Discovering Guatemala and Belize (May 2024)

Shark Infested Waters

By Allan Brown:

The itinerary for the day stated that we were going to coral reefs with abundant colorful fish, Coral Gardens and then visit Shark Ray Alley.

Oh how they suck you into stuff you would never do at home. How can they paint a picture of gently floating around a tropical coral reef watching the little fishes and drop a shark bomb on you within the same paragraph? Who writes these itineraries? It’s a sly combination of sales pitch and future defense arguments for possible lawsuits. We have often chuckled at the lack of liability lawyers in Latin American countries while recalling walking a suspension bridge over Jaguar Island or the lack of handrails, caution signs and dubious footing on other treacherous trails. It’s common for us to shrug our shoulders and say “ahh it’s Mexico” or Egypt, or Thailand. One of my friends commented on the minefields of broken sidewalks and pothole ridden streets of his home country with the resignation that if you trip and fall it’s your fault. You should watch where you are walking.

So us soft and litigious Americans went off for an adventure to the marine reserve of Hoi Chan. Our tour group sat beachside for breakfast and noticed how windy the ocean was looking. Someone pointed it out to our tour guide who said that he had called the boat charter company and that it should be ok for where we were going. No worries.

We arrived at the catamaran and sat on beanbag chairs on the bow for the ride out to the marine reserve.

About an hour later we arrived at the reef and prepared for some snorkeling. The crew took a life preserver that was designed to go around our heads and buckled it around our waist so we could float face down making it awkward to swim with.

The choppy water also made difficult to swim, look and listen to our guide who was pointing out various fish with glee. I felt like a toddler splashing around the shallow end of the pool with a foam pool noodle under my arms. There were other tour groups in the water so you had to make sure that you were with the right group of heads bobbing in the ocean.The hardest part for me was then ascending the ladder back on the boat with my foot still tender from surgery and having to use my knee to crawl aboard.

The catamaran cruised over to another area of the reef to swim with the sharks. Nurse sharks are more akin to a giant koi fish or even a big dumb wet puppy dog with a fin on its back.They said that they can’t bite you but quickly added to give them plenty of space and don’t try to pet them.

My foot, pride and dignity was still recovering from the last dive so I offered to take photos while Marla recklessly jumped in. A couple of our group took some wonderful video that you see posted within the blog.

Special thanks to Pablo!

The boat anchored at the third snorkeling spot and this time I jumped in without the dumb life jacket on only to discover how short of a shelf life my swim muscles had. I spent way too much time hanging on to the anchor rope while not noticing how sunburned my scalp was becoming. I later couldn’t figure out what I had bumped my head on to get such a painful “bruise” before realizing the folly of not swimming with a ball cap on was all about.