Eagles and Eagle Rays

Sunday 9th April. We left Utila on the 6.20 early ferry and caught a bus from La Ceiba to Puerto Cortes, via San Pedro Sula, a 12 hour journey but mainly comfortable. Puerto Cortes is Honduras' primary deep water port and we needed to locate our speed boat, Gulf Cruza, for the following morning when we would cross the Gulf of Honduras to reach Placencia in Belize. The town was quiet being a Sunday (Generally speaking EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays in Central America which is a serious pain if you've just completed a hot dusty journey and are dying for a beer - Dave) but there were still plenty of taxis around and so we caught a lift to a small town on the river estuary where the small boats depart for Guatemala and Belize. A helpful Honduran man who spoke excellent English told us of a good place to stay and that we needed to get our exit passport stamps at the Migracion office. So the taxi took us back again and we were all organised for the following morning. Even Dave is getting used to early starts now, although he still won't admit to enjoying them, so up we got and off to Migracion, then back to the Gulf Cruza where we bought our tickets and had a scrummy local brekkie (tortillas, frijoles (refried beans), scrambled eggs and chicken for Dave) in a very basic but friendly riverside cafe and then waited around for a few hours (as we had to wait for the hitleresque customs man to finish his brekky and make sure we weren't smuggling people out of the country). The boat left just before 1pm and we had a very fun to start with bumpy ride, which eventually made me feel queasy and wasn't very comfortable. It was great to arrive in Belizean waters with the little cayes with their palm trees scattered around the sea. It suddenly felt like Belize, the sea was more turquoise, being shallower over coral sands and closer to the reef. After a brief passport check at Big Creek port we continued onto Placencia where we found Lydia's, our pre-booked guest house. So far on our journey we have never needed to book ahead but it was Easter weekend in a major Catholic part of the world, which was a royal pain. Placencia is a gorgeous sand spit running parallel with the mainland and basically a tourist hub for Belizeans and North Americans. So there's not a lot there other than palm trees, beach, guest houses, restaurants, bars and dive and souvenir shops. The whale sharks also hang out here all year round, but particularly between April and June when the cubera snapper spawn at full moon, providing a feast for the sharks. Unfortunately all the dive boats were full for this period so we thought we'd return a week or so later, although this never happened. We decided the cost ($170 pp for 2 dives) was prohibitively high and we hate back-tracking our steps anyway. Our whale shark (Winnie - positively id'd as a female) was special enough an encounter. The next few days were generally spent with Joey on the beach and in the sea, topping up her tan for Gem and Rich's wedding and with Dave relaxing under palm trees and in the beach bar. We were eventually thrown out on thursday morning to allow the Easter weekend punters to move in. Next stop Dangriga, further up on the coast, a sleepy (particluarly so being Easter) dusty town with a big Garifuna influence. That evening we found the Riverside Cafe where dive boats are organised from and I remembered it from my Raleigh International days. While doing reef surveys on Coco Plum Caye, a few of us had taken the boat back to mainland to stock up on beverages for the Saturday night party, and whiled away a couple of hours drinking Belikin beers here. As there were 11 years ago, there were still hundreds of flies being caught on yellow sticky strips, which despite being changed every 15 minutes, were always full! This is the first place so far that I clearly remember and which hasn't changed at all. The boat taxis take you out to Tobacco Caye where the dive operator is, so we decided to spend the next few days on the caye to save trips out and back to the mainland every day. The boat skipper told us there were surprisingly rooms available over Easter so the next morning we drove out and found a wonderful cabana overlooking the edge of the reef. We passed Coco Plum on the way out. It is now a private island with a posh resort, but it brought back memories of sitting round the camp fire with Georgie and Emily. Tobacco Caye is a typical desert island about 100m by 70m surrounded by crystal clear seas, with patches of turtle grass, just on the inside of the barrier reef. The next few days snorkelling revealed a wealth of life, including huge tarpon fish that spawn here at this time of year, and a turtle grazing on the turtle grass beds and coral twice! The first evening was magical. We sat out on the wooden jetty watching the sunset with Kati and Marco our new Finnish friends. They had just arrived that day too and we were in awe of the wildlife madness that emerged. Eagle rays glided under and around the jetty in the clear blue water, joined occasionally by a sting ray. Pelicans ungracefully dive bombed fish close by and a fish eagle nesting on the roof of a wooden hut on the end of the jetty swooped among magnificent frigate birds which had come down to lower thermals to fish. We were all so excited, we couldn't believe it! I'd wanted to see an eagle ray on this trip and you couldn't walk along the wooden jetty without seeing at least one swooping in to find scraps of fish left by the fisherman. Diving wasn't necessary as the snorkelling was so good (plus the only dive shop on the island was criminal and the owner should have been flogged for his prices - Dave), so we decided to save our pennies for diving the northern cayes. After a few days of hammock swinging and snorkelling it was time to move on so we rode back to Dangriga and caught the bus to Belize City and onto Orange Walk in the north. We found a lovely hotel on the banks of the New River and luckily, as it was a Sunday, we were able to book a river tour to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai from the hotel (Lamanai means the city of the submerged crocodile in Mayan). We had a wonderful day at Lamanai yesterday (Tuesday 18th), great boat ride spotting herons, kingfishers, cormorants but no crocs unfortunately, and a very interesting tour through the relatively young jungle to the pyramid temple ruins. This Mayan community existed until 1800 AD so is the most recent to have been abandoned. We explored the ruins now hidden in the 200yr old jungle from the Jaguar temple, to the ball game area (where either the winners were sacrificed which was an honour, or the losers were for being rubbish), to the temple of a long lost king (where the statue fell over which is a bad sign apparently so they sacrificed 5 children to be on the safe side) and to the magnificent Rain Temple (which was built 100BC) and is the highest, which we scaled in a hurry before Daves vertigo kicked in and panicked about getting down again, and when he did it was quite ungainly as he gripped the rocks with his fingers and did the Elvis wobble with his knees. Joey stayed at the top longer to admire the views of the jungle and the New River winding it way past. Joey was also a lot more graceful in her descent. The day was topped of by sightings of Black Howler monkeys., only found in Belize. Today is our last Wednesday and we're off to Belize City and then onto Caye Caulker where we will hopefully get some diving in. Dave - Thanks everyone for my Birthday wishes. Joey got me a card with a most excellent hand drawn token in for me to cash when we get back to the UK, for a glider experience. I was very impressed with her artistic talents. My birthday was spent on the buses from Tobacco Caye to Orange Walk, so we plan to have my celebrations this weekend on Caye Caulker, where I am expecting Joey to bake me a cake. See y'all back in Blighty.