Can’t stay away from Caulker

picuture at I and I Regee Bar- they have swings everywhere instead of chairs. It is a pretty cool idea.


We arrived back in Caye Caulker on my Birthday! Thank you everyone for your warm wishes. It took me an hour to get through my emails. I was feeling quite ill, probably from something this *&()#$ served me at one of the only open restaurants in Placentia. She tried to convince me she had brought me baked brie, but it was actually Babaganoush! Finally, she admitted her mistake after praveen couldn’t quite be convinced that baked brie is baked egg plant with almonds. I was going to let it slide.

Anyway we have grown quite fond of Caye Caulker. There are only 700 residents on the island and we seem to know all of them. Everyone was happy we were "home" and were saying hello and telling us that we would never leave. It is nice to know people. I guess that is the small town charm. I know at some point there would be plenty of people here I wouldn’t want to know and wouldn’t want to run into. I feel that way pretty much every time I go to Wal-Mart in Fulton. But for now, it’s great. There are only two cars on the island. Every one else either walks, rides a bike or rides around in a golf cart.

So we did it! We dove the Blue hole. We have tons of underwater pictures but we will have to wait to developed them until we return home. I feel so fortunate for seeing some of the great things we have seen. We have swam with dolphins, sharks, sting rays, manatees, tons of fish that I don’t even know, big groupers, yellow tails snappers, sergeant majors, turtles, lobsters, and the list goes on and on.

So the Big Blue Hole, well it is just that a big ass blue hole. It is something like 1,000 feet in diameter. Getting there is hell. It’s about 1.5 hours of boating thought waves upto 10 ft high. You feel like you are on a roller costar and you’re not sure if the driver is licensed. The waves are big and I was sure despite the Dramamine, I would be sick before we arrived. If I wasn’t, I thought Praveen would be, but we managed to keep our stomachs inside our bodies.

We got in the water and everyone began descending downward. The blue hole has a white sandy rim about 40 feet deep from the surface. We descended to this white bottom. From there, you basically leap or float off the edge over the blue hole, this very dark, a little scary, bottomless pit of water, where you know there are sharks. About 100 feet down I started feeling fucked up. I knew I was 'narced'. I think I told you about nitrogen narcosis or in diving parlance, 'narced'. I looked around I couldn’t see Praveen anywhere. The water was cold and some what dark. There were no fish to be seen just these big stalagmites. I looked down at my gauge and I couldn’t tell what depth I was at. I knew then I was really messed up. What was the conversion again? I keep thinking to convert meters I needed to multiply by 10. We stopped our descent at 145 feet. Knowing I was going to do something stupid, I closely followed the dive master. I tried to think positively about the whereabouts of my husband. We had a long discussion about the importance of staying together. I could have waited for him but I would have risked losing my group and any chance I had for being saved should I start doing cartwheels or freaking out and going up to fast. I tried to remember all the things I learned about staying calm while being out of my head back in my high school and college days. I took deep breaths trying to remember to breathe in and breathe out. I pushed Praveen’s safety out of my mind knowing that there was an instructor following behind and he likely waited and was with him. I also reminded myself he was a man and didn’t need me to take care of him. I wished that I could talk to someone and communicate that I really wanted to know where my husband was, but there was no way to do that. I should have told the instructor I was feeling narcosis. I could have done this with underwater signs that they teach in the certification classes. I didn’t but I think he knew. I tried to just breathe deep and relax. The cure is to ascend, but I didn’t have a buddy to ascend with and then I would miss the dive. I thought back to all the times I have been able to handle situations while out of my head and I knew I would be fine. Getting narced is like being drunk. At 150 feet, the effect is the equivalent of three martinis on an empty stomach. Unfortunately all the time I have had building up my tolerance to alcohol didn't help with nitrogen. We were in a big group, too big, and I was trying not to kick the girl behind me even though it is her responsibility not follow too close. I finally turned around and I saw Praveen and I instantly felt like my bad trip just got better. I think that was about 5 minutes of hell. I looked around and saw a big black grouper. It was probably about three feet long maybe four. It is hard to tell because things are 33% larger underwater. It swam close enough to reach out and touch if you wanted.

Then the sharks came. I remember thinking I was glad to be high because I wasn’t the slightest bit worried. I didn’t however swim close to them. I think they may have been feeding them on top because as we swam up they all seemed to follow. I think they were about 15 or 20 feet long. So that was it. All the hype about the big blue hole- we had finally experienced it for ourselves.. We had finally done it! I guess there is not many places that you get to swim with sharks or fish that big and that is the fun of it. Also there is some pretty interesting history. The blue hole is 400 feet deep. It used to be a cave that was above land. It is believed that there was ice on top of the cave that melted in and finally crushed the top. Some of the stalagmites are said to be 150 feet long. It is interesting swimming through them and around them. I think if we had more experience diving I would have enjoyed it more, but I am still glad we did it and we came out safe and sound.

The two following dives were really nice. We dove a coral wall face called Half-moon wall and Long Caye. Long Caye, our last dive was my all time favorite. It was absolutely amazing. The colors, the fish and the visibility were perfect. What a nice way to end a perfect vacation!