To Caye Caulker

We travel to the island of Caye Caulker via a small plane with a stop to circle the Great Blue Hole.

Woke up early at 6 am and heard the birds outside our room. We saw

but didn’t see the Keel-billed Toucan that sometimes hangs out at the front of the hotel. The Keel-billed Toucan is the national bird of Belize.

It’s a two-hour drive across the country to Belize city. We dropped the folks not flying and our bigger luggage at the ferry wharf. The tour leader will handle claiming the flyer’s luggage from the ferry and get it on a golf cart to the hotel. Then drove over to the Sir Barry Bowen Municipal Airport for the flight. The weather was deteriorating, so we hurried through the preliminaries and got in the airplane. It started raining as we taxied out.

There are eight flyers in our tour group. The group is split into two planes. We are in the 1975 Cessna 206 with Captain Ben and one other couple. The other four are in a Cherokee Six. It took a little over 20 minutes to fly out to the blue hole. We flew out at 1500 ft. Once we got to the Great Blue Hole the Cherokee Six descended to 1000 ft., and we climbed to 2000 ft. The 206 is a high-winged airplane, and the Cherokee Six is a low-winged airplane. This allows both planes to see each other.

Two circles in each direction for both airplanes. Then we headed for a shipwreck, the Ormlund, which wrecked on the reef in 1971.

After that we headed for Caye Caulker. We passed over some smaller islands that look like they have resorts on them.

Ben had a nice crosswind landing. The golf cart from the hotel to pick us up was late. It got to chat with Duane, the other pilot a bit while we waited. There is no ADS-B requirement in Belize yet, but it’s coming. I forgot to ask the price of aviation fuel. I suspect it’s pretty high as all fuel is imported in Belize. The golf cart from our hotel, Coral View Resort, was bringing our luggage from ferry when we arrived.

Walked to lunch at Maggie’s Sunset Kitchen. Donna and I had the Jerk chicken. The menu has lots of shellfish and coconut on it which makes it challenging sometimes to eat. On the dock just outside the restaurant, the Yellow-crowned Night Heron was looking for a meal as well.

We had a bit of time to look around before going on a bike tour of the island given by some high school students. We saw an interesting seating arrangement.

In the late afternoon (after school) we had a bike tour given by some students at the local high school, Oceanview Academy.
This is another Planet Terra sponsored project. The students get exposed to working in tourism through this project. Tourism is a major source of income on the island.

We split into a few groups, there was a group that walked as the bike ride required navigating around all the mud puddles on the dirt roads. They took us to the school and showed us around. Before the school opened, students had to travel to the mainland to attend high school. Each graduating class has created a mural on the school:

They took us into a classroom and gave us a quick lesson on Creole English. After that we biked up to Iguana Reef to see the stingray feeding and look for seahorses. They have a protected area for seahorses, but we didn’t see any.

The pelicans will walk around quite close to the people and will beg for fish if you have them.

Supper at Steve’s BBQ, chicken kabobs. Ice cream at Amigos.