This video features a great big cowfish and a pair of spotted eagle rays.

Special thanks to Ecologic Divers for a great dive.

We finally have some video for you! This video is from our first day- arriving on Ambergris Caye in San Pedro, arriving to Cocotal Inn and Cabanas. Robbie making us coconut rum drinks. Courtney and I climbed coconut trees and then the beautiful sunset.

Check it out! September 2009

I wanted to mention something cool that we got to experience while in Belize. (I was hoping Courtney would do this post but seems as though he has abandoned his interest in this website and posting so bear with me here with the Scuba diving terms.)

When we went on our night dive in Ambergris Caye, we ran into a scuba diver who was tied down under a boat with a flashlight just sitting there. Curiosity got to us and our leaders (Ted)  called up to the boat about what was going on. We simply got the response “trying to break the world record.” Ok, so putting it together we figured he was trying to break the world record for staying underwater the longest? I remember snorkeling directly above him and thinking to myself: How does he eat? How does he use the bathroom? Man that must be boring down there?

Will Goodman from the UK spent 48 hours and 9 minutes and 17 seconds under water – setting the world record for the Longest Open Saltwater Scuba Dive.

It is really cool that we got to experience someone breaking a world record. I think we got some of this on video. I’ll see if I can motivate Courtney to do some work on this topic and the video.

This morning I composed an e-mail to the manager of the Holy Cross Angelican School about the grand land raffle:

Good Morning Francis!

Back in June 2009, I bought some raffle tickets for a lot of land on Belize. The money was to be donated to the Holy Cross Angelican School. The raffle was to be pulled in December 2009. I’m not sure if you know or can find out, but has the raffle ticket for the lot of land been pulled yet? I’m concerned as to whether this was a legitimate raffle, as I have not seen any updates on your school website and the website that promoted the raffle before has a new interface and does not mention the raffle.

Here are my raffle tickets.

Any information you can give me on the status of this raffle would be great. I’m really hoping I did not fall into a scam here. I hope the money I paid for the raffle tickets made it to your school.

Thanks!

The response was  disappointing to say the least:

Hi Elizabeth,  Much to our dismay the raffle was canceled. We have been trying to get the money back from the organizer for the tickets sold through Holy Cross.  It is a real mess and I’d like to strangle Alex Canalas.  When school reopens on the 11th we’ll be back to the task at hand.  Hopefully we’ll have an answer for you later that week.  Many thanks for your understanding.  Blessings, francis

Support Holy Cross Anglican School in San Pedro www.holycrossbelize.org

This is very upsetting to hear. We are sorry for any of you readers who purchased raffle tickets. We hope this gets worked out ASAP and that Alex has a better heart than to run off with the money for the school and school children. What selfishness. I am so so sorry.

We reported back in August about the Belize Hot Card, a discount card one can purchase for US$50 and use for discounts and perks at numerous locations throughout Ambergris Caye and a few places in Belize City.

Liz and I took our Hot Card into San Pedro each day and took advantage of a number of opportunities to save money. From restaurants to diving and snorkeling, we were able to get a lot for a little bit less than advertised thanks to this discount card.

About the only challenge we had was remembering to use the card. The card comes with a nice little printout of all the places where the card is honored. We checked that frequently when looking for a place to eat, such as at the Jambal Jerk Pit and Palapa Bar and Gill and let it often help us decide where to go. It never steered us wrong, but if we forgot to give the card to the server, or mention the card to the clerk, it was our own fault!

There were many discounts we weren’t able to capitalize on, such as hotel and golf cart/bike rentals simply because we either had prior reservations or simply weren’t on the island long enough. The cart rental would have been great had Cocotal not offered free use of their bikes and we were staying on the island longer.

We did, however score BIG with the card at Ecologic Divers! The 15% discount offered when one pays cash helped us to do much more than we’d originally budgeted for. We did a grand total of four dives and three snorkeling trips between the two of us. We saved much more than the cost of the card; and had we stuck around in Ambergris Caye longer, would have dove and snorkeled enough to save much, much more!