Belize 2024, Day 5

When I booked this dive I asked if it was as good as the Esmeralda Dive Site. They answered no but I booked anyway. They were right but it was still some fun dives, so worth it! It was just me, a diving taking a certification class, two dive guides and the boat captain. It was great to have so much room on board the boat.

The visibility in the water was ok but not as good as yesterday. Still, lots of fish, one nurse shark and a coral head filled with lobster. The biggest of these would be my lunch about an hour and a half after we saw them. But more on that later.

This is a lion fish. (look under the edge of the coral.)

They are an invasive species that devastate the reefs. So killing them is encouraged. As a result, part of today’s diving was lion fish hunting. I didn’t do any of the killing, I was just a sniper spotter for my dive guide. I spotted two which he speared and he found three more on his own. Watch the next videos if you want to see one speared.

Watching for Lion fish added an extra dimension to what could have been a mediocre dive. I chickened out on asking if I could take a turn with the spear. I wish I had. I’m not a hunter but helping protect the reef by eliminating an invasive species was interesting to me. Plus the lion fish were just so cocky. (Bruce?)

When you do two dives you have to spend a certain amount of time on the surface to avoid decompression sickness. (Something about off gassing nitrogen from the blood.) The is called a surface interval. We spent our surface interval back in Shark and Ray Alley, one of the locations I snorkeled a few days ago.

Shallow enough to stand up, we hopped in and swam with around 30 nurse sharks and several rays. Once we got back on the boat the dive guide chopped up the lion fish and fed the chunks to the sharks.

Our second dive was a bit lackluster in comparison with yesterday’s dives. Still, lots of fish and the coral head filled with lobster I mentioned earlier. Here it is.

Using the same spear, my guide caught 3 good sized lobster. (It’s lobster season right now so outside of the preserve these are up for grabs.) the largest is in the left of the video. The guide gifted this one to me and suggested I have the restaurant at the resort cook it up. While I was settling my bill at the dive shop he cleaned it and put it on ice in a bag for me. They dropped me off at the BluZen dock and I walked directly to the bar with a dripping bag of lobster (ice melts super fast in this heat).

“Hey! Can you cook this up for me?” “Sure! You want it grilled with garlic and butter?” Hell yes I did. I handed the lobster off to the bartender and went to the room to rinse off and clean up. 20 minutes later they brought this out to me.

They served it with a little carafe of garlic butter, rice and veggies (veggies under the huge lobster.) It was delicious, both the lobster and the experience.

Matt and Lilli rented a golf cart and headed out to explore the island. They were leaving as I was just getting back. I couldn’t imagine driving around in the heat of the afternoon but they had a great time despite running out of gas by the pineapple house.

Side note. The heat here is oppressive. Humidity, a blazing sun makes it uncomfortable for me. Not my ideal. Yesterday and today the wind has been blowing steadily, and as I type this I am sitting out on our shaded balcony. It is till humid and hot but the shade and the breeze makes it quite pleasant.

I took a nitrogen-in-my-blood inspired scuba nap. When I got up we all headed over to the pool. The sun was down and the breeze was blowing so it was a perfect time to play in the pool. Matt and Lilli and I exchanged stories. We told Lilli several stories of how Matt and I were complete jackasses in grad school. It was a lovely evening topped off by dinner outdoors with a live musician playing Beatles tunes on his guitar.

I have zero plans for tomorrow. I’d go scuba diving one more time if I could but my flights on Tuesday prevent me from diving Monday. (Nitrogen blood, decompression sickness, blah blah blah.)

One more thing about my dives. The coral formations and sea sponges are pretty different from what I’m used to since most of my diving has been in the pacific. Here’s a few pictures.

The sea fans were cool, too, especially when they were being moved by the current.

Thanks for following along.