Belizan It -- days 1 and 2

Friday and Saturday:

Well, my prediction was correct. I burned like a lobster. LOL But I had fun. : )

It is a completly different world here. Coming in the airport in Belize City yesterday was a shocker. What was worse was then taking a small airplane out to Ambergris Caye, which is where our field station is.

Holy hell. There are dogs on the run-way. The baggage claim is a sandy stretch of area off to the side of the run-way. Definite culture shock for someone used to KCI, Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago. Plus the plane is a small jobber, with 13 whole seats, counting the co-pilot seat. Motion sickness kicked my butt during that leg of the journey.

We got in last night in time for dinner, then we sat around and talked about what this trip was going to entail and safety during snorkeling. Which we were talking, there were two bats that drifted around over our heads, snatching misquitoes as they passed.

The field station is set up like a rectangle, with a pool in the middle. No air conditioning. Windows that stay open year round. We do have fans though. And wifi. But no cell coverage, even if we wanted to pay internation calling fees. (No thanks, I'll use a calling card). Was hard to sleep last night, because some of my classmates were up until 1:30 am swimming. So last night was my third night of 5 or less hours of sleep. And I am a 8-9 hour sleeper, especially when there isn't any caffine.

Today we got an early start, with breakfast at 8 am, then out on the boat by 9.

We hit a section of pillar coral and snorkeled around that for a while, then had lunch on the boat, then headed to Tres Cocos for more snorkeling. By the time we called it a day, at around 2:30, most of us were done in.

It takes a LOT out of you to snokel. All leg work too.

We headed back to the field station, where we sat around and chatted, some people were exploring, and basically waited until dinner time at 6:30. Because it is fairly primitive, dinner is served during a window of time, then the food taken away. Otherwise, ants are a big problem.

So exploring has to be over and done before dinner, then you can go out again. Some of my classmates have been all over the place already. I am hoping to get some exploring done tomorrow myself, provided we get back in time for it.

This evening was spent by some of us working on our group project. This is a class, so we knew we would have to do some work. LOL But all in all, it has been fun so far. Except for all the time spent in the airports yesterday. I am so glad to be here.

I saw some really cool stuff today. Each site we go to has different features, so that we get the most out of the experience.

Tomorrow we are stopping by an underwater cave with a verticle opening, as one of out three spots, so we can snorkel over it, and the more daring can dive down in to it. I can't hold my breath very long, so I doubt that I will get down the 15 feet before I have to come back up. But I should still be able to see lots of interesting things from about 1-5 feet.