Divers don’t travel light

Location: Mexico
Date: February 27, 2012

After working very hard for 6 months with hardly any time off, the fact that we had to do a visa run came just at the right time.  Via the company we arrange work permits although the lawyer we use here had a “Mexican 5-minutes” and after 5,5 months nothing was arranged. The fact that our tourist visa expires in a couple of days meant that we just had to go and cross the Mexican border in order to get our passports stamped. Surely we could have used some contacts here and there and have our passports stamped for a couple of extra pesos but to  tell you the truth we actually look forward to leaving Mexico for a  couple of days.

So here we are, currently sitting in the back seats of an ADO bus ( still throws me off that name since my dads name is ADDO) which will take us to the closest border town Chetumal.

Packing up our bags yet again – or shall i say i put everything on the bed and Remco packs, otherwise we will have to bring 5 extra bags due to may lack of packing skills ( hey I have other skills!) – made me appreciate the fact that we have been staying put for the last 6 months. It also makes me look forward to the day i might just try to grow some roots somewhere.

This month we have had amazing people visiting us! It made our month so much more bearable. See this is actually the best part about our jobs, i mean diving is great and all, but doing it with people that we have so much fun with and who love it with equal passion is just the best.

And here is a link of a video our friend Jim made whilst diving the wreck C53 with Marijke :) Thanks Jim :)

Anyways i soooooooo drifted away from the topic. Where was I .. ahhh Belize.........

After an 8 hour journey we arrived in Ambergris Caye ( which I still pronounce wrong and i probably always will) Belize. We were absolutely exhausted however very happy to be on our holiday spot. We had a few things in mind for this holiday doing a whole lotta nothing, diving and more of a whole lotta nothing. SO after walking up to Patojos – the dive shop located at our apartment – we were very excited that we were able to jump on the boat 15 minutes later ( ah try that in pro dive allegro!).  Patojo had very good reviews on the internet and thus we were very interested in diving with him. Therefore we were very shocked by how the day went. We jumped in and almost immediately saw an eagle ray. Since my face was behind our camera, Remco lightly banged on his tank this action made Patojo almost jump out of  his skin and with many hand gestures indicate to Remco that this was not how we dealt here in belize. Alright maybe he did not want to scare the eagle ray, we could see his point. Only a second after we thought that, patojo started chasing the eagle ray which on his turn obviously turned around escaping the crazy group of divers ( hey I would do the same !). Anyway, diving i belize is different.  The colours are not as vibrant but there area a ot of vans and soft corals, and the surge rocking you back and forth is like being in a hammock . Big things can be seen i mean on our first dive we saw 5 rays on another dive we saw 3 rays and 4 sharks. Me no complaining!

Back to patojo, the most shocking thing was yet to come. We saw this big loggerhead fooling around with some fish. Patojo swam up to it and the turtle gently swam away not really interested in the bubble blowing creature. However Patojo first grabbed his shell and once he got a better grip he grabbed its right leg and hold on to it. By this time i was looking at Remco ( who wasn’t really interested in the turtle in the first place but now the situation had his full attention), worried and signalling “crazy”. By this time the turtle was swimming in spirals down to shake Patojo of him which was enough for Remco  who sprinted forward, banged his tank and made him stop signalling “are you crazy”?? BY that time the dive was pretty much sour for us. Coming up Patojo and R discussed is actions which resulted in us being kicked off the boat. Wow nice start hey!

Afraid that all dive schools would be like this we walked along the beach visiting the many dive schools located there and found one that really gave us a good vibe. Luckily these dudes were awesome and would the weather not have been bad the next days we would have dived with them many time more than just 1 double tank.  Don’t get me wrong the “no diving days” we spend very fruitful... well i guess so... i read about 3 books and slept a lot on the beach... yup pretty fruitful i would say oh and we ate a lot.... damn those calories!!!!

We witnessed the famous chicken drop.. euhm let me explain the basics of this game. You bet on a number on which the chicken will drop its.... drops first :) hahaha. Happens every Thursday ..LOL But hey it could make you 100$ richer.....  We tried a lot of restaurants (best ceviche ever tasted is I am afraid from this island) and drank a lot of beer.... as I said before DAMN THOSE CALORIES!

So all in all Belize is nice, a tad expensive but nice and for sure we will be back but probably to another part of Belize. I love to explore the jungle side as well and see the whale sharks and probably go to Caye caulker and do some more diving.....

xoxo