Strings of Pearls

We have just made it back from our week-long private island scuba diving adventure. We were doing 3 dives a day returning to the island after each one to rinse off, eat, and recuperate. It was a beautiful small island, with three beach cabanas, a scuba diving equipment room, a dining cabana, and a staff house. There were coconut trees everywhere for the drinking, dogs and puppies who liked to hunt for fish, hermit crabs, and horrible sand flys (that was the only downer). We dove with a group of 7 people, who we became good friends with by the end of the trip. Chris did some fishing with another diver, Paul, the captain, Chuxs (far right of photo), and his clumsy sidekick, Pip (far left of photo).

The diving was great, but instead of describing all the different things we saw, we'll talk about one night dive in particular. It was one night after the full moon. We dove down to 30 feet and knelt in the sand with our flashlights off. Slowly, phosphorescent lights started to glow in the distance. They increased in number until we were completely surrounded on all sides by a dense galaxy of lights. We left the sandy patch on little space flight expeditions through the lights. It is completely unexplainable and unphotographable. Just imagine swimming by thousands of chains of lights that slowly light up in sequential order until they terminate at the sea floor, or in the turbulence of your bubbles. They look like a lit up pearl necklace, hence the name 'string of pearls'. These daisy chains of lights were Snapper egg larva that hatch after the full moon, and apparantly are only seen in Southern Belize and a little bit in Honduras. And if that wasn't enough, there was also some phosphorescence that strobed, and some that just glowed green. To top it all off there was heat lightening in the dark skies above. It was an amazing night.

We got back to Punta Gorda, Belize (PG) this afternoon. We packed our bags and jumped on a bus to Mango Creek. We played dominoes with some local kids then took the Hokey Pokey water taxi to Placencia, Belize. Now we are in a different kind of paradise. Surrounded by gringos, on a windy beach bar eating Mango Rum Chicken and Garden Salad. Tomorrow we'll do some more scuba diving, laundry, and hopefully have time to relax on the beautiful beach.


We miss all of you guys, so please drop us a line and let us know what you have been up to. We know it's only been a bit over a week since we left, but it feels like forever!