Belize Blog – Belizeadventure.com

Every week we snorkel The Aquarium, just a 1/2 mile paddle from our island. It’s a shallow patch reef surrounded by bright white coral sand.

When Prince Harry visited Belize as part of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee tour, Belizeans greeted him with open arms, and the warm hospitality paid off because in this interview he declares that he will definitely return on vacation soon.

Belize snorkeling video filmed at The Aquarium, near Long Caye at Glover’s Reef, Belize.

Glover’s Reef is famous for its pristine coral reef environment, which means snorkeling at our Long Caye island resort affords our guests easy access to some of the worlds most amazing marine life. The photo below is quite typical of what our guests might see while diving in our lagoon, especially if they’ve been quenching their thirst with a few of the local Belikin beers.

This was the personal highlight for me during my week on the island, “flying” above at the surface looking down on a spotted eagle ray as it “flew” above the seabed 20 feet below me.

Check out these two photos of the point of our island in Belize. We just came across an old shot taken from our third year on Long Caye, in 1999. This was the first year after Hurricane Mitch swept over the island with 30’ waves (but no wind), knocking down four of our buildings and carving 40’ off the front side of the island. The storm then deposited the rubble and sand into a new peninsula, where we built a palapa and set up our windsurf trainer. We had not yet planted any palm trees on this new area, so it is bare of vegetation as you can see.

Long Caye 1999

Thirteen years later, the peninsula is thriving with new trees we planted, and our kayak palapa is still there (although it has gone through four new thatch roofs since it was constructed). The trees grow fast with a year-round growing season, and now the whole area is nicely shaded. These trees will continue to grow until they are 40’ tall, and hopefully they will help anchor the sand so that further storm waves will not wash it all away!

Long Caye 2012

Our island is located off the coast of Belize at Glover’s Reef Atoll, a National Marine Reserve. In order to protect the marine life there, the Belize government has prohibited fishing at Glover’s reef for tourists except for sport fishing, or catch-and-release. The only exception is if you are a native and own one of the few fishing licenses issued for Glover’s Reef.

There is one other exception: lionfish — anyone can spear them because they are an invasive species from the Pacific Ocean (the Caribbean is an Atlantic sea). Lionfish are very detrimental to the native species population, and killing them is encouraged. Watch this short video of our guide, Victor Myers, spearing one.

The lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific region, have infiltrated their way into the Caribbean. Their introduction is believed to be a result of hurricanes and tank releases during the early 1990’s. They have been spotted along the eastern seaboard spanning as far north as Rhode Island to as far south as Columbia. Protected by venomous spines, lionfish are voracious predators. When hunting, they herd and corner their prey using their pectoral fins, then quickly strike and swallow their prey whole. With few known natural predators, the lionfish poses a major threat to coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean region by decreasing survival of a wide range of native reef animals via both predation and competition. While native grouper may prey on lionfish, they have been overfished and therefore unlikely to significantly reduce the effects of invasive lionfish on coral reef communities.

Help us do something about this problem! Bring your spear gun with you on one of our island trips!

Parrot-Nest grounds

Occasionally I exchange emails with Marcus, the owner of The Parrot Nest in Bullet Tree Falls, Belize. The Parrot Nest is a great, low-cost alternative to the more expensive lodges in Western Belize (called Cayo). Recently Marcus notified me that he has a new aggregated Belize blog; he collects other blog posts about Western Belize and posts them on this collection page. If you are thinking of traveling to San Ignacio, this is a great resource.

Recent articles posted on his blog included a photo tour of San Ignacio via public bus, a plea for financial assistance form the Cayo Outdoor Theatre, a San Ignacio restaurant review, and an article about 36 weddings that are planned for December 21, 2012 (the end of the Mayan calendar) at Cahal Pech Mayan ruin!

His aggregated blog is called the Cayo Scoop! Best of Cayo’s Online Magazine.

The World of the Maya, meaning Belize, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, made CNN’s list of the World’s Top Destinations for 2012 the network announced Tuesday. CNN’s editors relied on recommendations from four travel experts: Robert Reid, U.S. travel editor for Lonely Planet; Martin Rapp, senior vice president of leisure sales at Altour; Anne Banas, executive editor at SmarterTravel; and Jeanenne Tornatore, senior editor for Orbitz.com.

The Mayan region was second in the list behind England and beat out Myanmar, Chicago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, The Netherlands, Atlantic Canada, Uruguay, and Orlando in the top nine.

“Some see it as an approaching apocalypse, others as the beginning of a new era. Whatever your beliefs are about December 21, 2012, interest is skyrocketing in the Maya, the ancient civilization known for the great cities it left behind in Mexico and Central America.

The date marks the end of a 5,126-year cycle on the Long Count calendar developed by the Maya, and there will be events on the occasion in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, Banas said.

If you want to see incredible ruins, Reid recommended skipping the tourist hordes at Tulum and Chichen Itza in Mexico and instead head to places such as Tikal, Guatemala (which George Lucas used as a location in the original “Star Wars”), and Chiapas, Mexico.

Reid was once exploring a site near Comitan, Mexico, and said he was astonished to discover he was the only person there.

“I had a pyramid to myself,” Reid said. “You’re just looking out over this mountainous valley, and you have the complete Mayan site to yourself. It’s an unreal travel experience.”

Join us on Belize Adventure Week in 2012. We visit a Mayan ruin, two Mayan ceremonial caves, as well as run rivers, and kayak and surf on our island 35 miles off the Belize coast.