Snorkeling!

I've been reading the paper online for the last hour, trying to keep it together and not yell at the screen in the middle of this restaurant. Yes, I'm reading the analyses of the RNC and Palin's speech. I'm so appalled and even offended that even if I were to write a political tirade right now I wouldn't know where to start. You'll here about it eventually though, since I'm out of the country during an election year and will undoubtedly need an outlet for my thoughts! So I'll open that can of worms at a later date, but right now I'd like to post some pretty pictures of my first snorkeling trip to Belize's world-famous reef!

A few weeks ago Cristina introduced me to her friend Wil, who is a local political figure and ex-director of TIDE, a local NGO that does marine and coastal conservation. I mentioned that I still hadn't been out to the Toledo Cayes, and I hadn't been snorkeling either. He goes out periodically with the TIDE rangers who patrol the protected areas so he said I could tag along some weekends if I was free. So he's called me a couple times since then, the first trip was a quick morning boat ride around some of the small mangrove islands close to shore that were used for fishing camps. Then last weekend he was doing a trip to Nicholas Caye, which is in the Sapodilla range out on the reef. I was very excited because it's sort of difficult to get out to these southern cayes unless you own a boat or go on a long-term resort trip. So I got to tag along while they did some work cleaning the island. The reef is right along the north-south shipping lanes from Puerto Barrios in Guatemala and Puerto Cortes in Honduras, so these massive ships tend to dump their garbage somewhere along Belize's reef. There are a lot of pieces of plastic, bottles, and other miscellaneous crap littering the beaches. It's kind of gross, but good that there are protected areas and resources to keep the islands clean. Anyways, while the guys cleaned the beaches, I got to go snorkeling! Lucky me! I have an underwater camera, so I got some pretty good shots.

The first one is in the boat heading out of the dock, the second is the sunrise during the boat ride, and the third is the beach at Nicholas Caye. The next one is self-explanatory, and the rest are pretty coral and fish - don't ask me what kinds, because I don't know!