July 13th Cool Caye Caulker

We finally left San Pedro. On Sunday July 13^th we prepared the boat and waved good-bye to La Isla Bonita. We did not make it very far however, only 11 miles south of San Pedro, to the tiny island community of Caye Caulker. Pulling into the little harbor we could not wait to drop anchor and jump into the water to cool off and check on the anchor. (It was not until later that night when we came back out in our dingy that we saw the red glow of the eyes of the salt water crocodiles that live in the water! Yikes!) Deciding to treat ourselves and find a local place to eat in town, we took a refreshing cockpit shower, donned some semi-fresh clothes jumped into the dingy and headed into town. On our way, minding our own business, we were detoured by a woman waving madly from her semi-inflated inflatable Kayak. Rushing over to her she told us she was trying to save a dog that had swam far off shore and was worried he would drown. We could not quite understand the situation, she was very upset, but we found ourselves motoring out to this little brown head that was swimming out in the middle of the harbor. Attempting to bring the dog into our dingy proved useless, the dog was not ready to be saved, instead we followed the dog at a distance, all the way back to shore. After about half an hour we were back at shore, the dog energetically bounded off down the road without even a thank you. We found out that the owner of the deflating Kayak was also the founder of the the local animal shelter. (Anyone interested in coming to Belize and staying for free, the woman offers a free place to stay for people that are willing to help out at the shelter, look up PAWS in Caye Caulker online for more details). She surmised that the dog owner, who lived on a boat in the harbor, had abandoned his dog on land and the dog was trying to swim home. We felt awful for the dog and quite disgusted with the man. It was not until the next day, when Keith confronted the man on the boat (Keith, my hero, was about to give him a piece of his mind, luckily Keith wisely listened before throwing a punch), we found out it was not the mans dog. The man did have a dog, but his dog was a female in heat and the little stray dog had fallen head over paws in love with his dog. In love enough to swim all the way out to the boat!!! How romantic!

We much prefer Caye Caulker to San Pedro. It is far more laid back and does not have all the traffic and clutter. The streets are sand and the beaches are lovely and quiet and its nice to sit on the beach and not be accosted by person after person trying to sell us their wares. Caye Caulker has a local 'water hole' called the Lazy Lizard that is on the beach and has picnic tables and chairs in the water so you can cool off while sipping on your icy beverage. There is also a diving board in front of the bar where we spent a lovely lazy afternoon watching talented local kids doing back flips and very drunk adults doing belly flops, it was great entertainment. Our favorite aspect of Caye Caulker is a local juice spot. Two Mayan women run the stand and squeeze fresh juices daily. Mango, watermelon, pineapple, orange, papaya and banana. All fresh squeezed, no added sugars, no preservatives, not pasteurized and absolutely delicious. They sell bottles of the juice for $2.50 in reused liter water bottles and once you are finished you take your bottle back for reuse. We love to be able to recycle the plastic bottles. Garbage removal is a costly and huge problem for these little islands. We visit the stand every day and are now 'regulars'. We spent one day snorkeling the reef. It was a splendid calm day so we motored our little dingy the mile out to the reef. Like the rest of the Mayan Reef system, it is crystal clear and the corals are spectacular.