the bakery next door, got a cup of coffee and caught up with some folks I recognized who work at the Radisson. Then I walked downtown and strolled around a bit. Now that the sewer project's complete and the rubble cleared from a building that had burned down across the street from Brodie's the place is looking much better. The parks look better with with some new paint and fixtures. Overall, the commercial district is looking much better. It certainly appears to be thriving as there are people going in all different directions all the time.
The next morning I got up early and walked over to Tourism Village since a cruise ship was in town. After showing my ID, I made my way through the crowds and got some great shots of downtown from the TV pier.
Then it was on to the Baboon Sanctuary. A local guide took us into the woods where we were soon spotted and set upon by a family of Black Howler monkeys. The guide told us that they recognize his voice and always come down from the tree tops to check him out. I suspect the truth has more to do with him feeding them on a regular basis but whatever. In any case, Mom, Dad and all the kids were soon all around us, bracing themselves on our shoulders and arms and eating out of our hands. Definitely an up close and personal look at these guys. We then hiked around a bit more before heading back to the car.
Next up was cave tubing. We managed to avoid the cruise ship crowds by going to the Baboon Sanctuary first. After dodging their buses on the way out of the parking lot, this turned out to be a good move because we had the place almost all to ourselves. I thought it was going to be a series of caves but it turned out to be one big, long cave. There was a bit of a break towards the end of the cave where you could see some light, so we put out there and climbed over the rocks to check it out. I was told that you could hike up the trail for another couple of hours, then float back through a series of caves on the way back. I'll have to try that next time.
We ate a late lunch at a restaurant on the Western Highway just east of the Zoo. Can't remember the name of it but it's where some of the movie Mosquito Coast was shot and there was a photo of the cast and crew right next to our table. Turns out it's the favorite watering hole of our TIR dive master Brad since he lives in a nearby village.
The next day was devoted to the Lamanai trip, preceeded by another early morning stroll through downtown. The boat ride to the ruins was great, taking about an hour down the New River. We passed by a Mennonite settlement along the way. I didn't see anyone out and about but I had already spotted a few pickup truckloads of them in the City that morning.
I was told that there's a "very rough" access road to the ruins but hardly anyone takes it. Sounds perfect for my Jeep Wrangler. The ruins are surprisingly spread out with lots of jungle in between each cleared area. Huge dirt mounds are everywhere, so clearly there's more work to be done there. We came across some Howler Monkeys and entered into a howling contest with them. They won. When they get going, they get loud!
Saturday morning we checked out of The Great House and drove out to the Zoo. I ran into Sharon Matola, the "Zoo Lady," while she was feeding Junior, a jaguar who was just a cub when I was there two years ago. It was a thrill for me to meet her, although I did my best not to show it as I'm sure she gets a lot of that. We had a nice chat.
Then we drove back into the City, did some last minute gift shopping downtown and headed for the Princess Marina. We were supposed to be there no later than 2:30 to catch the boat to TIR. As it turned out, the boat trip was delayed for about an hour while we waited for some late arrivals. Some guests chose to sit on the boat and drink Belikins. Others chose to sit in the Calypso and drink Belikins. I chose to walk around for a bit while drinking a Belikin, checking out the other boats before hooking up with my wife at the Calypso. We then made our way to the boat and settled in.
Unfortunately, the 49-foot TIR boat, Miss Bella, was in the shop so they were using a rental from Hammerhead, the 43-foot Great White. Not sure you could get away with that name in the States without raising a few eyebrows. In any case, it's a rickety old tub compared to the Miss Bella and the fact that they were using a rental became significant later on our Blue Hole trip. But since we were the only returning guests, no one else besides us and the staff appreciated the difference. After another half hour or so the late arrivals finally made it and we were on our way.
After the usual meet and greet at the TIR dock, we settled into our cabanas, put our dive gear out on the front porch and set up our accounts with the managers husband and wife team, Matt and Morag. In their early thirties, Matt's a former New Jersian/Scotsman who got the diving bug after college and has been working in the industry since. Morag's from South Africa and has that wonderful SA accent that makes them sound so intelligent and genteel. They met while working on two different liveaboards and were married about two years ago. As to be expected, these are two highly competent and personable people who love what they do and do it well.
There were about twenty divers the first half of the week, so the two dive boats were at full capacity with ten divers plus a dive master and boat captain. It was the usual mix of relatively new and experienced divers. Although my wife grumbled a bit about the full boat, I didn't find it to be that big of a deal. But after mid-week we were down to four to six divers per boat for the rest of the week.
I absolutely love the diving there! The water was a consistent 85 degrees both at the surface and at depth, so I skipped my 2mm shorty about half the time. The viz ranged all over the place from 50 to 100 feet, often on the same dive. We did the Elbow, always a crowd pleaser, three times. The reefs are healthy and there's tons of coral and fish life. After not seeing many turtles or rays for the first few days, it got to the point where there almost too many and became routine. One overly friendly turtle acted like he wanted to kiss me, but I'm married so I declined. Besides the BH, there were only a couple of sharks, but I didn't really expect to see many there anyway.
Lionfish: didn't see any until we went to a dive site called, appropriately, The Zoo, which is the furthest TIR site to the north and took a good 15 minutes to get there. At that point, our divemaster was spearing and slitting throats as fast as he could go. Jeez. Not good. I told the DM that PADI should offer a spearfishing certification so those guests who are certified could bring their own guns and help.
The weather: some rain, some strong winds, but mostly calm and sunny. We had a terrific thunderstorm one night. No dives were cancelled and only one dive was delayed, for about 30 minutes, to let the wind die down.
The Blue Hole: usually done on Tuesdays, but so many divers were flying out on Wednesday that we went on Monday instead. We took the aforementioned rented Great White. The first thing I noticed was that instead of the usual snaking our way through the atoll we just headed straight out to sea on a northeastly course. I asked about that and was told that since the boat was a rental it was being captained by a Hammerhead employee and he chose the route. No big deal until as we were approaching the BH wham! he hit the reef. It obviously bent a prop blade as the boat started shaking like a leaf. Great. So we had to slow way down, and without the turbo kicking in diesel smoke started backing up on to the boat, cough cough. Wonderful.
We were the first to arrive at the BH, but a boat from Caye Caulker pulled up to the same mooring right after we hooked up.
The BH dive was the usual in/down/up/out affair. Viz wasn't great. A few sharks swam by.
Just as we were leaving the BH, a smaller boat flying two dive flags arrived. It was from Ramon's Village on Ambergris Caye. We then chugged our way, cough, cough, to Half Moon Caye so we could drop off lunch. After spending a few minutes on Half Moon Caye, we chugged off to dive Half Moon Caye Wall. Great dive. As we were leaving to chug back to Half Moon Caye for lunch, I noticed the Ramon's Village boat pull up.
We had just finished lunch on Half Moon Caye when a person ran up to us asking if there was a doctor in the group. We did have a doctor, but she was checking out the Red Footed Boobies so one of our group ran to get her. We were sitting aways from the dock but we could see a lot of activity going on over there and that the Ramon's Village boat was now docked there along with a couple of others. After a while, someone came over to us and said that one of the Ramon's Village employees was freediving and something went terribly wrong and he had died. We were told that he had taken some air from a diver underwater and then was seen unconcious in the water. He never regained conciousness. A Coast Guard boat arrived and took possession of the body.
Obviously, the Ramon's Village people were devasted. We stayed away from them out of respect for their situation and left right after the Coast Guard boat pulled away from the dock.
In the meantime our boat captain had managed to straighten out the prop blade to some extent, so we were able to do our third dive on Long Caye Wall and head back to TIR with no further issues other than some definite major vibrations from the motor. We were dropped off at the island and the GW went on to the mainland for repairs. Good riddance, I say.
The rest of the week was spent doing the usual eating, diving and relaxing. Except for one poor guest who took a tumble down 10 or 12 of the Lodge stairs early on and probably cracked a rib. We didn't see him again until it was almost time to go as he was stuck in bed for the duration.
TIR has made it easier to add dives, so I added two after confirming with the dive staff that more dives were fine with them, giving me 17 for the six days I was there.
The return trip home was uneventful. Since the Great White was still back at the Princess Marina, we crowded onto an even smaller boat, the Eagle Ray, where it was standing room only for several of us. Once on land, we went straight to the airport to catch our morning flight to Miami, where we spent the afternoon and night with some old friends before flying back to Portland on Sunday.
All in all, we had a great trip. I'm already in the early planning stages to return. I'm thinking we'll first head down to Palencia to see if we can catch the Whale Sharks in action, then drive up to Cayo for a few days and finish it off with another week at TIR. I wish there were a way to get my Jeep to Belize. I'd love to wench and four wheel drive across the entire country. That will be yet another trip, I suppose.
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