Belize Day 4: Manatee Hunt

We spent the entire day on a Manatee Watching / Snorkeling / Beach BBQ trip around the cayes. Our "Searious" tour guides picked us up from Woody's Wharf a little before 9 am. The boat is pretty full: around 17 in all plus two tour guides.


We take a 60 minute (or 4 drink as our tour guide joked) boat ride past the major cayes. We cruised past the east side of Caye Caulker, Caye Chapel, and St. George's Caye. Caye Caulker remains relatively undeveloped, while the other two cayes seem to have more of a "resort" feel to them. We also see some shacks on stilts positioned on sand bars over the open water. Wouldn't want to be there during a storm that's for sure! The water is pretty smooth and the boat ride is rather enjoyable.


After zipping through some mangroves, we come up on Swallow Caye and the manatee preserve. According to our tour guide, much of the manatee population's decline was due to accidental death by motors from passing boats or intentional poaching for their bones which are similar to an elephant's ivory tusks. Early settlers also used to make manatee jerky called buccan. This is where the term buccaneer came from.


At first it seems like the whole manatee portion of the trip is going to be a bust. The sun is beating down on us as we try to carefully scan the water for any movement. Our secondary guide is having trouble maneuvering the boat with the large stick and actually ran us into a sign. (As Wyatt says, this is ecotourism at its best.) We see two manatee surface, but they are quite far away.


But then we encounter the trusty park ranger who informs our guides that there is a friendly manatee just around the corner. Thank you Mr. Manatee Park Ranger Guy!

Now we're cooking! We carefully float over. You can feel everyone on the boat just holding their breath, actually hear everyone intently analyzing the water, when finally the manatee surfaces and actually heads towards our boat for a friendly hello. It is an awesome sight!


Next we motor over to Goff's Caye, a little further south and west of Swallow Caye. It is a 1-2 drink boat ride. Goff's Caye is straight out of a Corona commercial: the quintessential deserted tropical island. There are quite a few Belizeans enjoying their Labor Day national holiday and most seemed to have no qualms of sharing their little piece of paradise with us.

While our primary guide BBQ'd up some lunch for us, we went snorkeling with our other guide. Ann was a little unsure about snorkeling without a floatation device, but she decided she could make it and everything turned out just fine. (Even though it was rather crowded with 18 snorkelers all in the same area.) We saw beautiful coral and several large schools of smaller fish, plus a medium sized barracuda.


After a yummy lunch of BBQ'd chicken, potatoes, and pasta salad (plus Coke in a glass bottle and a coconut tart), we headed over to The Aquarium - a snorkel stop off Caye Caulker. (This was quite a long way: a 3-4 drink boat ride.) The Aquarium is Caye Caulker's answer to Shark Ray Alley, except here the water is only about 4 feet deep so the nurse sharks and stingrays are VERY close to you. Ann lasted nearly the entire duration, but returned to the boat after an armada of 5-6 stingrays floated right underneath her like B2 Bombers in flight formation.


Shortly after Ann's departure, Wyatt saw a huge barracuda, which was around 4 feet in length. It's the dark one on the right. Wyatt didn't want to get to close.

Next, we took a quick ride to Caye Caulker where our guides dropped us off and let us walk the town for about a half hour. We strolled down really the only street in town, taking in this very laid back, undeveloped town. There are several small hotels and restaurants as well as shops and tour operators, but nothing flashy.


We ended up at the split in the island created by Hurricane Hattie in the 1960's. This is where the Lazy Lizard Bar is located and it was hopping, mainly with locals. Wyatt tried the Lizard Juice, but Ann played it safe with a Belikin.


Our guides picked us up at the split and we waved good bye to the kids who were trying to impress us with their human pyramid.

Before heading back to San Pedro, our guides took us to the east side of the island and showed us that the folks on Caye Caulker are working hard on preserving the ecology of their beautiful island. Mangroves cover the back side of this island, despite the fact that they could clear these out to make room for more beach and more hotels. In one particular area, seahorses flourish and our guide quietly floats the boat towards this area and scoops a few out of the water to show us.


But wait, there's more! We get a surprise wildlife viewing just as we were leaving Caye Caulker. Five or so bottlenose dolphins splash up out of the water and put on a little show for us. They are quick and very difficult to photograph, but it was the perfect ending to our fun-filled day.

Back at Corona del Mar, we get cleaned up and decide that we are starving! Unfortunately, it is Labor Day and several restaurants are closed so we settled on Mango's which was hopping: a 40 minute wait, which seems to be virtually unheard of on this tiny island. So, we grabbed a couple of margaritas and chatted with a lovely couple from Cleveland while we waited. Before we knew it, we were seated. We started with empanadas--the ones with fish were awesome! Ann had Grouper la Plancha (planchas = bananas) which was excellent. Wyatt had cashew-encrusted Mahi Mahi which surprisingly was just okay. Mental note: Belize does not have fresh Mahi Mahi.

No live music at Crazy Canuck's. We decided this was just as well. It had been a fun, action-packed day and we were pooped. Plus, we had big plans for tomorrow morning.

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