4th or 5th day at sea

Ok, I am losing count. All I know is we have only one more stop and that is in Costa Maya tomorrow, then one sea day before ending in Tampa. This has just been an unbelievably great time. I didn't get a chance to post about our 7 day Caribbean Cruise yesterday so let me bring you up to speed. Last evening I was back at the Craps table and lost another $200.00. Oh well, easy come easy go. I may be back there this evening.

Yesterday in Cozumel we went snubing. Snuba is a combination of Scuba diving and Snorkeling. The way it works is you have goggles, fins, and a regulator just like with Scuba except your tank is not attached you your back. Instead, your air tank is floating on an inflatable raft on the surface and it is attached to your regulator with a 25 foot hose. So obviously that is only as deep as you can go. I have to tell you that other than snorkeling that is the closest to scuba diving I have ever gotten. Now, I am excited to learn to scuba dive. It was just the neatest thing the waters were crystal blue and pristine. Prior to diving we took a short lesson with an instructor, he stayed with us during our dive he was scuba diving around us. His name was Victor; Victor did a great job pointing out wildlife while making sure we were comfortable and safe. While down there we saw lobsters, eels, coral, all sorts of fish. It was just a mind blowing experience. I envied Victor, as he swam around unattached to an sort of hose. He had complete freedom of movement with his scuba tank. I remember thinking, "I want one of them". Afterwards all I could do was say, "Wow".

Today, we were in Belize. That is a very poor country. Belize is not an island, it is part of the main land of South America. It is the only English speaking country in South America. The minimum wage in Belize is $1.10 US while gasoline costs $5.00 US. I saw very few "nice" homes. In fact I saw less than 5 of them. Most of the homes had no doors, many had no windows. However, all of the people were very nice and friendly. Poverty is really a way of life for them I am sure. Most were dressed very neat and clean. Of course no designer brands or nothing like that, just neat and clean.

The excursion that we went on was cave tubing. That is a must if you are ever in Belize. It was a true adventure! We went for a 45 minute hike through a dense rainforest. The vegetation was some of the most beautiful that I have ever seen. On our hike we walked through a dry cave, our tour guide told us one of the candle light dinner scenes that was in the first season of "Temptation Island" was filmed inside that cave. At the end of the hike we got inside of large innertubes (actual tire innertubes) and went tubing down the Sunbin River in the middle of the rain forest. The water was chilly but not too cold. Shortly after getting in our tubes we entered a rather large cave. It was pitch black in there, we had head lamps but they did us very little good. The entire tubing part lasted about 35 minutes, 25 minutes of that was inside the cave. The river runs right through the cave and we floated all the way through. That was just an amazing adventure. Swimming with the stingrays was fun, snuba was the most exciting thing I have done to date, but you just can't go tubing down a river, through a cave, in the middle of a rainforest just anywhere. What a unique adventure.

We have no excursions planned for Costa Maya. That will probably just be a lazy day and a chance for Carmen to catch up on some shopping in the Carribean. If you have any questions, just post a comment at the end of this blog and I will reply back.