Hol-Chan Marine Reserve

This morning I headed to "Frenchie's Diving" to arrange a diving trip for the day. Fortunately I showed up just as a boat was about to leave for the day and I headed off with a lady from San Francisco, a kid named Mark from London, and our Belizian guide, Jose. We headed out on the boat about thirty minutes away to a dive site called "Hol-Chan Marine Reserve".

Diving at Hol-Chan was a blast. At a good dive site it really feels like you've discovered an entirely different world. I buddied up with Mark and we put our gear on and lowered down about sixty feet to the ocean floor. Hol-Chan is known for it's underwater canyons that are covered with coral. The canyons are appropriately called, "coral canyons". Jose and Farrah (the lady from San Francisco) met up with us at the bottom of the ocean and we were off to explore the canyons. Just seeing the coral and sea fans that covered the canyon walls was interesting enough, but the wildlife down there really was pretty incredible. The highlight of that first dive was encountering a giant eagle ray. Jose spotted the eagle ray off to our right and I swam over so that I was right over it's path. As I looked down the eagle ray passed directly underneath me. It was amazing how huge the thing was, it probably was ten feet long from head to tail with a body about five feet wide. I followed the ray for a few minutes and then looked over at Mark, who was pointing at something behind me. I looked behind me and there was a second giant eagle ray coming right towards me. The second ray passed right underneath me and turned towards the first one. I chased after the two rays for a few minutes and watched them as they swam side by side. Finally it occured to me that I had drifted pretty far away from Jose and the rest of the group, so I left the eagle rays and hurried to catch up with everyone.

While diving it's important to budget enough time between dives to allow your lungs to rid themselves of compressed air that is breathed in while underwater, so to pass the time we did some snorkling in shallow waters. As we pulled up to a reef about six feet underwater, three nurse sharks came right up to the boat and lingered there as if they were waiting for something. Jose said the sharks are harmless, but that sometimes tourists will throw food to them, so they usually will come right up to boats and wait around for food for a few minutes. As far as snorkling goes, Hol-Chan really is world-class. I remember that I absolutely loved Hunama Bay in Hawaii, but Hol-Chan is easily the best snorkling I've done since then. Besides the hoards of fish covering the reef, I also chased after a couple of nurse sharks (they were ridiculously faster than me, even with my fins on), and I saw a particularly nasty looking baracudda.Our second dive of the day was spectacular. It started out ordinary enough, but after only a few minutes we came across a nurse shark resting sixty feet down on the ocean floor. A bit further along Jose motioned towards something and I looked to my right and saw Mark chasing a giant sea turtle. I joined in the chase and absolutely hauled after the thing, but for some reason creatures that are born in the water can swim a whole lot faster than I can. I couldn't even dream of keeping up with the turtle and barely got one picture of it before it swam into the distance. Jose seemed to know right where to look to find the good stuff and before the dive was over we saw a giant eel hiding in a crevass and handled a wild lobster that Jose found on the ocean floor. After all that chasing I was running low on air, so I surfaced a few minutes early and met up with everyone back on the boat.Diving really takes it out of you. I was so hungry when I got back this afternoon, but all I wanted to do was lay down and take a nap. After relaxing a little bit I downed a lobster burrito, some pineapple cake with caramel, a piece of banana bread, and two chocolate-chip coconut cookies. Finally I collapsed under a palm tree and drank out of my water bottle as I enjoyed the breezy weather. A couple dread-locked locals rode by on their bikes and couldn't resist a few comments. "Hey, wake up mon!" shouted one.
"It's morning-time! Welcome to America!" (I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean).

Tonight I met up with Mark and watched the Super Bowl at a local sports bar. Mark and I had a pretty detailed conversation about American football and the professional football leagues in Europe and Britain. It was actually pretty fun to explain to Mark what the four downs mean, what constitutes a penalty, and the difference between an extra point and a two-point conversion. Mark just finished studying law at Cambridge and has spent the last nineteen months traveling the world (yeah, the British really know how to travel).Tomorrow I'm going on three dives, one of which will be at the famous "Blue Hole". I'm pretty excited for the Blue Hole, as that's the whole reason I came to Belize and a lot of the reason why I came to Central America. This place is just so laid-back and fun. I've already met two Americans who came to Caye Caulker and have stayed for years, if that's any indication of how fun the lifestyle is down here. As much fun as that would be, I'll probably be coming home in a few weeks anyway. For now though I'm looking forward to the Blue Hole and all the rest of the good stuff in Central America.