We had the forethought the previous night to pick up some groceries for breakfast as we knew we'd be getting up before any of the restaurants opened. We packed our bellies full of yogurt and granola, fruits and newts, and we were off to the dive shop early. When 7:15 came and went and no one was there, we were getting slightly nervous. Finally a guy pulled up and I engaged him immediately. The jist of our exchange was that they were already gone to the other shop to prep. "I'm going to burn down their boat", I thought to myself. Fortunately, it turned out that this individual was mis-informed, and the mini-bus showed up a short while later to take us to their dock.

After some meet-and-greet and equipment setup we made our way out to the dive site. I was expecting a bit of a look-around to try and find some spawning snappers, but we basically boated out, stopped and jumped in. They probably would have been well served to have searched a little harder because the site they picked was quite easily the most boring, uneventful, lifeless dive of all my nearly 50 dives. I could count the number of fish on one hand, and after about 45 minutes we surfaced. No fish and, more importantly, no whale sharks. Jes and I both discussed later that we had a lot of difficulty with this dive too. Jes went in really anxious and was scared in the open water. Because there was no bottom and no marine life to use as a reference point, we both had difficulty with depth perception, having a hard time not going too deep or too shallow. I was also having issues with the fins I was given; they were a terrible fit and gave me numerous blisters on my previously-mangled toes. My feet were in rough shape so I found some tape, wrapped them up and crossed my fingers as we got ready for the next dive.

Prior to the second dive we made a quick stop on the reef for lunch and snorkeling. We were served chicken, potato salad and the Belizean dinner staple, rice and beans. Watermelon and cookies followed for dessert. After scarfing down my food I donned my mask and set out to find some marine life on the reef. I left my fins aboard to give my blisters a break and just swam around the coral gardens, poking around at the "untouched" reef, as described by our boat captain/dive master. Apparently no one really knew about this snorkel spot, so I was happy to scoot around our own secret site. Jes stayed on the boat, chatting with our fellow divers, Sean Connery (actually just a sound-alike) and his hot-old-lady wife (Jes still talks about her hot-old-lady body). They were on the roof of the boat spotting spotted rays and turtles. At one point they implored me to race out and play with a nearby turtle, but their spotting abilities were apparently limited to fairly close range as my search was unsuccessful under their direction. I was a bit bitter that they couldn't do their part as I had heroically squeezed into my fins for the hunt, braving the abrasions covering my poor piggies. 

One poor young woman on the trip was basically crippled on the way out by the sudden onset of an intense migraine. Rather than suffer through the next short ride out to the second dive site, she elected to stay with the park rangers, on their boat on the reef. We dropped her off and headed out the site, another deep blue open water abyss. 

This time we hit the spot as there were schools upon schools of mutton snapper swimming around below us as we descended. Localized areas of the fish cluster started spinning in unison, rising from below in tornadoing fish-spires, ejecting a sudden cloud of particulate at the apex before dispersing and re-joining the cluster. Big bull sharks circled below the gathering of snapper, seemingly cruising around just to take in the show.

My cousin Cindy and I had been through an eerily similar whale shark run-around in Western Australia a few years back. We had to book a last minute tour and catch an impossibly tight-scheduled flight out afterward and it worked out better than could have been imagined. We saw one, 6m in length, a baby by whale shark standards, that seemed as big as a school bus. I regularly describe it as the most adrenaline packed moment of my life swimming alongside the great fish, busting past our guide to snap some close up pictures despite his warnings to keep our distance and stay behind him. We also made our last minute flight, the whole trip turning out as a serious of fortunate events.

So I really felt we were in the right place at the right time, a can't-miss scenario for whale sharks. Crushingly, it did not happen. We watched a 45-minute fish sex show and surfaced to a world of massive disappointment. I had some air left so I stayed in the water until the last gasp, head down, camera ready, waiting for a dramatic last-minute appearance. I was last to board and alas, no whale sharks.

The disappointment was palpable, especially after we were regaled with stories of the dolphin show put on for the full length of one of the previous days' dives. They at least got dolphins. We got nothing put horny snapper. Brutal. 

We made our way back to the reef to pick up the migraine lady. During the stop to pick her up, I jumped back into the sea for my 14th urgent piss off the trip. I don't what it is about diving, but I very nearly exploded on the boat ride out, during and after the first dive, after lunch, after snorkeling, during and after the last dive....you get the idea. I surmise that it's something to do with the water pressure on the body, but who knows. All I know is I peed through my undies by that ranger boat for a solid 5 minutes, holding up an impatient boatload of divers. I could have just gone during the dive, but I had one such experience in a wetsuit during my very first training dive. That experience has stuck with me throughout my diving career as something I never want to go through again. And coupled with the general grossness of peeing in a wetsuit, we were about to travel through the night and the entire next day. I did not want to make that journey coated in a film of salty pee.

I remembered that it was me that should be in a rush to get back to shore so I squoze out the last few drops and climbed aboard for the race to shore. We made it back in record time and our favorite shop guy was there to pick us up and take us to the airstrip...the same guy whose memory, the night before, I had to jog about us even being on the trip and needing guarantees for airport times. Well, he forgot our bags. So back to town we went, going from time-to-burn to no-time-to-spare in a blink. Fortunately, as noted in previous posts, the "security" for these domestic flights is preety relaxed, so when we arrived 15 minutes ahead of departure, everything was cool.

We flew to Belize City and cabbed over to the bus station, almost 2 hours ahead of our last-minute, last-minute, last-minute plan. We boarded an earlier bus than we had planned and arrived in Corozal ahead of schedule, but not without event. Part way through, an older, swaying Belizean boarded, holding an open Beliken. This took me back to our bus-dash in Belmopan where I foolishly stranded my nearly-full beer by the roadside. Who knew you could board a public bus with open beer!! I guess I stood out on that bus because he bee-lined straight for me and engaged me in conversation about our trip that was. I humored him, telling him about our trek into the interior and whale-sharking disappointment before he started going off on a tangent about how we saw all the wrong places. When he started loudly repeating himself, I realized just how tanked this guy was. I told him I was sorry to have disappointed him in my trip decision making, threw on my head phones and tuned him out as I watched his mouth continue to run in connection with his wild, flailing hand gestures, now to no one in particular. Shortly thereafter, he started being real shady, ducking under the seat in front of him, doing who knows what. I was in the seat behind him, Jes in the seat beside me, when she motioned for me to urgently move to her side of the bus. She could see exactly what he was doing: heaving that beer all the rest of his recently consumed items all over the floor of the bus. I alerted the bus staff and after some arguing he eventually found a suitable stop and disembarked.

A short while later we found ourselves in Corozal, closest bus stop to the border. We got off the bus and I don't think we actually stepped foot on the ground before we were in a cab. At least I thought it was a cab, Jes was less certain. Might have just been a dude with a van, but regardless, we hopped in asked him to take us to Chetumal, Mexico. He wouldn't go that far, but he was quite helpful in getting us to the border and lining up another cabbie on the Mexico side. 

A noteworthy experience for those planning on duplicating our Belize trip, do NOT pay going into the country. We were given the option to pay upon entering or pay when leaving the country. For some reason we paid going in and I immediately thought we probably made a mistake. Well, we did because we were forced to pay again. The entry guard said to just show the extra stamp he gave us to the exit guards and we'll be able to pass right through. I hope he had a wild night on our US$40 because I'm sure it went straight into his pocket.

The cabbie on the Mexico side didn't speak a lick of english, but fortunately I can piece together a sentence or two of the espanol, so we managed to find our way around. We had exhausted all our funds on planes, busses, cabs and crooked border guards so we had to make a quick stop at a nearby ATM. I'm not gonna lie, I was mildly nervous when I went into the bank while Jes waited with all our bags in a strange Mexican taxi cab. I made it as quick as I could, got the cash and dashed back to the cab. No need for nervousness after all.

We made it to the bus station ahead of time, and tickets were available for the last bus going to Playa that night. We gorged ourselves on tacos and tortas at a nearby stand and were on the bus a short time later, shortly after midnight by this point.

We both did well to catch a few Z's on the bus after a long day of diving and travelling. We found ourselves in Playa del Carmen at a limbo time, too early to get any food, too late to bother with getting a hotel. We spent a couple hours sitting around, with a jaunt or two to check for any open restaurants. By the time something opened, we had just enough time for a leisurely breakfast, a bit of souvenir shopping and headed back to the bus station from whence we came. An hour later we were at the Cancun airport with enough time to spare to enjoy a quick meal and beer at Bubba Gump's restaurant. A little taste of the Americanized world before we headed home.