After a few epic days in the jungle, and bidding adieu to Krisna, we moved on to our last stop, Glover's Reef, a tiny atoll in the middle of nowhere. What's an atoll? Basically an island made up of a coral reef, that has parts now exposed above water. We stayed at Isla Marisol, located on the teeny tiny southwest isle of Glover's Reef. You can walk from one end of the atoll to the other in, oh, 5 minutes. Our boat pulled in around sunset...
A Gilligan's like adventure for 3 nights and 4 days, our stay featured three strange California girls (us), a paleontologist from the east coast, an old French couple who first visited Belize 50 years ago (!) and the crew and staff... which included Belizeans, a couple of fly fishermen from the US who work here every year in January, Ms. Jen (aka best cook ever) and the ever present security guard, Milo... A 9 month old puppy who spent most days in the water chasing fish and boats, or leaning his sandy body against us with no regard to his actual size. All in all about 15 people... A big family.
(Milo sleeping on the job)
Our days included beautiful snorkeling, reading and relaxing, ocean kayaking, and hanging with our new friends. Things we learned from reef living:
1. Belizeans love it when people say "we saw a blue wrass!" Wrass are a common breed of beautiful reef fish. However, the Creole word for "fuck" is also "wrass". They will giggle forever if you happen to say you saw a "slimy wrass" - yes this is a real fish.
2. What looks like a murky mangrove lagoon by day turns into a teeming bed of eagle rays, sharks, barracuda, and black snapper by night. Florence even saw an electric like squid gulp down a fish.
3. One never knows if a Belizean is pulling your leg or stating the truth. Usually it is a combination of both.
4. Do not trust a fly fisherman to make a good margarita. Instead jump behind the bar and make yourself one (and him too)
5. If there is no one on duty at the bar, you are told to "just help yourself"
6. Belizean dominoes are serious and competitive. They take strategy, cunning, trickery, and at least 4 shots of rum. We have become experts.
7. If the moon at crescent shape appears slightly tilted rather than the crescent looking like a broad horizontal smile, it is sure to rain in the next day or two. This is a fact. Captain Douglas's dad has never been wrong. (This proved true while we were there)
8. There is a such thing as a moonset. It is incredible.
9. No matter what time of the year at this latitude and longitude, the sun will set sometime around 5, and will rise at 6ish. There is no daylight savings time.
10. There are only 20 or so magnitude 0 and 1 (brightest) stars visible to the human eye in the sky. The Big Dipper looks upside down and near the horizon line here. You can see the southern cross and other constellations only found in this hemisphere. Florence and I apparently have the propensity for amateur stargazing.
11. Your American hips will never adequately shake enough for Creole music and drumbeats. Doesn't matter how big they are. Just sit at the bar and drink your freaking beer.
12. When in doubt put hot sauce on everything. Including in your pineapple rum shot. We invented a drink. If you ever go here, you can order it off the board!
(Clean your feet every time you step into a dock or house)
(Sunrise on our last morning. Photo doesn't capture that the sun was a neon red orb)
(Coconuts for lunch)
(Beats from neighboring boat captains and Creole folk songs on Friday night!)
(Verna rewrites the drink menu with some fancy chalk fonts... Nikita volunteers her services)
(The edges of the reef from our back porch. All of the black and gray stuff is dead coral "land")
