Caye Caulker, day two

I had a proper fry jack (stuffed) and coffee for breakfast, and watched the world from the dock at the hostel.

I developed a routine in the morning of eating breakfast, then coming back to first slather on sunscreen, then insect repellent, and only then going about my day. I didn't have to meet at the snorkel shop until 10 am, and I'm an early riser, so I stopped by "Ice and Beans" to get an iced coffee and walk about the island again. It was quite a bit windier, which meant the sand fleas/flies wouldn't be biting much (they don't care about repellent at all, they eat it for breakfast).

I met the group at the snorkel shop and sat and talked with the other tourists while we waited. There was a couple from France that shared their travel experiences, a few other people, and one girl from Japan traveling solo. The French woman remarked that it was rare to see a Japanese girl traveling alone, and I wondered how true that was. Mostly, I felt a sense of pride to meet another solo female traveler. We're out there, and we're more common than you think: women who yearn to see the world but can't wait around to find a travel partner. After all, you could wait for years.

All geared up, we walked to the docks on the west side of the island (actually the dock right next to my hostel) and first took a look at some protected tarpons.

I can never get over how blue the Caribbean is. It's my favorite sea.

And into the water we went.

It always takes me a few minutes to get used to breathing with my face underwater, but once I adjust it feels very natural. Almost too natural actually. When I dive under to take a closer look, I have to remind myself not to breathe.

I apparently need to work on my underwater selfies. You're seeing the float strap for my camera in the corner.

The jellyfish above do not sting. The guide passed one around to all of us underwater so we could feel it.

The reef is very shallow in some places. Oh, by the way, this is part of the Great Barrier Reef.

While trying to get closer for a better photo of this guy, something stung/bit me. Felt like a fire ant, if you've ever experienced that. I didn't see anything though, but swam off pretty fast. I later only had a small red dot from it.

I have always loved the shimmer of looking up towards the surface when you're underwater.

After snorkeling around there for awhile, we got back up in the boat to go to shark/ray village. Some might find this questionable practices as far as ecosystems go, although I only slightly understand it. But here they feed the sharks and rays to get them closer to people (docile nurse sharks). While yes, it does teach the sharks and rays that they can come get food, I don't think they forget how to get food when tourists aren't around (like never). And since this has become a protected area, and probably always will be, I don't know. I can see it both ways. In any case, they tossed a little food over the side and we jumped in to swim with the sharks and rays.

After we finished there, we headed over to the coral gardens for more snorkeling for those who weren't tired of it yet. I think less than half of us got in at this last spot, the rest sat in the boat drinking rum punch. But I wasn't about to let this opportunity go by. I was starting to get chilled, even though the water was in the low 80's. I didn't wear any sort of wet suit.

After awhile I started shivering, which made taking photos a little difficult, but of course I wanted to stay in as long as possible.

I did the half day (three stop) tour on Caye Caulker, because I would also be heading to San Pedro where I could do the other half at the sites closer to Ambergris Caye.

My feet hurt a little from I imagine the fins (I hope), and my ear was a little achy from diving under. When I was little, I had a pretty bad ear infection where I had to be taken to the ER or Urgent Care. My eardrum wasn't ruptured but it did have blood on it. Whenever I go on a plane, I can clear my left ear just fine, but not my right. I did buy Ear Planes (I highly recommend those, especially if you have to fly with a cold or other sinus issues) and use those sometimes. When I'd dive under to get better pictures, maybe 12-15 feet, I could not decompress my right ear at all. It made it fairly painful, so I tried to stay at a depth that my ear could handle. It was a little frustrating though.

Every night on the island, people come over to the west side of the island to watch the sunset. It's a sight to see in itself, the sudden migration of people and animals to the west side, onto docks that they get kicked off of, then onto a small window of beach. It's a serene time.

It was time to find dinner. I went out in search of food with two Canadian ladies and one British guy. I had lobster, salad, and .... mashed potatoes maybe?

The girls shared fish and lobster. I don't remember what the Brit had.

This place was pretty cool. They had a small grill out front, grilling up all sorts of things. We sat by the window to the bar and they kept giving us free rum punches... to go with the Belikins we were already drinking. That got us a little tipsy, which inspired the group to drag me out to the bar.

Of course, the crazy French Canadians (not the non-French Canadians I was with) at the bar got everyone riled up to do some weird green shot... out of a bamboo post.

I normally do not do this sort of thing. It inspired a pretty significant hangover, which was a concern since I was taking a water taxi to San Pedro the next day. We had fun though.