Tuesday was a long travel day as we set of from Playa del Carmen at 5.45am and didn't reach Caye Caulker until around 7pm. We had to clear immigration and customs into Belize which was basically a wooden jetty that shared its space with a dive shop! We then got the boat a further half an hour to Caye Caulker, a tiny village with 2 streets (Front Street and Back Street!) on a tiny island. As we were traipsing to the tour shop (we only had the next day to do any activities) with our backpacks, Charlie (a Brit and the owner of the firm) came past in her golf cart (there are no vehicles except golf carts on the island - reminded me of Discovery Bay but without the rich expats and fancy condos of course!) and asked if anyone wanted to out their bags on. Everyone hesitated so I jumped on with my bag with the excuse of age before beauty and it was a good thing I did. I asked her about diving the Blue Hole and she said you are supposed to be booked and paid by 6pm the previous evening. What? No! So, we drove up the road and she spotted a guy having his hair cut who happened to work at the dive shop. She got him to call the owner and book me in for the next day. Phew!

So, Belize - about the size of Wales with a population of only 300,000 people! It used to be a British colony called British Honduras (embarrassingly enough I did not know that) but was granted independence (or escaped from us!) in 1981. It's the only country in Central America where English is the official language. It is home to the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world (after Australia) and is therefore famous for diving but also for the Madonna song, La Isla Bonita! Probably only the Brits will find this funny but 2 of the most common phrases are 'arrright?' and 'fer real' which just made me think of that character from Catherine Tate Show!

Anyway, back to Caye Caulker. At 5.15am on Wednesday I was ambling along the sea front, heading to the dive shop to do my deepest dive ever! Me being me, I was a nervous wreck, thinking I would never be able to do it. There were about 15 people on the boat and the first hurdle was that I was asked to fit my BCD on my tank and check my equipment. Steve and Jeremy you can switch of at this point as I know you are tutting at me but the fact is that I haven't had to do any of that since I did my open water course as every dive I've done since, the crew have set my gear up for me and I've been (for me!) unusually trusting. Anyway, some of it came back and it was all good! After brekkie we set off on the 2 hour boat journey to The Great Blue Hole. A lot of people come to Belize for the sole reason of diving this site. It's basically a huge circular underwater sinkhole that is 300 metres across and 125 metres deep. It was formed as a limestone cave system during the last glacial period and then when sea levels rose, the caves flooded and the roof collapsed. It's the world's largest feature of its kind and was first made famous by Jacques Cousteau who declared it one of the top 10 diving sites in the world. If you google it, you'll see what it looks like from above - it's pretty cool!

After the briefing, we jumped in. Everything had to be done a lot quicker than usual because of the depth we were going to so instead of faffing around on the surface for a while (which is what I normally do!) and slowly descending, you had to basically plummet into this blue abyss as quickly as possible, constantly equalising as you went down. We had to descend to 40 metres in less than 5 minutes. Despite being very apprehensive, I pulled myself together and just went, and went, and went! The deeper we went, the darker blue it all got. E were told to keep an eye on the wall of the cave as otherwise you can get very disoriented but I just didn't take my eyes off the divemaster - probably missed a load of stuff in the process! It was like jumping into a bottomless pit and was quite eerie the deeper you went. As we reached about 35 metres we saw a whole load of stalactites which were just monstrous formations and we were able to dive behind them. Then we started to see the sharks - a load of them - large reef sharks (bloody huge!) swimming just below and above us. We were only allowed to be at that depth for 8 minutes so in no time at all, we started our ascent as the whole dove was only 25 minutes. I had been slightly concerned about going a bit wacko as we had been warned about the effects of narcosis. It's basically caused by breathing nitrogen at such a depth and it makes some people think they can breathe underwater and they start taking out their regulator and trying to give the fish some air! One of the guys said he went a bit funny but just dizziness and nausea. Thank goodness I didn't get that! When I googled it later, it's actually claimed to be a technical category decompression dive and is not recommended for newbies (am I still a newbie? I've now done about 25 dives?!). I also read afterwards that you have to have absolute complete buoyancy control otherwise you can start to plummet downwards and lose control. I'm glad I read all of this afterwards as I would have thought they should have checked everyone's control before we went down there but that's just me being super cautious. Never mind eh?! So, I was very proud of myself - 40 metres down a big dark hole full of sharks! And no nervous jitters at all!

Still on a high, we headed to our next dive which was Half Moon Caye Wall, a beautiful wall of coral. The water was crystal clear and stunning! We were just staring at 2 eagle stingrays when a huge manta ray came flying past - amazing! I've never seen one before and it was magnificent. Saw lots of other bits and bobs (really need to buy that marine life book) before heading back to the surface for some lunch. We then went for a wander on Half Moon Caye which is home to a colony of red-footed boobies. So, I have now completed my boobie collection having seen all 3 sub-species. Just like the blue variety, these ones looked as though their feet had been dipped in bright red dulux paint. They were nesting so the view from the platform above the trees was great!

Next stop: The Aquarium - a dive site that is literally like jumping into a tropical fish tank. Even at the surface you couldn't see below you for the fish. Thousands of them. Just stunning! That whole dive was beautiful and it made me realise that I really need to get my arse in gear and buy some underwater housing for my camera and I can't capture any of the fantastic things I've been seeing. Having said that, I did splash out on the video of that day so I will try and upload it for your viewing pleasure! It's hard to recognise me in my dive gear (despite looking gorgeous of course - ha ha!) but I am wearing yellow fins and in the Blue Hole, I'm the only person wearing a snorkel. I do 'ok' at the camera at one point!

I had toyed with the idea of going swimming with manatees on Thursday morning but after 3 very early sparrow's fart mornings I was exhausted (I'm sure I'll be able to do it elsewhere) so I had a lazy morning having breakfast with some of the girls and wandering around some of the island. We ended up wandering into the airport which was just a bit of grass and the only thing giving it away as an airport was a windsock and a strip of tarmac - not even an ATC tower! I also had a quick nosey into the real estate agents - you can buy an 8 acre island on an atoll, surrounded by stunning water for USD400k! There were also some 2 acre pieces of land that I could afford to buy in cash (!) and some funky houses (there's a white hexagonal one that I took pictures of) for around USD150k. Bargains! But then, on an island like that, everyone would know everyone else's business 9and is probably involved in it!) and I'm pretty sure you'd get bored after a couple of months. It also seems idyll until realty sets in! After lunch it was then time to head to our next destination in Belize - San Ignacio.