Travel

We woke up early this morning, without effort, when the sun came up. Doc visited the dive shop at 7 a.m. to get fitted for his BCD and to pick up his tanks and other equipment. The one thing that we forgot to pack was his wetsuit, so he used one of the dive shop’s shorty suits, and let me tell you, he looks pretty damn tasty in a shorty! Then he joined me for breakfast. I have a hard time eating this soon after I get up, but I managed to pick at a small bowl of granola with homemade yogurt (awesome!) and toasted coconut on top, and a glass of orange juice. We got on the dive boat with all our equipment, and took a very bumpy 30-minute ride out to an atoll on the Belize Barrier Reef. Kat and I got off the boat with Giovanni, one of the dive masters, while some other divers from Pelican Beach Resort on the atoll boarded the boat. The divers went out to their dive spot, while Kat and I went to the other side of the atoll to snorkel. We put on our fins, masks, and snorkels, and walked out into the water. The first 20 feet or so of water had a sandy bottom, and then there was a large field of sea grass. After that, the coral reef began. It was hard work getting out to the reef because the current was really strong. I felt like I was being pulled parallel to the shore the whole time. The current let up a little once we made it out to the reef. The reef itself was really incredible. It’s just like what you see in pictures or on TV. Some of the coral looked like giant yellow […]

We almost didn’t make it to Belize, as a matter of fact. Late on Friday the 12th, Kat called to tell me that our noon flight the next day had been canceled due to a possible impending winter storm in Dallas. The temperature was still well above freezing, and it wasn’t expected to drop below that point until late Saturday night, by which time we would have been in Belize already. I suspect that it was canceled, not because we’d have to fly through any icy weather to get to our destination, but instead because of OTHER flights from other northern places having to be rescheduled and the airport being one big clusterfuck of stranded travellers. I imagine that they cancelled a whole bunch of flights that weren’t full or that weren’t considered “essential.” What are the odds of only the 2nd day of frozen precipitation that we have had in Dallas this season, happening on the same day that we are supposed to fly out on vacation? Pretty good odds, apparently. American Airlines gave us the option of getting our money back, or rescheduling our flight for Sunday or Monday. Sunday and Monday’s forecast was looking to be about the same as Saturday, and we didn’t want to risk having to wait until Tuesday or later to get to Belize, especially since we’d already paid for our hotel, nonrefundable. (We found out later that the cold icy weather lasted all week long, culminating in a citywide shutdown on Wednesday.) Kat and I talked until well after midnight via IM, trying to come up with a plan. We decided to get our money back from AA and to book a flight on Continental instead… out of Houston. Our flight time was 1:40 p.m., which meant that we’d have to start […]