After waiting around Big Daddy's restaurant having yet another burrito and coke, the moment of truth, 4pm. Alas, Mick, the guy who had arranged the previous "all Raleigh" dive trip wasn't there. Instead we got Mr. Unhelpfull who eventually revealed Mick would be around later. We phoned another dive shop and they were doing the Blue Hole but only as an overnight trip which was no good for us. But at least it looked like the weather wasn't stopping anything.
Phoned Mick again and were asked to phone back in five mins. By this time we had used a small fortune in coins. The payphone was eating our dosh even if it was engaged. The five mins were just about up when somebody else came to use the payphone. Couldn't really stop them. We waited and waited and waited. Not getting stressed out at this stage or anyhing! It was about 4:40pm and the flight was at 5pm. Eventually she went. We jumped onto the payphone and got Mick. It was the worst! He was doing a trip but couldn't guarantee he would be doing the Blue Hole. The weather was dodgy and they had a smaller boat than the other crowd. Ahhh! By this time we had no chance of catching the 5pm flight anyway, but, I seemed to recall one at 5:30pm. Another battle with the phone. The operator kept on giving us the number of Belize International airport and not the city airport. Then I remembered one of the planes having "Island Air" on it's side, voila we got a number. Yee hah, there was a 5:30pm flight but we had to be there by 5:15pm and it was already 4:55pm. We provisionally booked a seat just as the money ran out and then the big decision, "Do we stay or do we go?". The minutes ticked by as we changed our minds but finally said, "what the hell" and made for the nearest taxi with our two giant size rucksacks and hand luggage. My rucksack was the worst weighing about 26kg! Of course, it was all essential, like a kilt for example!
"To the airport, in 15mins" we yelled at a surprised taxi driver. It was 5pm now. The taxi driver raced through the city, avoiding the rush our traffic by taking streets which looked suspiciously like dirt paths between people's houses. He did well and got us there bang on time, 5:15pm, at the Island Air office.
Some guys grabbed our rucksacks and struggled off towards a plane. We rushed into the office, "We're the guys that phoned up about 20mins a go!". "Ah yes, the bad news if the flight is full". "What?". "But I've got you seats on Tropic Air across the road". Phew! Across to Tropic Air and all was fine. Vicky phoned the hotel on San Pedro and booked a room and we left a message with Mick that we were on for the dive. Meanwhile there were two poor guys lugging our rucksacks across the runway to the other plane. What a palava but it was all sorted now. Not!
About five mins before boarding, completely out of the blue, the receptionist asked, "Is there somebody called Stephen on this flight?". I said yes, she said "okay", me and Vicky shrugged our shoulders, and that was that. Strange? Then time to board. Just about to leave the departure lounge when there was a phone call, "Stephen, it's for you". Bizzare or what? It was Mick, "Yeah, Steve, I hear you're on that flight". "Yes". "Ah, there's a problem, the boat is kind of full"."What do you mean kind of full. Are you're saying we can't dive tomorrow?"Er, well, the max is 16 and you guys make 17". At this point, all the other passengers were on the plane, the pilot was about to start up, and the stewardess was going mental. "Are you flying or not??". "Mick, I need a yes or no". "Well, I think it's got to be no". By this time the pilot had started up and the stewardess was literally dragging Vicky to the plane, "Too late, you have to fly now" she yelled. "Mick, it's too late, just get us on that boat, we're on our way" and the phone was grabbed from my hand. Sprinted onto the plane, the door was slammed shut and we were off. Seconds later we were airborne towards San Pedro thinking "Oh, shit!". If the diving was off after all this hassle we would be seriously pissed off. Just to make things worse there was an English guy on the plane who was all doom and gloom about the weather, "Oh, look at the waves crashing off the reef, you'll never do the Blue Hole tomorrow". Thanks pal!
We landed and made directly for the dive shop. Surprisingly, Mick was nowhere to be found. It was looking dire. Then we spotted a familiar face from the previously cancelled dive. It was good news, we were on the boat. What a relief. But, the weather was looking just a little bit rough. It was the same if not worse than when our previous dive was cancelled. However, the dive shop was loosing so much business they had started to go out irrespective.
We headed to the hotel. Just to put the icing on the cake we were told that there were no rooms left. After about half an hour of hassle we got in and collapsed on the beds. What a day!
The rest of the crowd boarded and, funnily enough, some people had dropped out so we weren't over capacity after all. The boat was pretty cool. Quite modern, had a toilet, and there was even refreshments on board. We got to the edge of the reef and we stopped for the brief. The divemaster stressed how rough the journey was going to be until we got to, wait for it, the Blue Hole. Yee-hah! It was still on. Me and Vicky were elated. We had stuck with it through thick and thin and here we were on our way to the Blue Hole. Now I started getting butterflies! It was a 40m vertical dive down an abyss!
The ride was very rough. We all took sea-sickness tablets and I laid down at the back of the boat where there was the least motion. The waves were huge and the boat was getting tossed around big style. Eventually we got into calm water and one could at last stand up and see where we were going. Nothing but blue all around us.
Then we got into shallow water and the diveleader announced the Blue Hole was approaching. You could see it clearly. All the water was a nice blue apart from an area that was black, i.e., very deep. The cut off was amazing. From the air it is a perfect circle. Hence the name the Blue Hole. Personally I would have called it the Black Hole but then I'm not Jacques Costeau. He discovered it.
The butterflies increased as we got kitted up. Once I was in the water I was okay. The dive being so deep and quite extreme was carefully controlled by the divemaster. Even still, it was very scary. Basically you swam over a nice sandy bit with some reef which abruptly ended leaving a huge black hole, and you went vertically down it! I watched my depth guage go rapidly increase. You could have went head first but no way, I went they way I was used to, feet first. I kept an eye below on the diveleader. Eventually she stopped. Eeek, we were at 40m! Low and behold there was a sort of ledge in the hole wall and there was these huge stallagtites. It was awesome. We swam through them. We were quite a crowd and there was some bumping going on. It seemed only like seconds before we got the signal to ascend. We slowly went up and did our safety stop on the sandy bit. Once back on the boat everybody was hyper. Amazing experience.
We did another two reef dives after that which were both excellent. Lots of fishes but no turtles or sharks unfortunately. It was about 4pm by the time we got back and we were knacked. Bumped into Jason, exped leader, Jeff, logitics mgr, and respectivce partners on the way back. Just when you thought you'd seen the last of Raleigh! We all went out at night and Jason shocked us by paying for the meal.
We got to the border pretty quick. The Belize exit post was a joke. Basically a wooden hut with a guy inside it. You signed your name and that was that. The Mexican immigration was definately not a joke. I got through no problem. Vicky managed to get herself sandwiched in the queue between two South African guys and they assumed she was from South Africa as well. It took ages. I tried to get back in to see what was going on but they wouldn't let me. Eventually they got through and we were back on our way to Chetumal.
First impression of Mexico was that it was much more developed than Belize. It seemed to have an American feel to it, for example, the police cars and street signs. We got to Chetumal bus station and it was very posh. Definately back into civilisation now. The Cancun bus wasn't until 2:30pm so we had plenty of time but it meant we were going to get to the airport late, about 8pm. Claire and co had been staying at Playa del Carmen, about an hour before Cancun, and were going to Cancun airport to meet Claire's brother. It was a good guess that they were going to come back to Playa del Carmen and so it would have been better for us to get off there. The only thing was that Vicky thought she would have been travelling to Cancun herself and left Claire with strick instructions not to leave until she got there. This meant Claire and her newly arrived and jet-lagged brother would be waiting around Cancun airport for about 2 hours. Our only hope of avoiding all this was getting a message to them.
We knew Claire's hotel and we guessed they would speak English. So, after figuring out the Mexican phone card system and bllundering my way though some Spanish, we got through. "Do you speak English?". "No speako English senore". Ah, problem. Tried in vain with the phrase book but gave up.
To be continued..........