belize blue

So I'm about to leave Caye Caulker in Belize. It has been pretty great here. The intense heat of about 35 degrees celsius was draining at times but a good preparation for our next-to-next stop which is the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The highlight of being here was definitely scuba diving. I did a couple of refresher dives to brush up on my skills as iI hadn't dived in nearly 9 years, astonishingly, since doing a couple of dives in the Red Sea right after getting my Advanced Open Water Certification. The refresher dives were fine and really gave me my confidence back. I had no problems breathing or feeling like I wasn't getting enough air. It seems largely psychological now. Saw quite a lot of fish and coral on those dives at the local reef but the real highlight (or lowlight, considering the depth) was diving the Blue Hole the following day. It was absolutely astonishing. We dived to 42m or nearly 150 feet, almost off the depth gauge. The Blue Hole is a collapse circular hole in the reef. I didn't expect it to be that good but after wonderful diving around stalactites that formed when it was above ground, being at that deep deep level, in the quiet and serenity, some sharks suddenly appeared. About ten of them swimming nearby, appearing out of the blue. Beautiful and awe inspiring. They stayed with us for most of the dive. That was amazing. We did two more dives with an astonishing array of coral, and a lot of fish. At the end of a long day I'd just come out of the water and ditched my tank in the rack when someone said, hey, a turtle. I couldn't believe it. I grabbed my snorkel and plunged back in and there it was. I swam along near and above it for about 10 minutes. A leatherback turtle I think, so peaceful and beautiful. Amazing. A perfect end to a wonderful deep sea day.