Ben's Adopted Fish Son

Sorry.  Busy weekend.  I'll post about yesterday's Sunday School lesson later on today, hopefully.

On to day two of our Belize adventure. 

When we woke up and got ready to head to Nick and Kathleen's house, we saw that my bike seat had been stolen:

We had locked our bikes up, but hadn't thought about taking our seats inside.  So we went to the Chinese market where we had rented them, and they said they didn't just replace stolen bike seats - we had to outright pay for a new one.  Sigh.  Ben, outside the market, waiting for me to get a new seat:

And don't you worry - there are more stolen bike parts stories in the days to come.

Then we headed over to Nick and Kathleen's condo.  Here it is - isn't it nice?  They stayed on the top floor and had a great view:

We decided to explore the west side of the island before going into town to eat breakfast.

A side note - the east side of the island has nice, wide bike paths.  The west side, not so much.  The path was teeny and had jungle all around it, and our bikes didn't have hand brakes - they had the ones you have when you're little, where you pedal backwards to brake.  So we're going on these windy, bumpy roads, getting hit in the face with palm fronds, and whenever Kathleen or I needed to brake, we'd instinctively squeeze our handlebars, realize too late that we don't have handle brakes and that we needed to lock our pedals backwards, and we'd scream and crash.  This happened a few times.  The men were way ahead of us. We were behind, just crashing and screaming.  It was kind of funny.  No major injuries occurred.

I took one pic of Ben and Nick on this dock, and then they asked me to take another with them sucking in their guts:

 Haha!  They crack me up.  Here's cute Kathleen:

Me:

Another side note.  It is so dang hot and humid in Belize.  And we were in the water all the time, so I just kind of wore my swimsuit and capris the whole time. 

View of the ocean from the west side of Key Caulker:

Then we went to see this crocodile we'd heard about.  You can see his little bumpy head sticking out of the water:

And then we headed into town to eat some lunch.  Because it was wayyyy past breakfast time.  I can't remember the name of this place, but it was near our hotel.

Nick had ceviche, which I had heard of but never knew what it consisted of.  Most of the places we went to serve ceviche in little bowls made from conch shells.  Because conch shells are sooo plentiful on Key Caulker.  They actually sell little conch serving bowls, but I didn't buy one.

 I love these kinds of things.  Haha!

We decided to snorkel in this area called The Split.  Key Caulker is divided in half by this little river thingey, and that's The Split.  We wanted to go across the split and explore around the north half of the island.  We hurried across, because there are boats that go back and forth, and we didn't want to get hit.  And then we had fun snorkeling on the north part of the island.

There wasn't a ton to see, as far as marine life, in this area.  The coral reef is about one mile to the east of Key Caulker, and that's where you get to see lots of bright coral and bright fish.  But it was good for me to get more practice snorkeling.  And we saw a few things.  A few starfish.  Ben saw a stingray.  I think Nick saw a barracuda.  Ben, with his underwater camera, picking up a starfish and looking at it:

Don't worry - we always put the starfish back exactly where we found them.

I've discovered that I am in love with starfish.  I want a pet one.  I like holding them.  And I like to feel their little suckers on my hands.  And I love how they slowly bend around your hands.  I just think they're so cool.  So every time Ben found a starfish, he brought it to me and let me hold it. :)

 Cute little suckers!!

We decided to get out of the water and walk around the north half of the island.  There wasn't much to see.  A few nice houses with fences and threatening signs on them.  One of the houses said something like "Beware of my 9 mm."  There are no shops or restaurants or anything on the north half. 

Ben and Nick decided they wanted to snorkel kind of on the east side of the north half of the island, but Kathleen and I were a little snorkeled out and decided to just walk back to the little beach area and sit in the sand and chit-chat while we waited for the boys. 

I'm glad we didn't snorkel with them over there, because they said the current was crazy strong, and that it was too silty to see much of anything. 

However, Ben and Nick's little snorkeling foray ended up not being a total bust, because Ben made a very special friend.  A little yellow fish.  This fish decided that Ben was his mama, and he stayed close to Ben for like half a mile, swimming right around his face the whole time.  We were wondering if it was because Ben was wearing a bright yellow swimming shirt (to keep from burning - it was the best thing we've ever done for Ben's fair skin).  At any rate, I here's a cute little video of Ben's adopted fish son:

So, so cute.  Our little yellow friend left us when we decided to swim back across the split to the south part of the island.  Maybe it was too deep or scary for him.  We were sad to see him go.

I'm not sure where we ate dinner, but afterwards, we went to Nick and Kathleen's to have virgin Pina Coladas.  They were sooo good.  And we got to watch the sun set:

It was getting dark, so Nick and Kathleen loaned us their bike lights so we could find our way back to our hotel.  Kathleen warned me about all the little crabs that scuttle across the road.  And you can hear them scuttling in the bushes on either side of you.  It's reeeally creepy.  Kathleen got a good picture of a crab going into its little underground hideout:

When we got to our hotel, I washed some clothes in the sink and hung them out to dry on the line on our front porch.  And then Ben and I read our books on the front porch for awhile.  We had a good light out there for reading, and the ocean breeze felt so nice.  This became our nightly ritual.  Do some laundry, hang it up, and do some reading.  I read the best book I have read in a really long time - it's called The Night Circus, and it's by Erin Morgenstern. 

Ohhhh I loved this book.  It was intoxicating.  I'd say it's in my top five books of all time that I've read.  Seriously.  I read it in, like, two days.  Couldn't put it down.