Weekend Bliss

Two Saturdays ago on a beautiful morning six of us boarded our little motorboat, the White Top, and sped off with Captain Chico to look for manatees.

Manatees are huge underwater mammals, elusive because of their shy nature. Allison, an American volunteer who was coming to the end of her placement with CARE, was disappointed because she hadn't managed to see a manatee in all her six months in Belize.

We were heading for Swallow Caye, a known habitat of manatees, when Captain Chico decided to take a look at the mouth of the Belize River first.

Lo and behold! After only about two minutes we were rewarded with the first of several sightings of these massive creatures. The ones we saw were about 1500 1bs according to our trusty captain. First we saw a silhouette under the water gradually rising to the surface, then we saw a huge snout poking out of the water for a deep breath before it disappeared out of sight.

Apparently they feed on the seagrass on the ocean bed. Captain Chico told us lots of stories about manatees, one being that the manatee gave rise to the mermaid legend because it lives deep in the sea and has a cry like a human.

I didn't really accept this, as mermaids in my mind are graceful, beautiful long-haired temptresses on the top half of their bodies, with fish tails for the bottom half.

Anyway, we watched them and photographed them till Allison was sated, then we whizzed off across the sparkling ocean, skirting lots of beautiful uninhabited cayes and attracting a crowd of playful bottle nosed dolphins who accompanied our boat.

Our destination was Goff's Caye, a perfect white sand desert island of 1.2 acres, and we were lucky enough to have it all to ourselves.

Captain Chico unpacked our picnic, and when we'd eaten he insisted on us lazing in the hot sun or under the shade of a gently swaying palm tree for 25 minutes (in the interests of good digestion you understand).

After resting we took our snorkelling gear and walked into the water, at liberty to swim out and explore the surrounding waters at our own pace.

Because I now have an abiding aversion to coral I stayed in the clear water, limiting myself to looking at the brightly coloured fish. Some of my companions were more adventurpus, and swam off to investigate the coral reefs, spotting bigger fish and squid on their travels.

All in all, it was a perfect way to spend a hot Saturday, and we were sad to leave at the end of the afternoon.

In case you're wondering, although it was a desert island, some kind soul had anchored a floating portaloo to the small dock where we had tied up our boat, so we had all mod cons in paradise.