SUSAN: We woke up at a leisurely pace so follks took the morning to take a walk into town. I sat by the pool and soaked my feet in the cool water. Jim and Clay were finely going to get to dive in the afternoon so we snorkelers decided to take a snorkel excursion to Mexico Rocks and Tres Cocos. As we were leaving the dock this group of pelicans we right there to say bye!
Our snorkel guide was Lil' Alfonse and I have to say, this snorkeling was the best I have ever experienced. There were 15 people in our boat and our guide wanted to ensure that everyone had a great experience so he explained how to clean the mask to ensure it didn't fog up. So he cleaned them all and let us in the water one at a time. I was the first one in the water and the water was amazingly clear. I saw a ray immediately and as soon as the second person got in she saw a nurse shark. It took a while to get everyone in the water but there was plenty to look at while we waited. I didn't have an underwater camera so I have no photos of this but we did see two moray eels, numerous rays -- at one point I saw 5 at once, nurse sharks, tons of fish -- yellow wras, angel fish, grouper and a few urchins. It was the best snorkeling I have every experienced.
JAMES: Clay and I rescheduled our dive for 1:30 and even though the day started windy, it had calmed down by our pick up time. As before, Ambergris Divers picked us up at the dock and then took us back to the dive shop to get our gear and join up with our fellow divers. There were six others: a female couple, a single guy who looked and acted just like Popeye who was Canadian, and his friend with his two daughters. Our first dive was outside the reef and felt like it. We started in fairly shallow water and relatively quickly descended into an amazing landscape of deep ravines and caves. We followed our divemaster Joe through these mazes for about 40 minutes at a depth that reached 95 feet max. I blew through my air pretty quickly but Joe allowed us to stay down till I had only 500 PSI left in my tank. We went back to the dock for our surface interval and a quick snack before going out for our second dive.
The second dive was shallower and inside the reef. The divemaster brought chum and immediately was surrounded by eager Nurse Sharks. The feeding frenzy was a slow motion ballet and fascinating to watch. There was also an interested moray who seemed to be intimidated by the sharks. He was all the way of out of his lair but retreated when the action got a little too hectic. Finally Joe took a fish tail out of his container and dropped it near the eel's hole. The eel shot out like a laser, snagged the fish and retreated just as quickly back down his hole. After the chumming fun we continued over several large fields of coral broken occasionally by small troughs. Visibility was compromised by sediment in the water and a certain amount of churn and surge in the sea. We were down 40-45 minutes.
After the dive, we returned to Banana Beach where we cleaned up and reconnoitered with everyone else. They had gone snorkeling today at Mexico Rocks and Tres Cocos and came back super stoked! The trip was led by Li'l Alfonse (son of Big Alfonse, of course) who turned out to be an informative and entertaining guide. Mexico Rocks was teeming with Nurse Sharks, rays and corals. They said that he was patient and thorough when describing the undersea flora and fauna. So after that sales job, we immediately decided to bag the idea of renting bikes in favor of a return trip to Mexico Rocks on our last day on the island.
JAMES: Christine and John whipped up a delicious meal of sesame breaded chicken breasts with rice and beans, and Susan made chayote with carrots and onions. We ate until our eyes were bugging out and hit the sack early. We've got an early morning appointment for our trip to Lamanai.