After a bumpy end to 2021, I slept surprisingly well with the help of an Ambien and woke up in my tent on Rendezvous Caye to a beautiful morning. We had breakfast on the island and got to packing up our tents. After losing an entire day of snorkeling the day before, the crew promised to make it up to us with an extra snorkel stop today. I’m not sure this actually happened but appreciated the effort. Our first snorkel spot was actually at the island we were currently on.
After snorkeling, we loaded back onto the boat and continued to two more snorkeling destinations. I booked this trip specifically for the snorkeling (clearly, I’m not here for the sailing experience) and was a bit disappointed with the quality of the locations. The visibility wasn’t that great and nothing compared to the diving at the Lighthouse Reef Atoll. Maybe it was my mistake for booking this last! Of all the snorkeling destinations we stopped at, the last one was my favorite, being a random reef protected by some mangroves. The reef was sparsely spread out with mini-ecosystems dotting the seafloor. I liked observing the micro life and interactions of the sea anemones, small fish, shrimp, crabs, and other small creatures. It was like watching an aquarium.
We arrived at our final destination for the day, Tobacco Caye, before sunset and with plenty of light. The island was another little tropical paradise with palm trees and colorful buildings housing other tourists already visiting. We set up our tents in the middle of the island and I was able to take a cold shower, feeling refreshed and in a much better mood than the day before. Dinner was served on the picnic benches. I forgot to mention in my previous post that since they added extra guests at the last minute (hence the tent sharing situation), they also didn’t have enough food for everyone. Each meal, although delicious, wasn’t quite enough to satisfy the hunger.
That evening we drank some of the remaining booze from the night before and formed a kind of ladies group, chatting and sharing stories between the women onboard. Most of the 24 guests were American, or currently lived in the US, and from scattered places around the country. There were some families, a few couples, and two other single ladies. I tried to gauge everyone’s experience from the day prior and found that ignorance is bliss! Since I was the only one with any kind of boating or sailing experience, I was also the only one seeing all the risks and red flags. To everyone else, they seemed to have a fabulous time on the boat with a drink in hand, holding on to the boat with the other, as instructed!
The next day we woke up, packed up our tents, loaded the boat and departed once again. Our first stop was some manatee spotting at a nearby island followed by a little more snorkeling and then having lunch on a sandbar at South Water Caye. I was thankful that the first two days of 2022 were much smoother than the last day of 2021!
The final stop of the trip was the drop-off in Dangriga where we disembarked. A few new friends that I had met onboard were going to the same hostel in a nearby town called Hopkins, so we decided to share a taxi. I should also mention the taxi driver’s name was Burrito and I happened to ride with him a few more times on this trip. We stopped at a gas station to grab some water and Burrito grabbed a Heineken that he drank openly in the car. When we approached a police checkpoint, he asked all of us to put on our seatbelts, mask up, and the person in the passenger seat to hold his beer. I thought it was a bit funny at the time, but even funnier when he did the exact same thing the following day!
We checked into the hostel and all headed out to dinner at a nearby pizza restaurant and bar. At dinner, I asked the group: “Was I the only one who thought that first day on the boat was completely ridiculous?”. They also thought it was a bit crazy, but the girl, whose name was also Amanda, brought up a good point: when you travel, you never really remember when things go as planned. It’s the times when sh*t hits the fan that make the best stories and really give you something to talk about. She was right, and I had never thought about turning my perspective around and considering this alternate view of what would otherwise seem to be unlucky events. Now, whenever things go sideways, I will always think about how it will probably make for a better blog post one day!
