15 August: Swimming with Sharks, You Better Belize It!

Ok so today I swam with sharks and before everybody freaks out and says how brave I am (I mean I am pretty brave anyway haha) but they were only nurse sharks, it was still pretty cool though.

Breakfast crew 

We boarded our boat The Reggae King and were given a run through of the day, then one of the men introduced us to a group of birds, I thought he called them frigging birds but he later said I was wrong and told me again what they were called (I still heard frigging birds...). He let us feed them by standing on the back of the boat holding a fish up to the sky and letting the birds swoop down and snatch it from your hand, that was awesome. 

We made three snorkelling stops throughout the day, the first was where we hoped to see some manatees unfortunately we didn't, which I was really gutted about. Oh well I saw some other incredible things. We did, however, see a green turtle!! He was the cutest little thing ever! (Ok he wasn't little, he was quite big haha) I used up most of my disposable camera watching him. He was just plodding along on the bottom of the seabed munching on sea grass and every now and again he would glide up to the surface of the water, then float back down. Too much cuteness! 

We swam a bit further on but were told we couldn't go further.

We got back on board, I did try climbing up the ladder with my flippers on, let me tell you it's impossible, I see why penguins walk like they do haha. Once back on we were served our lunch, which was delicious, I had the seafood mix which consisted of shrimp, snapper, another white meat fish and then some rice and potatoes. Was quite nice to have something that wasn't laden with hot sauce and chilli, although I did add some on the side.

After lunch a few of us went up on the bow of the boat, I fell asleep straight away and got quite a nice bit of a... I want to say tan, but if I'm honest I'm a bit too red to pass it off as a tan haha. Ah well it will go brown in a few days.

Our next stop was Shark Alley and it didn't disappoint! As soon as we got there, there were sharks and fish snapping at the side of the boat. I should point out that the guys we were with threw some conch into the water to attract them. They weren't snapping and splashing trying to get at us! 

I tried to get some good underwater photos of the sharks but to be honest they were splashing around and there were so many of them that it will probably just be a tangle of tails and fins. Also all the other fish kept getting in the way and there were a lot of them!

Our last stop took us to reef where we swam over the coral and saw all sorts of different fish. We saw Dory from Finding Nemo, we also saw a massive green eel! It was swishing and meandering all over the place. 

On the way back the lethal rum punch came out and we drank continuously until he reached the wharf. That stuff goes down so easily you don't realise you're drinking alcohol and then you wonder why you're druuuunk when you're trying to walk haha. It was a good laugh though. We finished off the day with more drinks down at the split and watched the sunset. I should explain what the split is... It's what it says on the can, a split in the island. In 1981 Hurricane Hattiesburg tore through the island and split it. They now have bars and docks where you can jump off and go swimming.

XOXO