Living in Paradise cannot go on forever. Eventually one must get back to reality and back to work. We had our usual hotel breakfast and loaded up our bags for the long trip ahead of us . . . back to the cold.
Adam and Tracy were staying an extra day on Ambergris Caye. The Easter Holiday weekend was starting later in the afternoon and with it comes a lot of traffic from the mainland. They were a bit unsure what the increased level of activity on the island was going to mean, but they were soon to find out. I checked in with them a few days later and they said that while it was quite a bit louder at the hotel, everyone had fun, and the festivities were actually fun to see. Adam said that the drink specials were better for the holiday too. He also said something about a wet t-shirt contest . . . hhhmmmm?!?
We left as we came in. Sunny skies and 80 degrees, just another day in the tropics. The pilot had to slam on the brakes on the runway to avoid a flock of seagulls, but other than that, the short flight was fine.
Now that we were a bit more familiar with the island, it was fun to fly over the town and see some of the areas we had visited from the air. The reef looked very inviting from 5000 ft.
It was actually good to be on our way back home. We missed the kids and were anxious to get back to a routine. Spring was on its way in Alaska and we didn't want to miss it!
We had an uneventful flight from Belize City to Dallas. We did our homework this time and found a very nice hotel, close to the airport, and around $20 cheaper than what we paid on the way down for the dumpy hotel . PriceLine.com was really helpful in finding us the deal. Now that I am familiar with the process, I will use it more often.We were up early the next morning to load onto the shuttle at 6am for a 8am departure. Next stop Seattle. There were no interruptions in our flight this time. Everything went smoothly. From Seattle we had another short (3 hr) flight to Anchorage. We arrived in Anchorage tired but on time. It was good to be home. We had an incredibly relaxing vacation, a few bumps here and there, but overall a huge success. My overall impression of Belize was positive, but Renee and I both agreed that for future beach trips Hawaii may be a better destination. Hawaii offers many of the same activities we enjoyed in Belize (diving, snorkeling, sailing, and hanging out at the beach), but would be a much shorter and cheaper flight from Anchorage (six hour non-stop). Flights are a big consideration when planning travel with kids. They can only sit still for so long, and the whining puts a strain on the vacation when it reaches a certain level for an extended period of time.
Nice shot of all four of us on the dive shop dock. 
There was one lone person on the boat who I think initially wanted to go snorkeling, but just didn't feel that comfortable in the water. He had to sit out the two snorkels, and got a fair amount of grief from his friends. 
I really liked the brain corals. The reefs in Belize looked like the stereotypical reefs that you see on TV or in the movies. They were really beautiful. Most of the area is protected, the locals have a vested interest in keeping them nice since people spend a lot of money to see them. 
This sand dollar was as big as a dinner plate. I wanted to keep it but decided to leave it for the next person to see. Take only photographs!
Here is one of the blue little fish living in the coral that I mentioned earlier. They did not seem too concerned that a bunch of humans were hovering around looking and taking pictures of them. At the second snorkel site on the way back to the boat, we passed pretty close to a small jelly fish. I asked the dive master about it once on the boat, and he informed us that while it was small (size of a film canister), is still packed a wallop if you touched any of its trailing tentacles. I am actually glad that the dive master pointed it out. It was hard to see because it was small and clear. That would not be good to be going along and all of a sudden have an arm or leg burst swell up in pain. You wouldn't even know what hit you.
We went back to the hotel and read books by the pool. Tracy needed to go into town for something, so she decided to walk (I think she forgot how far it was to town). When she got back we all got motivated and decided to rent another golf cart for a couple of hours. There were a few things that we all needed in town. Dinner was one of them and Cuban cigars were the other. 
We decided to eat in the room again. The room was great. It had a nice view, fridge, stove, table, and we didn't have to tip the waiter. After a while we all kind of got tired of eating out. Anyway we took the cart to the big grocery store in this part of San Pedro. While it was not like the ginormous stores that you have in the states, this place had it all. It was big, modern and had the same "stuff" found in our stores back home. We picked up a couple pizzas, some snacks for the plane, and of course our Cuban cigars. 
The dive shop was a pleasant 5 minute walk from our hotel. The resort next door to ours had a most excellent beach. Workers were out there every morning raking the beach of debris that had accumulated there over night.
Adam and I had brought our own mask, fins and snorkel, so all we needed to rent was a 
The boat came to pick us up promptly at 9:00. There were about seven other divers and two dive masters going along with us for the dive.
Pools open! My underwater camera is only rated at 10 meters (30ft.) so I wasn't able to bring it on this dive. Our deepest dive was only going to be around 80 feet, but that was well beyond the limit of my camera. One of the other people on the dive had the exact same camera, and informed us that he had actually found it the day before in around 70 feet of water. Some other unlucky diver must have dropped it. He was taking his camera on the dive, but it was 
After the first dive we went to shore to have a quick bite to eat and get the tanks switched out for full ones. The dive shop provided watermelon and some other assorted fruit, sodas and water. The watermelon tasted awesome. It was hot out and the compressed air you breath while diving really dries out your throat. 
Adam went down with the rest of the group and had a great dive. They were down around 45 minutes. This dive was right around the same spot the luxury yacht had dragged anchor on the day before. Adam didn't notice the damage, but the boat operator told me that the dive master wanted to see the damage for himself. Such a beautiful place to have an unfortunate accident.
That night we walked to a nice restaurant near our hotel. The restaurant is called the Secret Garden. It must have been pretty well hidden because we were the only ones there. We had good service and the food was great. Everything in Belize seems to be made out of some sort of exotic hardwood. This place was no exception. It was an open restaurant, so we were able to feel the breeze and enjoy our food in the outdoors. Although this place was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, it felt like you were in the middle of the jungle.
We were running low on rum punch back at the room so we had to make a brief stop at one of the corner grocery stores on the way back to the hotel. Two days earlier we had made the mistake of buying a few groceries near San Pedro and had to carry two big bags of supplies about a mile back to the room. This store was only a few blocks away, so we stocked up the kitchen for another dinner in the room. Food was pretty expensive, as I imagine everything had to be flown in. The day before, I had a craving for double stuffed 
Adam and I looked into dive shops the day before. We found one that was close to our hotel and had reasonable prices. The name of the shop was Bottom Time, in reference to diving, and I guess how much time you could spend on the bottom. The lady who owned the shop was a good reference for facts about Ambergris. She was originally from Australia, but had spent the past 15 years on the island.
The day started out a bit cloudy and there was a stiff breeze blowing in from the ocean. All of us are from up north where it is typically cool. The only difference is at home we usually don't run around in a swim suit, and I have never swam in any of the water in Alaska. So while we are "Tough Alaskans", I was wrapped up in my towel against the cold. The charter we had booked for the day included two snorkel stops, a boat ride on a catamaran sailboat, a lunch stop on the neighboring island, Caye Caulker, plus all of the rum punch or 
Our first stop was 
The water was a bit cool getting in. I didn't bring my wet suit on this excursion, I really didn't need it, but I made a mental note to bring it on the next days dive. The corals here were really cool. There were hundreds of fish, all different colors and sizes. The experience really reminded me of swimming in a salt water aquarium. I took my underwater camera that Renee had bought at 
Our next stop was Shark Ray Alley. It of course gets its name from having a lot of sharks and eagle rays near by. This stop was really awesome. It wasn't what I was expecting though. As we were pulling the boat to the mooring ball, I noticed the deck hand throw something overboard. The "thing" was a PVC pipe attached to a rope. In the PVC pipe was bait. To bait the sharks! I imagined, when we were read the description of the trip the day before in the relative comfort of the dive shop, that we would snorkel around the reef and possible see a shark or two, maybe a ray . . . from a distance! This was not the case however, as I was looking over the stern of the boat, I could see at least seven sharks and at least that many rays in a feeding frenzy around the 
I got in reluctantly, after a minute or so. I didn't see any tell tail red streak in the water, and no one was screaming. But the old saying "If all of you friends were jumping off a bridge, would you jump too?" did come to mind. The sharks, while in the five to six foot range were a bit intimidating, I was told that they were nurse sharks and relatively harmless. After all the dive shops wouldn't knowingly put tourists in harms way right? right?
Well, after a while I got bold. I swam down and grabbed one of the sharks by the tail. I had seen someone else do it, and they still had both of their arms, so what the hey. The skin of the shark was rough like sandpaper. I swam down several more times so I could have the moment documented on film forever. Renee did a great job of capturing me grabbing a shark on film, so I could share this picture with the kids, gaining their respect. It is not too hard being a super hero for a four year old, but I knew that a picture of "Dad grabbing a shark" would put me up there with the Power Rangers, and Spider man!
We spent about 20 minutes in the water at Shark/Rey Alley. By the time we got out of the water, the clouds were already beginning to clear. It was turning out to be a nice day. We had about a hour and a half boat ride ahead of us to get to Caye Caulker. No one was allowed to drink anything alcoholic during snorkeling time, but now that the snorkeling part of the trip was over, the bar was open! 
This is a new building being constructed in "downtown" Caye Caulker. Notice the large sticks between floors acting as support members as the concrete dries. We saw this in multiple buildings in both San Pedro and Caye Caulker. It works I guess, but I don't think that we will see this method of constructing a building in the U.S. anytime soon. 
One of the local watering holes had this "weather station" posted outside of its patio bar. 
Caye Caulker was definitely much quieter than San Pedro . . . maybe a bit too quiet. If you really want to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and need quiet to relax, then Caye Caulker is the place for you. I honestly don't mind the little bit of noise and activity that is found in many of the places we have visited. I guess I am just too used to the two kids in a constant state of motion. It is rarely quiet at our house, and on those rare occasions when it is quiet, it means that the kids are up to something.
We had a great sail on the way back. Almost everyone spent time on the fore deck of the sailboat. The "trampoline" between the pontoons was a nice place to spend time. I fell asleep in one of the cabins below deck for about a half an hour. Being on the water and in the sun always makes me feel sleepy. I still woke up with plenty of time to enjoy a few more rum punches before getting back to the hotel.
The trampoline on the sailboat is my new "happy place". It really doesn't get any better than this.
This boat is kind of a sad story. This luxury yacht, owned by one of the worlds richest men, dropped anchor on the reef after experiencing engine trouble. The anchors ripped through a large area of the reef before coming to a stand still, however a constant northeasterly wind kept moving the vessel moving in different locations causing further damage. Preliminary assessment done by officers from the Fisheries Department found that the damaged area measured forty five by twenty five feet and because the damage was done by an anchor at least thirty five percent of the corals in that area was damaged. This is sad because much of the damage on the reef is permanent. It takes hundreds of years for the reef to heal. The reef is currently a world heritage site and 
We got back to the room after a full day, and decided to try the captain's "secret recipe" for rum punch. We had made a batch of punch the day before, but it seemed flat and too rummy. The secret, we were told was to add a sprite and fizzy orange drink into the mix. This "secret" was the ingredient we needed, but we had to be careful not to drink too much of this delicious beverage.
Cheers. We decided to dine in on this particular evening. Our rooms included a kitchenette, so it was nice to take advantage of it. We had some leftovers from the night before, and we supplemented this with some things we had picked up from the store. It was very relaxing eating in. Besides, we had a new batch of punch to try out! 
Here is the Rasta Mon that I bought a wood carving from after lunch. He told me that he had good prices and that his carvings were totally carved out of one piece of wood unlike the guys down the street that glued their fins on the fish instead. He was right, I checked out several of the "other guys" carvings and found his to be the best quality. The fish I bought is a local fish, I forgot what species at the moment, and I though it odd how it sits on the stand sideways. I asked Rasta Mon about it and he told me he carves it like that because that is how it looks when you pull it in off your fishing line, and how it looks when it is frying in the pan. Makes sense, I guess. Anyway, who am I to question the Rasta Mon?!?
Adam, Tracy, Renee and I were scheduled to go snorkeling the next day so Adam and I decided to try out our gear by snorkeling right out front of the hotel. The water visibility was cloudy and you couldn't really see anything, but it was still cool, because you could walk about 500 yards out from shore and still be only up to your waist in water. The water was warm too. It was definitely warmer than the pool! We snorkeled around for about a half hour and headed back. Unfortunately, the beach at the hotel had been damaged during hurricane Dean in August, 2007. Much of the sand from the south side of the islands beaches was simply washed out to sea. In a few areas of Ambergris Caye large dredges were positioned in the bay to dredge sand from the ocean floor, and pipe it back onto the beaches. We observed equipment set up for this on one particular beach. When we inquired about it to one of the locals, we were told that the beach restoration project was started by one on the local politicians trying to get re-elected to office. Once the election was over, and he was re-elected, the project just kind of became forgotten and the funding dried up. Too bad. Big beaches are very nice and certainly a big tourist draw. 
We weren't very creative on night two and decided to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant. We were able to eat outside on a very clear and warm evening. The breeze kept the bugs off and us from sweating. The food at the restaurant was excellent and the portions big. I am kind of a picky eater, and sometimes don't order off of the menu. In my opinion it never hurts to ask if a restaurant has a particular item, even if it doesn't appear on the menu. In this case, my asking paid off. I didn't see corn as a side dish, and when I asked the waiter, he was not sure if they had any, but he said that he would go look. A few minutes later, the waiter came through for me and brought out three ears of corn on the cob. I don't know how I got a hankering for corn on the cob, but it hit the spot. So 5 stars for the Banana Beach Resort restaurant. The waiter did well that night, I left a big tip on account of the corn!