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

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.

When we arrived in Belize, we  took a 20 minute break and then hopped on a flight at the International airport to San Pedro, Ambergris Caye. The 20 minute break led to an interesting rum punch from Jet’s, a bar in the airport. That is a post in itself.

The Mayan Air flights turned out to be the exact price we thought- as long as you pay in cash. It was reliable and left on time.

In this post I want to focus on the great photos we got from our 20 minute flight from the Goldson International Airport to the San Pedro Airstrip. The excitement was extreme as we boarded a small, 8 passenger plane, with two other couples venturing to the Ambergris Cayes. The photos are spectacular and the video as well. The videos we are still working on and will eventually add them to the site.

The first day Courtney and I were in Belize we scheduled a snorkel trip with Ecologic Divers to Hol Chan and Shark Ray Alley thanks to the help of Beaulah from Cocotal Inn and Cabanas. Originally, Courtney and I were hoping to get on a snorkeling trip to see the Manatees. That trip would allowed for a stop on Caye Caulker, which we never got to check out except for a brief stop on the water taxi from Ambergris Caye to Belize City. The manatee trip is a full day trip, while the snorkeling trip we partook in was a half day trip.

We were greeted by Ted on the dock at Cocotal Inn and cabanas around early afternoon. Yes, they come and pick you up at the location you are staying if there is a dock there. Otherwise they might arrange for the nearest public dock. One great thing about Cocotal Inn and Cabanas is the dock. They are actually one of the only properties on Ambergris Caye that extends from the beach side to the lagoon side. You can view the sunset over the lagoon and watch the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean, all within steps of each side!

Getting back to Snorkeling, we hopped on the boat and arrived at Ecologic Tours where we were fitted with the proper equipment needed for our snorkeling trip. Courtney did not need anything and I only needed a set of flippers. Cocotal Inn and Cabanas does not allow you to take flipper out on adventure snorkel trips, you can only borrow their equipment for activities off their dock or using their ocean kayaks. Makes sense, they don’t want to lose their equipment.

After about 30 minutes of getting ourselves together, we hop on the boat with Ted and Charlie (the tour guides) and head towards Hol Chan. It’s about a 10-20 minute boat ride to get to Hol Chan. We arrive and see a boat sitting on the water with some really bored looking park rangers on it. To go to Hol Chan, you must pay a park fee (which Ecologic Divers notifies you about in price of the trip up front). We gear up and jump into the water. I get in the water a few minutes before Courtney as he is getting the underwater HD camera together. I immediately see a large turtle swimming off in the distance. I swim over and follow him for a minute before worrying if I might get in trouble leaving the group. I head back to the boat and Courtney had just jumped in the water with the HD Cam. I start taking shots with Courtney’s underwater camera that he received as a gift. It’s a great underwater camera. Ted leads the group and shows us lots of cool fishies. We see an eel, grouper, jack, etc. Courtney would be better at naming the exact species of fish we saw. There were so many, I was overwhelmed. They also just point out the species of fish and it’s hard to identify the name of the species as everyone is busy snorkeling/underwater and communication via words is hard to follow. Regardless, we saw some really cool things, including sting rays and brightly colored coral.

Commercial Break for Part two: Shark Ray Alley and chumming…Please visit our friend Marie at Belize Hot Card and learn how you can save lots of $ on your trip to Belize!

The weather during our trip was spectacular. We were fortunate enough to not encounter any rain showers while staying on Ambergris Caye.

While we stayed in the Table Rock Jungle Lodge we did encounter a 20 minute shower returning from Caracol to Table Rock. Also, while I was sick on Friday, 09/18/09 there were on and off showers all day. Courtney did not claim to encounter any while on ATM, although most of his time that day was spent in the cave.

When I look at our weather widget in the upper right hand corner of the website all I have been seeing are rain and thunderstorm icons. Belize must be getting hit now with the “rainy” season and we were lucky enough to just miss it!