Leaving on the 5am shuttle from Flores, I arrived in Caye Caulker at around 1pm, after a while spent queueing at the border to pass through immigration. The water taxi transported us from Belize City, which was about an hours ride, before dropping us on the paradise island of Caye Caulker! It was a gorgeous, sunny day as we all got off the boat and waited for our bags to be handed to us. I checked into Yuma's House, which was the hostel of my choice and I was lucky enough to get the last bed! I paid upfront for 5 nights and would leave monday for Mexico.
Yuma's House hostel
My main reason for coming is to dive the blue hole. Although that is not the only reason. There is a definite caribbean vibe here and everyone speaks english again, which feels strange after being in spanish speaking countries for so long now. I keep answering and greeting people in spanish out of habit now! So funny! The island is very relaxed and friendly, everyone passes with a greeting, "hey pretty girl", "hey beautiful", I could get used to this!!! I walk around for a bit to find my bearings, which does not take long as it is mainly just one long strip of shops, restaurants, hotels and bars, leading down to the strip, which is a great place to hang out during the day and swim, and in the evening an excellent place to watch the sun go down with a cocktail! I want to try and find my friend Anais and the dutch guys as it is her birthday today and it would be great to hang out and help with the celebrations. I find them at the strip, which seems to be where everyone is at this time of the day near sundown. I have a drink with them before going home to get changed and meet up again later. We all dine out on a feast of lobster and then hit the reggae bar followed by Oceanside. There is not really many more places to go and even these places are pretty quiet! By about 2.30am everywhere is closing up and I say my goodbyes as they are leaving today and head to bed!
The following morning I did not even attempt to surface until about 11am! Still struggling from the effects of the night before I just had a lazy day and stayed around the hostel catching up on my blogs and reading my book, while swinging in the many hammocks that are hanging all over the place! I did however manage to take the plunge and book my dive for the following day!
I was already awake well before the alarm went off at 5.50am. I was anxious and excited all at the same time! The big day was now upon me and the time had come to dive the blue hole! I have been looking forward to this for so long, but had no idea I had to go to 40 metres, which I am not qualified to do, but I am going to be safe and sensible and take it easy, and if I am concerned at any point I will come back up. There are 3 main things that might go wrong for me today. The first being my constant struggle with equalising, as I always seem to take so long to get down, and we will have restricted time on this dive. The second is my tooth which is still painful after head butting the horse I was riding the other day. I hope the pressure won't be too much for it. Thirdly nitrogen narcosis if I over exert myself and don't keep my breathing steady. I am prepared for all three events happening and am not going to jeopardise my safety but am going to see how I get on :)
Geared up and ready to go! Our boat arriving!
We get geared up and take our kit to the boat. The journey to the blue hole will take 2 hours, and we were not really prepared for the rough ride we were about to endure. Once we hit open water the waves got fairly big and our bodies were aching from the constant jarring effect that the boat gave us every time it hit a wave and slapped back down into the water. Ouch! I tried to relax so I did not get a headache from the tension of trying to hold on, and soon as we arrived at the atolls all was calm again, for 15 minutes before we hit open water again!!! Arghhhh!
The blue hole!
Ariel view of the blue hole!
45 minutes later we arrived. One poor girl was already being sick! Fair play to her though she was still determined to dive! We got our gear on and in we went. I was staying close to the guide and had explained all my concerns to him and he assured me he would take care of me. The first problem I encountered was I did not have enough weight on, despite doing the weight check and that all seeming ok! A guide soon swam up and loaded some more weight into my BCD and I slowly started to descend. Slowly being the operative word! I seemed to be at 3 metres for a while, I stayed as still as I could until I started to drop down to 5 metres, then 6, and this is where I experience the issues with equalising. I could feel the pressure now causing a build up of pain and I was doing every trick I knew to get the air out and it was just not happening! Arghh so frustrating!!! I pushed myself to go a bit lower as I was aware that I had been taking a long time, longer than usual and I needed to start moving down faster without putting my safety at risk. I descended down to about 9 metres and gave a big squeeze and rolled my head from side to side and then I felt it! A rush of warm water coming from my ears and the pain was gone! I signalled ok to the guide who was looking a bit concerned and we went down further. 12 metres, 15 metres and down into the big dark blue hole!!! Before I knew it my gauge read 36 metres!!! Sharks were swimming around underneath us and past us and I could see illuminescent particles floating all around me. It seemed as soon as we got down we had to make our way back up and as I ascended, I was still reading my gauge at 36 metres which I thought was strange! I felt a bit confused as I knew this felt wrong and I kept checking it all the way up but it did not move! Weird!!! Suddenly I looked again and it said 15 metres!!! How strange! I must have been looking at the wrong dial, I have no idea, either that or it just was not registering in my brain! I guess that is the confusion associated with nitrogen narcosis. I did not even really notice my surroundings too much either, the stalagmites and stalagtites, as the blue hole was once a cave that collapsed in on itself, all I noticed was a wall I was swimming alongside and the sharks underneath. Other than that I was just so busy checking my gauges all the time and making sure my air and depth were in check. The guide told me afterwards he was just about to abort the dive if we did not go down when we did as we had already been 10 minutes!!!
Back on the boat again we made our way to our second dive. This was just to about 18 metres and we swam along a reef but there was not a huge amount of fish to see here. The reef was pretty but I think I have just been spoilt after diving Sipadan!
Island stop!
We stopped on an island for lunch and rested here for a while before making the third dive. I decided against diving again as my ears were feeling a bit sore from pushing on them so hard trying to equalise on the first dive. I snorkelled instead and it sounds like I did not miss much anyway. The visibility is so good at this depth of about 12-15metres anyway you can see most things snorkelling. We were all exhausted now as we headed back to land, and although it was still fairly bumpy it was no where near as bad as the way out here. I was glad to get off the boat though and be back on solid land. The sick girl was ill most of the way back too, poor thing! I showered, changed and went for a celebration dinner of lobster again, and was in bed by 9ish, ready for another relaxing day of doing nothing!
The following morning I laid in bed until almost lunchtime until hunger finally drove me up and out. I went for breakfast/lunch and then spent the day reading and relaxing on the hammocks. In the evening I went down to the split and watched the sun go down. I met up with some of the people who were on my diving trip and we chatted for a while and I joined them for dinner and a few drinks at the reggae bar. I was tempted to stay out but I had planned to go snorkelling tomorrow as it is my last day and I do not want to be hungover again so I say goodnight and make my way to bed.
The next morning I wake to the sound of rain. It must be around 7am! I go back to sleep and hope it clears for snorkelling at 10.30am. I finally give in and drag myself out of bed around 9pm. I book my transfer to Tulum and then book my snorkelling trip which leaves at 10.30am. I enjoy a breakfast of french toast and pineapple juice and go back to the hostel to get my stuff ready for the trip. There are 6 of us going out today along with the captain and his helper. The guys running the tour are great and really informative. When we get to the first place he shows us so many things and points out all the different fish as well as diving down to pick things up and let us feel and hold them. The reef is buzzing here and so alive! We have a really good time seeing moray eels, sergeant majors, shoals of blue tang, barracuda, angel fish, needle fish, and too many others to mention. Next stop, shark ray alley! This was the best yet! We stopped the boat and about 20 sting rays swarmed around it as well as nursing sharks! They were beautiful! Then it was time to get in and swim with them!!! I was a bit nervous at first because of the stingers and the whole Steve Irwin scenario, but we were told to be careful not to tread on them or splash around. Once in though it was amazing!! They would swim past us and we could reach out and feel them. They were so soft! Like velvet! Then he held one in his arms and I wanted to do it so he got one for me but it was so slippery I could not hold it so it got away :) I just enjoyed feeling it and stroking it while he held it for me. It seemed to enjoy it and relaxed as I ran my hand carefully along it. It was a unique experience! I was elated to be here doing this with these amazing creatures of the sea with the faces of angels, that is what they remind me of, angels!!! Sea angels!!
The sharks felt totally different! They had a rough surface, like sandpaper, and I just stroked them as they swam by. There was no way he was going to hold onto that! They were so peaceful and graceful, a real gentle giant! Then I took some fish which was gross as he made me hold it by its eye sockets, yuck! This was to feed the fish with and I held it out until one naughty fish came and tugged it straight out of my hand!! It took the whole lot and was exceptionally strong for such a little fish! Damn we had no more fish now to feed them! Their grip is definitely a lot better than mine!!! There was a lone barracuda hanging around too. They always look so angry and have big teeth. This was a big fish too, half the length of me at least! I was definitely not feeding that as I wanted to go back with my hand intact!
Coral Gardens!
It was time for the 3rd stop and we moved on to the coral gardens. Here we got to play with a yellow stripe crab, which is the weirdest thing. It looks like a spider, a tiny body and long spindly legs, like the ones that always hang around in the corners of your house. We just held it and watched it as it floated down onto our hands and then we would catch it and let it go and catch it again. So much fun! I would never have touched it if it was a spider, strange that. Just goes to show it is all in the mind! We moved on and saw lion fish, lobster, and all the other colourful reef fish usually associated with these types of places as well as the reef itself with the purple fan coral swaying with the current. So many colours and so much life here, it really was one of the nicest places I have snorkelled, and the visibility was perfect.
Soon it was time to return to the island and I made my way back to shower and freshen up. I was so tired and hungry, I went to get some food and spent the afternoon sleeping! I think I may have got a bit too much sun as it was cloudy and I thought I would be ok with no lotion, but obviously not the case as I realised when I got out the shower with a sore back! Ouch!
I walked out later to the shop for provisions for the next day and bumped into my diving buddies again. I stayed and chatted for a bit before making my way back for an early night, well 10ish, as I need to be up at 6am tomorrow to catch the boat to Mexico!
No comments:
Post a Comment