More Diving and Birds at Blackbird Caye

Our dive trip to Belize is at an end. It’s been wonderful to rest and relax for a couple weeks. Thankfully I think we missed the worst of the extremely cold weather back in Saskatoon (i.e. -40 to -50 degress C; 100-year record-setting low temperatures). 

While the first week and a half on Blackbird Caye was quite windy, we then experienced what it is like when the wind shifts to the opposite direction and the island and palm trees block the breeze. The mosquitoes and other insects are ferocious! I usually don’t get bothered too much but now have several large red welts wherever I got bit and I have to try not to scratch. Ugh! Now I know what Andrew goes through much more often. 

We continued to have really nice dives (more turtles and spotted eagle rays) and go for walks each afternoon to search for birds and other creatures such as iguanas, lizards, snakes and hermit crabs. 

"Splish splash I was takin' a bath."

Hello! Hello? Please let me in!

Diving Blackbird Caye

Hooded Oriole

The past few days have settled into a nice routine. We do two dives in the morning and, although a third dive is scheduled, take the afternoon off to nap, read, review photos and video, and go for a walk to search out birds and other wildlife. Of course, the palapa bar for a drink and socializing before supper is mandatory!

Of the four people who arrived on Wednesday, two are divers but one is taking his rescue diver course, so it’s been interesting seeing and learning about what is required. It looks exhausting! And you definitely need to be a strong swimmer (which I’m not). 

The dives have continued to be very good with healthy reef and lots of underwater life. More spotted eagle rays, sting rays and very large green moray eels, in addition to some small things such as jawfish and sailfin blennies have been fun to see. 

Our divemaster, Cardinal, always takes a spear with him and catches lionfish (an invasive species that tends to wipe out local species) so the non-vegetarians have had lots of fish fingers as the happy hour appetizer. The chef has been amazing at providing delicious vegetarian meals for us. We are eating very well!!!

I mostly take video under water but the odd  photo turns out ok.

I like the bright yellow "feathers" (for lack of a better term.)

In addition to diving, one of the other guests was into fishing. Catch and release but he was pretty happy about it. 

On the other end of the island is an abandoned research station that lost their funding.

Just the foundations of some of the buildings remain.

Coconuts

There are lots of great tailed grackles on the island.

Cat tails

Cormorant

Showing off his wing span

The catch of the day

The crocodile lives in the lagoon west of the island but comes around for the cast offs from fish cleaning.

A spiky tail

The resident little blue heron

Frigate bird

Little blue heron in flight

Pelican

The Great Blue Hole

Our day trip to the famous Great Blue Hole was a bit of a question mark due to the high winds and resulting high waves. But we went ahead and the hour-long crossing over to Lighthouse Atoll wasn’t as rough as I thought it might be. Once we got inside the Atoll it was much smoother. 

In terms of size and depth, the Blue Hole is quite impressive. It’s 318m across and 124m deep. The circular shape and differing water color shows up clearly even from water level on a boat. Photos from the air look spectacular. 

Looking up out of the Great Blue Hole. The photos around the stalactites were dark and blurry!

But in terms of diving, we weren’t expecting much. We’d been to one before and our travel agent, who’d been to this one, described it as “underwhelming”. Basically, you’re diving into a deep dark hole. At about 40 meters (which is quite deep in scuba diving terms) there are some stalactites that you can wind your way through – but only for a few minutes due to the depth. If we do this day trip again next week, we will snorkel around the top as the rest of our fellow guests did and really enjoyed. 

The next stop was Half Moon Caye, a small island that is also a bird sanctuary and a spot for nesting turtles. After a short stop and dropping off the snorkelers, we went a short distance away and dove a site called The Playground. Our dive master, Cardinal, said it’s one of the best dive sites around but unfortunately, visibility wasn’t great this time. We still saw quite a few things including a reef shark that came around several times during the dive. 

After lunch back on the island we had time to wander and take some photos. The red-footed booby were looking after their young and the frigate birds, in mating season, were displaying their puffed red breasts. 

Our third dive of the day at The Aquarium was plentiful with fish and great visibility. 

Back at the resort, the “Blue Hole” special of the day (a combination of Caribbean rum, blue curacao and tequila) had much more kick to it than the real thing! 

  

There were lots of very large hermit crabs on the island.

A frigate bird in mating season.

A red-footed booby and her baby.

This guy followed us the whole dive!

Can you spot the stingray?

Flamingo tongue on the fan coral.

Small shrimp in middle of photo.

A potent blue hole!