The title of this blog post could be a nightmare or a dream come true, depending on how you feel about ocean dwellers. While I don’t mind harmless sharks and stingrays, eels are nothing short of the devil’s work. As hideous as they are disgusting, eels can GTFO as far as I’m concerned. Thankfully we only saw one on our incredible day of snorkelling off Caye Caulker in Belize.

We took a full day tour with Caveman Snorkelling Tours and visited 5 separate locations including the Hol Chan Marine Reserve and a sunken barge. It was absolutely one of the best days on our trip to date. I had a constant grin plastered across my face all day (as pointed out by a German guy on our tour) and was always the last in the boat, not wanting to leave the water. Just call me the Little Mermaid… Actually she wanted to leave the water, scrap that.

Our noble red vessel on the left

At our first stop I filmed myself doing the old backwards scuba diver’s entrance into the water and only upon viewing the footage did I realise that I almost landed atop a large stingray. #danger

The first stop was to see a sweet/crotchety old turtle and a lot of fish.

He’s a loggerhead sea turtle, blind in one eye and bites.

Hello Sir!

A little grey nurse shark also turned up.

Evil looking, always

Peak hour

Our second stop was the Hol Chan Marine Reserve which has a deep channel with coral gardens on either side.

Doesn’t look like much from above

Jump in

The bottom of the channel was far too deep for my weak eardrums to handle. But Andrew gave it a red hot go.

On the far side of the channel we met up with my nemesis; a moray eel. He swam in what I perceived to be an aggressive manner towards us and all I could do was kick my fins as fast as possible to get away from it. I was filming at the time so I managed to get this screen shot of the footage:

Ugh

*shudders*

Ugh.

After that we saw a baby sea turtle, which totally made up for the eel.

After that we saw more glorious turtles.

Questionable swimming style

Next stop was Shark Ray Alley, so called because:

SHAAAARKS

But not to worry, they are non aggressive nurse sharks.

They still look evil though

In we go!

That one on the left was huge

They have the creepiest eyes

I was amazed with how fast sharks move, and which so little effort. Coupla flicks of the tail and they were gone.

The fish were more clingy.

Fish bombed

Stingrays continued to glide underneath us.

Steve Irwin wouldn’t advise this

Our fourth stop was at a Coral Garden.

So pretty

A photo together! Rare

The last stop was at a ship wreck, which had me picturing a dramatic sunken sail ship. It turned out to be a barge, but it was still kind of cool.

You can actually swim in the barge, but as I mentioned I can’t dive that deep because of my ears.

Taking a peak

It was an absolutely incredible tour and a birthday gift for Andrew from his parents, which I got to tag along on. Thank you so much Robin and Phil!