Sunday is a day of rest

I often find it hard to differentiate Sunday from other days in Caribbean countries.  The day-to-day pace here is pretty darn slow, even during "rush-hour".  If you pay close attention, however, everyone slows to a turtle's pace on Sunday.  Oh, except for the birds.  They don't seem to be able to sleep past about 4:45 am, and they are positively gleeful about the fact that it will soon be morning.  Though enthusiastic, they are apparently not clever enough to know when morning ACTUALLY comes, because sunrise here in Sandy Bay was scheduled for 6:06 am today.  I know, because I checked. Because they either didn't see this info, or because they just don't care, they began peeping and chirping their little feathered heads off a good 90 minutes before dawn.  Andrew rolled over and put in ear plugs.  I read until it was light enough to make coffee without turning on the lights.  Then I sat out on the screen porch and read until Andrew rolled out close to 9 am.(!)

With nothing in the works today, we drank more coffee and had some breakfast (eggs, fruit & English muffins) on the porch.  We did our chores (made the bed, swept up the sand around the house, and washed dishes), before gathering up snorkel gear and heading for the reef.

The ocean here is shallow and warm - about 85F/30C.  It doesn't have that stunning blue color and white sand that we've seen in places like Jamaica and Aruba, but the temperature is perfect and the reef is only a short swim from shore (about 100 yards).   In contrast, when we're in Caye Caulker the reef is more than a mile out and you have to take a boat to get there.    Here in Sandy Bay we can walk out 50 yards, and not be in water above our waist.  Once you start swimming, the reef is quickly visible with loads of fish and coral formations.  We saw a huge parrot fish, several sea cucumbers, and some barracuda.  We found Spooky Channel, which is the dive site nearest to our VRBO.  On the other side of the Channel, the ocean floor drops from about 8 feet to about 100 feet with the reef wall stretching down.   As beautiful as this is, I find snorkeling frustrating.  Invariably, all the interesting things to see are nowhere near the surface and I constantly find myself  wanting to be down closer to the "action".  In addition, I quickly get motion sick bobbing around in the waves while snorkeling.  For these reasons, I prefer scuba.  

After about a half hour, I was queasy enough to swim back to shore.  Andrew stayed out another hour+ while I spotted for him; alternating between sitting on shore and lounging in the shallow water.  Al & Sandra have an inflatable, orange buoy that signals approaching boats there is a snorkeler or diver in the water.  Andrew had that attached to him so I easily could see where he was and that he was ok.   

Best seat in the world!   The faint white by the skyline is the reef.  

After Andrew finished snorkeling, we made lunch (tuna salad, veggies & fruit) and then did a whole-lot of nothing for the remainder of the afternoon.  We did talk about getting the kayak out, but the wind had come up.  We talked about trying to pick and husk a coconut, but were deterred when YouTube made it clear that a machete (which we forgot to pack) would be necessary.  We talked about walking up to the road to see what we could see, but never quite made it.  We did watch the lizards and a woodpecker out the window, and read.  All in all, a perfect Sunday afternoon.  

We did manage to rustle up a lovely guacamole for an afternoon snack.  Hey, it's good fats!  ;)