Dolphins, turtles, rays, sharks...wow!

We had pancakes and fruit for breakfast with a sea view at Brisas del Mar (28B). We then talked to a guy from Reef Friendly Tours about a snorkelling tour. It wasn’t as cheap (130B) as some but advertised itself as eco-friendly and doesn't feed or touch the animals. We were very happy with this as we'd spoken to a big, sunburnt American customer yesterday at another place who thought the tour was amazing ‘cos they held the rays up for photos!’. We arranged to go tomorrow but then some other people turned up and he asked if we could go in half an hour. We grabbed our stuff and climbed aboard the small boat with another couple who were a little odd and seemed to love PDAs.

We drove through the Split, a narrow gap caused by a hurricane, which separates the island from it's northern half. After getting some fuel, we headed towards Ambergris Caye (where the rich people go), which is pronounced similar to hamburger in their Jamaican-esque accents which made me chuckle.

On our way I spotted a pod of dolphins and we stopped and watched them for a few minutes. After half an hour, we reached our first snorkelling spot: Hol Chan Marine Reserve where our guide, Alex, paid the ranger who was bobbing about in his boat. Alex led us and pointed out lots of things. There were tons of big jacks hanging around the boat, we saw 3 turtles, stingrays, an eagle ray, a swimming green moray eel, barracuda, a baby lionfish, plus tons of other fish and coral. Alex showed us a cool swim-through which was quite deep so nobody apart from me went through - it was fun and full of fish. Despite it being a guided tour, Alex didn't bother getting in the water at the next 3 stops! We didn't mind though, I prefer to explore on my own.

Next, we went to Shark & Ray Alley. As soon as the boat pulled up a ton of brown nurse sharks surrounded the boat in a frenzy. Many of the boats feed them so they are now ‘trained’ to seek out boats. We jumped in and Alex drove the boat around us which kept them close to us. It was the most amazing experience being surrounded by 30 plus sharks, some up to 4m long. They are bottom feeders so completely harmless and we never felt afraid. Alex then moored up so they spread out more but it was pretty easy to find a huge bunch of them - the water was only about 5m deep. We also saw some Southern stingrays and a turtle.

We had some watermelon and then went to a cargo wreck that has been sunk in really shallow water. It didn't seem to have a front to the boat and looked almost more like a platform, but did have layers and ladders. There was some coral but not many fish and the visibility wasn't great so we didn't stay too long.

Our last stop was at Coral Garden. The visibility was rubbish due to too much rain water recently and the coral was dead in parts. A disappointing end but frankly we'd seen so much we couldn't care less. We got out, munched on some pineapple and headed home.

We went out for an early dinner as we were starving. We wandered along the back streets and came to a cute little shack called Meldy’s. We had happy hour caipirinhas and Anna had conch in a coconut sauce and I had a veggie burrito the size of my arm!!

Shattered, we dragged ourselves back to our room. Our cold water suddenly stopped and the toilet wouldn't refill. We couldn't find anyone about to help us and the other loos by the beach were locked so we had to fill the tank with hot water manually.Read more