We took the local bus from San Ignacio to Belize City then had a very hot walk to the dock to catch a boat to the island of Caye Caulker which is also very hot but with a strong breeze to cool it down a bit fortunately.

It's really beautiful and chilled out here and seems quite quiet, probably because it is! (It's low season.) We've been staying in a hut on stilts which, while being quite basic and 'weathered' as Lonely Planet describes it, is right on the sea front so has a lovely view. There are some amazing places you could stay here if you weren't on a backpacker budget.

We spent Monday afternoon slowly wandering and finding the right place to book a snorkelling tour. In the evening we went to a really nice bar/ restaurant where most of the seating is swings. We took advantage of happy hour(s) with a few local rum drinks (2 for 1 on 2.30GBP drinks: excellent!) then splurged a bit on some seafood which was lovely. It made a change to have something nicely flavoured without loads of salt in it, which they were a bit partial to doing in Guatemala.

Today, (Tuesday) we have been on a snorkelling tour which was amazing! Simon says it's the best snorkelling he's ever done by a long way. He rented a special waterproof case for his iphone so we've got some great pictures from this (see album). We were on a small boat with two guides and five other people and went to three different stops. The first stop was my favourite at Hol Chan marine reserve where we saw so many fish, turtles, small sharks, a ray, lots of coral reef and other things in beautifully clear water. We both loved seeing the turtles. The second stop was shark ray alley which I was not so keen on as the sharks and the rays were massive! I went in for a bit, with the guide at my side but found a few minutes to be enough, just in case they decided to try and eat me! Simon stayed in as he is braver. The third stop after lunch on the boat was to try and see manatees (not guaranteed). The water was quite cloudy, there was quite a bit of rubbish floating around and there were less fish as the coral was not in a good state. However we saw two manatees and they swam so close to us that at one point when one swam underneath me, I thought he was going to brush past me. At the end of the trip, the guides tried to find some seahorses but weren't able to but it didn't matter because the rest of the trip was excellent. Unfortunately though, as much as I tried to keep up with the suncreaming, the backs of my legs are looking quite red, a bit like the lobsters they'll be serving here for Lobster-fest in a couple of weeks.

Katy