Photo of the ranger house at the Manatee Reserve where we paid our US$5 entry fee.
Photo of Goff's Caye, a 1.2 acre island and playground for tourists. Note the box-like toilet structure on the right side.
Photo of Manta Ray at the Caye Caulker Ray and Shark Alley. (I may upload a video when I get back home to a faster internet.)
Photo of busy traffic on the main street of Caye Caulker.=====================
I am writing on January 1, 2008 - Happy New Year!
Events on December 31, 2007
Another day of a lot of sun. I currently have 520 photos and videos from our first three days in Belize. We took over 300 more that I deleted. Today is a day of rest, after our first two days full of activities, though we are planning to do a bike ride and some fishing with Kirk this afternoon.
Yesterday (31 December), we did the Manatee-Snorkeling-Manta Ray-Caye Caulker tour. It started with an 8:15 pickup by boat. We were the first two be picked up, being the farthest north of San Pedro and our destinations. Eventually we had 28 people (all from the US) and 3 guides on our small speed boat. We had to pay a US$5/person park fee for each of the three parks that we were visiting that day.
The American Jerk: There was one guy who we picked up who insisted that he had to be back by 4pm for an important game (!?!?!), which actually was at 5pm he later said. The boat’s driver told him it was going to be a long day, probably 5:30pm. He put him on the phone to talk to his boss and this guy would absolutely not take no for an answer – what a jerk! He finally got the boss to agree to tell the boat driver to try and leave about 20 minutes early. (He was also complaining about having a full boat of people, though one of the guides had told us before we picked him up that this was their high season when they make most of their money.)
At the end of the day we had about 40 minutes to walk around Caye Caulker, returning to the boat at 4:30pm. We were a few minutes late, and several people were much later than that. This guy who needed to be back at 4pm was one of the last to get back to the boat! We got back to our resort – the last one – at after 6pm.
So it was a 55 minute ride from the south end of Ambergris Caye to the Swallow Caye Manatee Nature Preserve. On the way we passed many large and small islands surrounded by mangrove swamps, and some that simply consisted of a house on a sandbar. Most of these houses were only used during the lobster season. Belize is one f the top suppliers (it may the leading one) of lobster to Europe. We stopped at a small hut on stilts where the boatmen paid our entrance fee to the manatee reserve.
Looking for manatee is lot like looking for whales, which I have only done twice before (in Venture, California and on Maui, Hawaii). The first half hour we saw nothing. The guides told us to remove our shoes so as not to make boat noise that would scare them away. They used a wooden pole to maneuver us in several different locations as we scanned the water for a manatee coming to the surface to breath. They used to allow people to swim or dive with manatees, but they found that their reproduction dropped when they did this.
After at least 30 minutes and several location passed when we saw our first manatee. The photo I got of that one was actually the best head shot that I had of the manatee. We saw several other heads rise out of the water for air (which they do about every 5 minutes), and a couple of tails at the surface. One was just off the front side of our boat. That was about it. Not nearly as dramatic as the video that was shown at the resort orientation meeting on Sunday, nor the photos that promote this tour. Still, it was better than the whale watching experiences that I have had in the past.
We then headed out east for about 30 minutes to Goff’s Caye, a 1.2 acre island that receives about 500 visitors a week, mostly from cruise ships that dock on larger nearby islands. Two people were parasailing when we approached, and there were a couple f catamarans anchored off the island. Several people headed for a floating restroom, which looked like a large, square submarine. A couple of guides took most of us (not all) out to the attached coral reef while the third oversaw the cooking of our lunch by some guys on the island.
The reef here was very shallow, mostly less than 5 feet deep. In fact, all of the Belize lagoon between the outer reefs and Belize City is less than 15 feet deep (according to our guide), except for the dredged deep see ship lane. One person on the boat had the Olympus compact camera that is good to 15 feet under water without a case – so he could take it anywhere here. Someone else had the same camera that I had with the same case, and someone else had a much larger camera with an underwater case.
Because there were some 20 people snorkeling together in a shallow area quite a lot of sand got kicked up, and although there were lot of fish, many were hiding from our mob. Skylan was having problems with his mask getting water in it, and snorkel falling off its clip, so I traded with him at one point. Chynna wisely stayed close to our guide while I helped Skylan get set up.
After awhile, the kids went back to the boat with most of the rest of group, while I stayed with the guide and a couple of other people to snorkel back to the island. That was a bit nicer, though the guide pointed out that all the grey rock-like objects were dead coral from coral bleaching (caused by overly warm waters – global warming).
For lunch we had BBQ chicken, pasta, vegetables, curried potatoes and chocolate and rum muffin or coconut macaroon cup desert. After lunch we headed to the Caulker Caye shark and ray alley, another 30 minute speed boat ride through choppy waters. On the way we passed two cruise shipping docking spots and a private island with a golf course on it. That island is currently for sale for about US$90 million.
We stopped at a tiny island with about four houses on it and about 8 dogs, where we bought some fish to feed the rays and sharks. There were several other boats at the shark and ray alley when we go there, and there were no sharks, just rays. And a lot of them, drawn by the food. I got some good photos and a couple of great videos. At one point I held on to the boat’s anchor rope and put my feet on the backs of the rays below – which were very slippery.
We then headed over to Caye Caulker where we found Chan’s Fast Food (the fried chicken smelled great), but since we had so little time, choose to just buy food to bring back at Chan’s grocery store. I also finally found Belize hat pins in the one gift shop we went into (yay!!!).
Caye Caulker is a small community of less than 2000 with two dirt roads and a lot of tourist oriented businesses. It seems as though every fourth shop was selling manatee tours. The pace is definitely slower than San Pedro, though we barely had time to soak up the atmosphere before we had the meet the boat at the northern tip of town, near the Lazy Lizard – a combination bar, dance joint (reggae music on the roof) and swimming spot (with people diving off a boat permanently anchored on one side of the bar).
Once everyone was back on the boat we made an unplanned stop at the Belizean Seahorse Park on the back (west) side of Caye Caulker, where our guide placed a large (>6 inch) seahorse into a jar for us to see. We also saw a crab eating a fish off the side of the boat.
Tour boat social dynamics are interesting, especially when you have so many people huddle on a small speed boat. The range of personalities is considerable, from the most gregarious and vocal, to the most quiet. I am sure that every group is different, and on this trip there were three very vocal women and two very vocal men at one end of the extreme. There were quite a few more of us at the quiet end of the extreme, including my family and two couples. Then there was the middle, which I think included most everyone else. Most everyone drank alcohol (beer and rum punch), except I think all of those at the quiet end of the spectrum.
Of those that we had heard, most were quite wealthy, in construction and finance. By the end of the trip several of the more vocal participants had plans to meet up for a New Year’s party later that evening.
There are clearly many expected standards of behavior that reflect the shared values of this white, upper middle class American tourist. It is OK to be loud and boisterous -- an is actually encouraged by the guides/crew. With the small quarter on the boat, however, people were respectful of each others space, which was made more possible by the loud noise (engine, wind and waves) when moving from one location to the next -- the American jerk, that I mentioned above, did cross that line when he first got on the boat. Several people mentioned his behavior when he got off the boat at about 6+ pm. Apparently his wife told someone that he does that all the time, but does not always get his way. Someone else mentioned that despite that outburst, he turned out OK and did not complain about getting back much later than he had wished.
My initial impression, influenced by the more vocal tour participants, was that the Cayes (coral islands) of Belize were little more than a place for Americans to drink and party. No doubt that is a big part of the whole Caribbean sun, sand and surf experience. But not for everyone. This particular trip drew the animal lovers (for manatees and rays), more than some other might (like zip-lining). Our Thursday trip will draw the historical and cultural crowd, as we visit Mayan ruins and a river village. So it could be an interesting comparison.
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