San Pedro - Snorkeling with sharks, beautiful fish and sting rays!

NOTE: We have no photos as our camera was stolen!

Friday 12th October Flores – San Pedro Belize

Finally at 6.30am we departed Flores.  We did our best not to use San Juan travel and got tickets for Linea Dorado a coach company so we all felt a little more at ease. We headed out of Flores on the exact same rode that leads to Tikal, so all of us were a little on edge. Thankfully we turned off before the town  we had passed through and did not have to travel past our infamous sight! The roads did seem all to familiar, so we were all a bit anxious until we finally reached the Belize border.  The 4 of us must have been the happiest people to cross the border that day, the relief was immense! Even better was the fact we were entering into an English speaking country. The bus carried on briskly and we all even manged a few minutes sleep. We arrived into Belize city just after 12pm and were dropped right outside a boat terminal where we were greeted by a handful of very happy Caribbean men touting tickets for the ferry service. It was so nice to have genuine help and not trying to be riped off. With lots of admin planned we had decided to stay the night in Belize city, but with Leigh and Riff not being able to locate anything suitable we made a split second decision and boarded the departing boat service to San Pedro, a tiny island about 1 hours boat ride from Belize city. The boat travelled very quickly but we were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery of bright turquoise waters and many mansions lining beaches.

Arriving into San Pedro we had expected to be mobbed by hoteliers, but the laid back  Caribbean way is not to bother people and we eventually where given help by an expat American who loaded all 4 of us and our backpacks and many other bags, his 4 crates of coke bottles and his dog onto his golf cart (San Pedro uses golf carts instead of cars). What topped it off was we where sure his blood alcohol level was over any legal limit, but as it was only a golf cart we all enjoyed the experience! He dropped us off at a beach front hotel called Ruby's Hotel and we were all happy with place so decided to stay.  After settling in we all started to feel hungry as we had not eating all day so we tried to find a place for lunch. We asked the lady at reception who informed us that all the places were closed for lunch (it was only 3pm), so she made a few call for us and found an open pizza bar where we headed. It was a real reminder that we were on island time! We found the bar with Leigh and Riff having a pizza each while Jo and Alex where a little less greedy and made salsa filled pita.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the island and Leigh complaining every minute that he had to wear shoes (his flip flops had been stolen). We looked for a cheap replacement pair but anywhere settled by ex pat Americans is never cheap, but maybe paying for them would have better than his moaning! We sourced a few snorkeling companies to use tomorrow and headed back to our hotel to have a few drinks, play scrabble and of course we taught them 500! The only problem we had during the evening was having to listen to an English father and son talk with some Jamaican guy that was everything from a doctor to a movie producer - it drove us all mad and were so relieved when they left!  We played late into the night before heading to bed. As we lay down we could not be more relieved to be out of Guatamala!

Saturday 13th October – San Pedro

Today we got up early enough to be at the sea (all of a 2 minute walk) by 9am. We had decided to go snorkeling to one of the most amazing reefs in the world and then swim with sharks afterwards. Jo was extremely terrified of being eaten by sharks so was a bit skeptical about it all. We jumped on the boat and there was just the 4 of us doing the trip which was rather expensive at just under $40USD each. After travelling for about 45mins we came to the marine reserve where the driver/guide anchored the boat. He explained where we would snorkel, some rules and said that he would point out some important fish to us along the way. We all jumped into the water which was lovely and warm and where instantly overwhelmed by how clear the water was and also how many fish we could see and how beautiful they were. It was like we were snorkeling in a massive fish bowl! We snorkeled around for about an hour and saw eels, electric blue fish, sharks, sting rays, maybe about 200 different species of fishes, it was simply amazing. We snorkeled over a deep shelf and could even see to the bottom and swam over the head of people diving. The coral was also so colourful and beautiful, we kept pointing things out to each other but there was just so much to look at and the visibility was just so great you could see for miles.

We made our way back to the boat still finding amazing fish along the way and eventually got on board all saying did you see this fish, or that fish, we were all totally buzzing! We then travelled in the boat another 10 minutes or so where another couple of boats were anchored and the driver said now its time for the sharks and stingrays. He said that he would attract them over with some bait so Leigh and Riff jumped overboard and were immediately loving being surrounded by these nursery sharks. Jo was very hesitant but eventually jumped in and screamed for about 5 minutes constantly as all the shark where about 2 feet below her and kept following her, probably thinking she was the food! The sharks where about 3 – 6 feet long but where nusery sharks so didn't have teeth but sucked at their food, in fact they suck so hard they can suck the skin off your hands if you get close enough. Jo swam around to the otherside of the boat to be close to the ladder but still totally loved watching the sharks and sting rays right below her fighting over the bait. Leigh and Riff where just leisurely paddling around while Alex was still on the boat. The guide grabbed a sting ray and let it lie in his arms for everyone to see it. Then he grabbed a shark and turned it upside down like a baby and we all swam over to him and patted the shark. It was so cool! The shark felt like sandpaper it was so bizarre. We all swam around for about half an hour more, before the bait had ran out and the sharks sniffed out some more elsewhere. Luckily we were not eaten by them or stung by the sting ray, but absolutely loved every second of it!

We headed back to San Pedro and had a picnic back at the hotel. We played cards and scrabble all afternoon and just totally chilled out as our hotel had a great view over the beach. We visited some of the local bars in the afternoon and evening and carried on our games before we stopped at a stall on the way home to pick up dinner. Leigh loved it as it was BBQ chicken, rice, beans, potato salad – true Carribean style!