Okay, back. It's been a heck of a week, so I kept not doing this. Quick side note about our kayak trip last weekend: We went to Lake Chabot, which was very pretty and went from pretty empty to way too crowded in the 3 hours we were there. We caught no fish, but a guy kayaking not far from us caught a *very* nice trout in the 18-20 inch range. Not my fish, so you can trust my estimate. :) The kayaking was very nice. We bought new paddles, so the taller of us was not having to flap around with a dainty little paddle. Weather was 71 degrees and as lovely as you could wish.

Now, back to Belize...

When I last wrote, Heather and I had just reached the Yoga retreat we were staying at. Those of you who know me know that I do not Yoga; I am as flexible as a glass stick. However, I do *like* Yoga people. They tend to be pretty mellow, which I attribute to being upside down for so much of the time. Kids do that. Kids are pretty mellow... my logic is flawless.

Anyway, I had stayed at Ak'Bol on my diving trip in November, and am very fond of the owners. Kirstin and Milio are fun, funny, thoughtful and radiate island calm. Having coffee or a beer (or a few shots) with them and hearing about how they built this place is great. I recommend it.

But Heather and I were hot and tired and, not to belabor the point, IN BELIZE! So we dropped our bags, donned our suits, and hopped into the 82 degree water to watch the sunset over the island. The water there is perfect. It feels cool when you are too warm and warm when you feel chilly. It even tastes subtly different from Monterey sea water, which I am more familiar with.

We swam just off of the Ak'Bol pier, which is also where they do their yoga classes. There are stairs leading to 4 foot deep water, where we saw all kinds of fish (which I'll go into later).

We dried off and walked up the beach two docks to the Palapa Bar, which is a neat two-story restaurant/bar that sits at the end of the pier. No skeeters, nice folks and fish they caught themselves earlier that day. We had fish tacos and limeades with rum. I ate there almost every night when I was there last time, but this time we wound up only doing so twice.

You can just see the Palapa Bar in the center of this pic. Also, note  how clear the water is! It was like that every day except for one when the combination of choppy water and lots of boats mucked it up just a little.

Pretty much everything shuts down at around 8:30 in the off season. That was a little bit of a let-down, because I don't really sleep that early. But when in Rome... Heather and indulged in an episode of Big Bang Theory I had downloaded on my iPad before the trip each night. I felt almost guilty, plugging in while in paradise... but... It's Big Bang Theory!

In the morning, we woke to the sounds of a bird that Heather said made a sound like a pool cue being chalked: "Skreeekyskreeky." That still beats the heck out of a blaring alarm clock. We excavated ourselves from under the tee-pee of mosquito netting and headed to the bar for breakfast. Here I must pause to describe  the best food in the world: French toast caked with a massive amount of coconut that they scrape fresh from the shell for your meal. Then they bring out cinnamon syrup. It's food so good it had to take a solid year off of my life with each helping. And I don't care; they were the bad years at the far end. Only now do I realize I did not get a pic of that breakfast on any of the days there. Understand this: I have NEVER lamented a missed food-photo-op. Never.

At 8:20 the boat to take us snorkeling in Hol-Chan Reserve and Shark-Ray Alley pulled up to the dock. It was Another Bubbles from Reef Adventures, and it was nice to see the dive master from my last trip at the wheel. He raced us back to town where we switched over to Bubbles and got the snorkeling guides for the trip. I'll post a bunch of pics now and mostly shut up. Enjoy.

Everywhere you look, schools of fish. They had no fear and would swim just out of finger's reach, then close behind you as you swam by.  There were Black Groupers under the boat along with several Horse-Eye Jacks.  

There was a cute little turtle with a missing leg. I thought of him as Stubby. If any of you are a 3-legged turtle, I apologize for my insensitivity.

Stubby and Friends.

A gorgeous barracuda cruised along with us for a while. No threat, just seeing what was what.

This is a Lion Fish, They're squeezing out the indigenous species because they eat ANYTHING and a lot of it. Apparently, they are tasty if you get past the barbs. I did not try.

Perfect.

Perfecter.

We swam out over slightly deeper water (we had been in 8-10 feet water, then swam across a stretch of 30 foot. It was lovely to see so many schools of fish below us. 

That's it for tonight. I had a long day and have a longer one tomorrow.

Hal