General tourist Map of Belize from one of the on-line sites.
The breeze is cooler this morning – I would be more comfortable with a long-sleeve shirt or I could move inside. However, I love early mornings in a harbor as the water ripples calmly, boat moored, waiting for the day to begin. For those who wish to take this trip, I was overly cautious about our planned return. There is a shuttle system arranged by the Sundancer II crew and we could have easily made the 11:30 a.m. flight to Miami. I booked us on the 2:30 p.m. The Radisson cleverly built a hotel across the street with a nice restaurant (long pants and shirt with a collar required) and both a casual indoor and poolside bar/restaurant. They have an arrangement where you can “hang out”, and access wif-fi which is what we will do when we leave the boat at 8:00 a.m. The Belize airport, while nice, does not have extensive amenities. The crew holds your baggage until time for the shuttle, so you don’t have to haul stuff around.
People are already discussing what trips they may take next and of course the crew invites us to return to this one. The sun is fully up now, and it looks as if it will be another pretty day. We knew nothing of Hurricane Sandy and there is always an element of irony when we who live in South Florida have to be concerned about our Virginia relatives being hit with a hurricane. Anyway, this trip comes to a close, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed the series of posts. The friends from Maine were staying for another week to go land-based out of Hamanasi Resort in Hopkins, Belize (http://www.hamanasi.com). By coincidence, we sat next to a couple waiting at the airport who were on their way home after spending a week at Almond Beach on Jaguar Beach which is apparently very close to Hamanasi, but is not a dedicated dive resort. It too sounded lovely. (http://www.almondbeachbelize.com)
We didn’t do the interior of Belize with the Mayan temples and other eco-tourism offerings, but with what we saw of the land while staying on Ambergis Caye, I imagine another trip will be in our not too distant future.
The map I’ve shown above came form one of the on-line tourist sites and I thought it might help orient those who aren’t familiar with the area. (Belize used to be British Hondouras.) The larger islands of Turneffe and Lighthouse are the sites we explored in the Sundancer II.
Dive Deck of the Sundancer II
