Spring Break Belize, Day 2

Woke up bright and early again, and after a quick bite to eat at Herbal Tribe, we sign up for a snorkeling tour with Ragamuffin. What distinguishes Ragamuffin's tours from the others (of which there are many) is that instead of a power boat operating as your transportation for the day, you spend the entire day on a sailboat, which moves at a more leisurely pace and produces significantly less noise.

Delicious hot sauce at Herbal Tribe:


Ragamuffin tours storefront:


Following about an hour of sailing, we reach our first stop on the reef, suspiciously referred to as the "Mystery Spot". According to our guides, this is because "you never know what you are going to see." When translated from Belizean to English, that phrase means we stop here because the tourists are tired, not because its got a lot of amazing wildlife. This turned out to be true on both counts.

While the "Mystery Spot" failed to deliver much in the way of fauna, the second stop, fittingly called Shark and Ray Alley, was more than adequate. Like Pavlov's dogs, numerous stingrays, a school of jacks, and a nurse shark or two responded to the sound of our engine and gathered below the boat as we pulled in.

Stingrays at the Alley


Shark at the Alley


Here, I even got the chance to swim with a fairly large Green Hawksbill sea turtle, which unbeknownst to me had attacked a woman just seconds before I stumbled upon it. According to our guides, these reptiles are aggressive and known to bite without provocation. Good thing I found this out after I chased it for 5 minutes.

Turtle deciding whether to bite the annoying mammal:


The final stop on our Ragamuffin sailing tour was at the Hol Chan marine preserve. Thanks to the protection of the sole ranger who was sleeping in his parked boat, the fish here were plentiful and coral was fantastic to behold. At this point in the reef, there is a channel about 30-ft deep. As we were swimming over the channel, a huge 4-ft barracuda glided by underneath us. Because of my upbringing as a wanna-be zoologist, I'd left all my shiny bracelets at home, so it didn't come after me.

See fish here:


The guides provided rum punch on the way back, and it led to some pretty ridiculous pictures. No, the boat is not tipping over (as you can tell by looking at all the sober people).

Drunken behavior: