Stage 1--Belize and the tropical storm

So far this trip has been a little different than we had planned---we had a few things we were for sure going to do--finish our Nitrox diving certifications by taking the test and doing a couple of dives--then dive as many days as possible, as well as take a day trip to Caye Caulker and check it out. Maybe a trip to some of the Mayan ruins--if we felt like it. And of course, eat and drink and be merry.

Things have had a bit of a damper put on them in the form of a tropical storm. It was a tropical depression when we left, but I hear it got upgraded as we were in route from DFW. I was complaining that the DFW flight was late causing us to miss out puddle jumper to Ambergris, but I am not anymore, as it was the last American flight into BZE until today because of the storm.

A little drizzle is no big deal, we think--disappointing, but no big deal. After all, it does not rain underwater. Or so we thought.

We had a fun Saturday nite---got involved in the hotel’s happy hour---went for dinner at a bar and grill called Wet Willys, which is out on the end of a pier. It is kind of weird to be in the bathroom and be able to see the waves rolling in underneath you. There we learned that we better get while the getting was good, because the storm was here to stay--they were considering closing the bar due to wind. It did leak some rain in on our table through the roof. After dinner, we went back to Fido’s, a place with live music in the middle of town, and then on to a beach bar called Crazy Canuck‘s. We turned in early that nite.

Sunday dawned pretty nasty. It was drizzling and very windy so no dive boats were going out--even worse, it is anticipated that they will not be going out for several days. As you can imagine, this is not good news to people who have looked forward to it forever--and in the rain, there is not much else to do here. To be sure, we asked at the tour organizer at our hotel what a person is supposed to do when it rains here. We also asked our breakfast waiter. Then we asked some other people staying here. They all gave the same answer:

Drink. Uh oh. And we were trying to hard to be good!


So off we went in our golf cart, which had some serious issues with losing power since evidently they are not supposed to get wet. Well neither am I, especially on vacation, so the feeling about the golf cart was mutual. Sometimes it would backfire and make us think we were being shot at. There is probably no way to accurately describe how funny the day was---we started at BC’s where there was to be live music. We got there too early though, and although we made some friends, there was an irritating woman there who kept asking who was married and if Amy was my daughter---I mean REALLY. She is only 2 years younger than me. It was a good bar though, as it is on the beach but they had put up tarps so that we could actually sit there and not be pelted to death by driving rain. I just could not take anymore of that woman, and she could not seem to get past Rich being a Duke grad as they are UNC people--good enough reason for us to change bars, said us.

This is what we look like while we are taking the advice that we should drinl. These nice devil ears were offered by a fellow bar -goer who said we were not playing the card game "asshole" right unless the Asshole and President had hats. BS was the asshole a lot.




Off we went to the North side of the island to go to the Palapa Bar we heard was swell. This was more than an adventure--the rain had washed out a lot of the sand streets, and water was standing everywhere. That made the golf cart act even worse and we decided to come back for fear of being stranded. That should not have been funny, but we laughed very hard even though we were soaked to the skin. By this time, our poor petering out golf cart had slowed us down so much that we decided to go back to BC’s for the music, and headed that direction but the poor golf cart had other ideas. It stranded us near Wet Willy’s so we stopped to go to the bathroom and get a drink--this is such a neat places as there were several locals there. They showed us a dice game and we settled in to let the hardest of the storm let up. We spent MANY hours there, playing card games, drinking Belikin, etc. It was so ridiculous to be in this situation at all, and the longer we were there, the fuller the place got with locals--we had a great time.

Ultimately, we ended up back at the hotel and went to their happy hour--half price rum drinks. Nothing good can come of this, thought I, and it went further downhill when we were overcome with 12 little Utah Catholic girls, just graduated from high school, on a trip together. BS and Rich were a little distracted, but oddly it is Amy they have made their idol. They see her and yell "AMY" where ever we go-- it is like being a rock star she says.
When I saw the results of these photos, I knew it was time to go to bed--so BS and I did---leaving the youngsters to play. More on that tomorrow.