April 29th

We jumped into the water early to get some snorkeling done. Had some good coral off to the west. We probably should have dingyed over but we had no where to secure it so we just swam. We wanted to go check out the blue holes before we went back to the boat so we cut across towards the island. We were able to get a good long look at a huge Eagle Ray circling the hole, which was awesome. Couldn’t see the bottom in certain spots and the water coming out of the hole was frigid. However, something was using this area as a home or hunting ground. I looked ahead and saw a monster barracuda lurking in the shadows of the water. I signaled Steve and Val to look (our signal for biting animals is to make a biting mouth with our hands, a pinching animal was a similar signal but with straight fingers). Once noticing that this guy was pushing 4-5 feet in length and very curious we decided to go back to the boat. Val stayed in front while Steve and I swam in the rear, on our back to keep an eye on our friend. Now, “fang”, was pushing our comfort level inching closer within kicking distance of our flippers. It is unnerving how easy it was to loose sight of him only to find him closer on the other side of you. I being the last one out of the water, left him within 3 feet of my face when I got out. No more swimming here. We headed north for the first time in our trip, towards Spanish Cay. Passed a surfaced sea turtle and a pod of dolphins on the way. We were going to try and get to Rendezvous Cay but the pass is difficult and we wouldn’t have much time to hang out anyways. We anchored west of the point of Spanish cay, just south of the pink huts at are part of the Belize Adventure lodge on the island. We made reservations with the lodge for dinner. This place was awesome. There was no guests on the island at the time so they made a menu up just for us. We had our own escort the whole night, including our personal tour of the manatee museum on the island. The restaurant is on the eastern shore and is very hard to navigate to through the coral. But if you dingy to the western pink huts you can walk across the island on their nature trial made out of recycled sugar cane.