So picking up from where Sophie left off, early the next morning we boarded the Ragga Empress, a lovely catamaran for the three day trip down the coast to Placencia. The boat stays inside the Belize reef for the entire journey which meant plenty of snorkel stops, lots of little islands and cayes to check out and more fresh fish than we could possibly eat for dinner. The Belizean reef is second only in size to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the locals are justifiably proud of it.

We were underway pretty early and everyone found their spot on the boat as we watched the coastline roll by, punctuated by the occasional snorkelling stop. There was a fair amount to do onboard, sailing or fishing but we spent most of the time out front in the 'hammock' reading and just chilling out. As we approached Rendezvous Caye (our deserted island camp for the night) the cry of "happy hour!" went up and the rum punch was served. An amazing meal of fresh boat-caught fish was for supper, washed down with a lot more rum punch.

That probably explained my headache the next morning, and a number of our fellow passengers also seemed to be a little worse for wear. We packed up our tent and jumped back onto the boat for another day of island-hopping. It was a pity the weather wasn't just slightly better, we had a bit of rain and a lot of dark cloud which prompted the captain to put us into bungalows on our next stop at Tobacco Caye, which was a welcome change after the previous nights sleep inside the tent! Dinner was far more subdued than the previous night but did feature an amazing amount of lobster, freshly caught by the local fishermen. I think we were both asleep by 7pm!

The final day saw the sun come out and we enjoyed a great day in the sunshine making our way slowly down to Placencia, our destination for the night. By the time we arrived it was getting dark so we dumped our bags in the hotel and went to find some food - completely forgetting that it was Super Bowl Sunday and every bar was rammed full of Americans whooping like adolescent teenagers. We had a quick bite to eat (and a few bon voyage margaritas, naturally) and hit the sack as the bus to San Ignacio left early in the morning the following day.

Hopefully the pictures do a good job of illustrating the story as I'm exhausted and need to get some rest, got a full day planned for tomorrow.. but that's for Sophie to tell you about!

Love to all
KL