Tropical Paradise! or Off the Grid in the Carribean!

From the both of us!

We haven't posted since Tikal because we went straight to Belize City and met up with our group for our Slickrock Island Adventure Week.  No service on the island, but lots of free Belikin.

WHOOOT!!!  I see it, I see it!!!!

Yeh, I'm too short to see over the bow.

Our first glimpse at our little version of paradise!

After a 3 hour boat ride, we did a quick tour of the island and it's "facilities" (more on those later), and then had our first orientation.

View of the grounds.

Casa...sweet casa.  We had separate but side-by-side huts!

Stacey's home for the week.  Karen's was identical and on the same balcony.

View from Stacey's bed.  Doors and windows were almost never shut.

Our first orientation was for snorkeling.  While Stacey had it mastered, Karen was more timid in the water and very, very, very slow.  This is when Stacey's true colours came out.  We were supposed to be buddied up...Stacey left Karen in her wake in case, she missed something that the guide was showing us.  Note:  In my defence (Stacey), I think I have a little bit of ADHD and I would maybe find Karen's lifeless body eventually since she wore a life jacket for this first one.

Karen's first ever sea snorkel.  Note:  chicken butt wore a life jacket.

Purple fan coral.  Disclaimer:  Any mis-labelling of fish or plant life is due to excessive Belikin consumption on the part of the blog author's, NOT due to the lack of repeated instruction from any of the more than capable Slickrock guides.

Some sort of juvenile fish.  Note: Stacey refuses to agree on the grounds that the Slickrock guides may see these and laugh uproariously at our stupidity.

Action (slow motion) shot.  Note Karen is hiding her fingers from any feeding barracudas.

The supreme commander of the guides, Victor, hunting Lion Fish.

Coral and fish of some sort.  The point of the photo was the great lighting!

Tiny fluorescent blue fish.  This is really the technical name, trust us, we are now trained professionals.

MJ, another of our guides, hunting the not so elusive Lion Fish.

Underwater stuff.

Some sort of phallic underwater stuff.

This might be called Fire Coral, but due to breakfast beers at the time of publication, we may be talking out our butts.

Here is the not-so-elusive Lion Fish on the end of a spear.  These are Asian fish, not native to this area.  It is believed that they were either released or accidentally broke free in Florida during Hurricane Mitch?  (we think) and have taken 15 years to make it to this area.  This fish are predators of the juvenile fish population and have no natural predators at this time.  This is the only fish that the guides are allowed to kill in Glover's Reef Atoll as it is a protected area.

Spot the crabs.  There are two and they are very different from each other.

Spotted Ray on the bottom.  We saw lots of these and Karen stopped breathing for a moment as a large gray ray swam underneath her.  During a different snorkel, Stacey encountered a stingray with it's stinger pointing straight up and wasn't too comfy floating over it as it is hard to judge depth while in the water.

Crab in a Conch shell

Peacock Flounder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first evening on the island, consisted of sunset drinks, amazing food and one of Drill Sargent Victor's evening lectures.  Note:  he really isn't a drill sargent, we do love Victor.

Stacey contemplating life the first night.

Karen drinking a toast to the fact that she did not drown on her first snorkel.

OUR Beach

First sunset.  Despite the fact that the sun is SETTING, Stacey still thinks that the direction is East.

Tucker Max bedtime stories as read by Karen.  Note appropriate bedtime beverage in forefront of photo.