today there was more lounging, swimming, eating, volleyball playing... napping... etc!  mike and the girls went island hopping to a couple nearby places.  i had planned on going but fell asleep in a hammock and quite frankly was too comfortable to move!

our emergency skills were put to the test later that night while hanging out on the dock of the restaurant again after dinner.  carlos went below to get ice and ending up falling somehow - we still don't know how - and did some pretty big damage to his leg - his knee cap actually.  we all scrambled around for peroxide and bandages but it was in the wee hours of the morning and folks were sleeping, we're in the middle of the ocean, not everybody was completely sober - all kinds of obstacles!!  mike, military man that he is, found whatever means he could and ripped up his shirt to wrap around leg until we could get some actual bandages.  we stopped the bleeding, elevated the leg, and tried doing everything we could remember learning from years of ER!  we were good.  then i hear someone yell for us and i look over - mike's just about passed out on the other end of the dock!  apparently he doesn't do well with blood - who knew?!  so he came to the rescue, and then needed rescuing himself!  we put mike in the hammock with someone to fan him, carlos with his leg up on the benches next to him, and resumed our lounging.  and all was well again! 

the next morning carlos went into the mainland to get stitches and i headed in later that afternoon to get some more time in up in the valley.

so sunday it was time for tobacco caye.  mike and i LOVE tobacco caye.  we could stay there...well forever really!  and no trip to belize is complete for us without at least one night out on tobacco caye, so sunday morning we grabbed salma and giselle and hitched a ride on a boat out.  now the folks we hitched a ride out with were a bunch of musicians in town from...jamaica i believe it was, and by the time we reached the island i'm pretty sure we had a bit of a contact high going on!

once docked we checked salma and giselle into the reef's end lodge and then headed over to our aunt jean's house.  aunt jean is our grandmother's sister, and she spends as much time on tobacco caye as possible.  it was june and she'd been there since april!!  our family grew up out there and have three homes out on the island and  my mom always tells me stories of how when she and her siblings were young, every last day of school before summer vacay, by the time they got home from school that day my grandmother would already have all the food and clothes packed and they'd be out on tobacco caye by nightfall.  they'd spend the entire summer out there until the day before school started in the fall and they had to return home to the mainland.  from the moment i visited the island over 15 years ago, i was instantly hooked!

after saying hi and putting our stuff down at aunt jean's, we changed into our swimsuits and headed for the pier.  see that's what you do on tobacco caye - swim, eat, drink, swim, eat, drink, sleep, and repeat!  it's a super tiny island - the entire thing can be walked in 5 to 10 minutes tops.  it's got a hotel at either end with family owned homes in between, a few bars out near the docks, a couple restaurants, one or two volleyball nets, and lots of white sand and hammocks!

while lounging out at the pier there was a nice yacht docked a little bit aways from the shore.  we found out it was owned by a family from columbia who was sailing around for the summer as we met the wife and baby on the pier when she came over to barter with mike for lobsters!  see lobster season started in a few days, friday to be exact, but sometimes you just can't wait!  so while we were hanging out a man in a small dory came paddling by and yelled 'hi' out to mike. (mike knows everybody in dangriga, and EVERYBODY on tobacco caye!) turns out he had been out catching lobsters, and the next thing you know mike had five lobsters in hand!  he pulled out a pocket knife and shelled them right there on the pier, and when the columbian lady saw this, she immediately came over and offered to buy the lobsters from mike.  mike knowing a good deal when he sees it, gladly sold the lobsters!  meanwhile i'm thinking hey that was our dinner!  :0)  but it was okay, there'd be plenty lobster to come.  my grandmother, by the way, cooks THE BEST lobster i have ever had in my entire life...anywho!

after a few belikins and plenty of lounging, we headed home to shower and change, then back over to the reef's end lodge to have dinner with salma and giselle, and carlos and johnny - friends of mike's who worked at the lodge.  johnny's folks actually own the lodge and are long time family friends.  at dinner we met an awesome group of students that were studying abroad in san ignacio and had decided to spend a couple days out at tobacco caye.  after eating we all lounged on the pier attached to the restaurant where salma found a hammock and proceeded to immediately pass out in it!  but she didn't sleep for long as a couple of local guys brought out some drums and began to play - the minute she heard the drums she popped up and began to dance!  we spent the rest of the night hanging out there till the wee hours of the morning while mike and johnny played bartender, planned a midnight skinny dip (which i have promised not to post photos of anywhere!), and we drank, danced, and were merry!

be sure to bring plenty of sun screen and bug repellent! being so close to the equator it gets plenty warm and there's always lots of sun, especially out here at the cayes where those rays bounce right off the water, so good sun block is absolutely necessary. i wouldn't want to let a bad sunburn ruin my trip. also, like many of the tropical areas down this way, the mosquitoes tend to come out at night - good bug spray or wipes is nice to have, and maybe some sort of after lotions for both - just in case you do get burned or bitten!

Reef's End Lodge is a family owned hotel on the gorgeous island of Tobacco Caye off the coast of Belize, Central America. Talk about excellent locations - every room has an ocean view! The staff is extremely nice; you can have breakfast, lunch, and dinner served in the restaurant located on the pier overlooking the reef that runs along the coast of Belize - the reef that happens to be the largest in the Northern Hemisphere! They offer diving and snorkeling lessons and excursions, as well as fishing, kayak rides, and tours of the nearby islands. They'll also arrange trips to the mainland for various excursions there! Really awesome place; ya couldn't ask for more!

We got the little motorised boat out to the Caye across very choppy waters. It was terrifying. The trip took about 40 minutes and the whole time all I could think was that the little boat was going to flip over and chuck us into the deep and shark-filled Caribbean to meet a grisly end. Positive thinking and all that.

We did make it without capsizing however and the boat took us past lots of tiny little islands and eventually we got to the pier of Tobacco Caye. The island is tiny and only a handful of locals live here. The little houses are all wooden and on stilts and are on the edge of the sea. The water around the beach was crystal clear and warm.

We spent the day snorkelling and swimming, eating pringles and drinking beer, and chatting to our pals, the comical boys from London. There was noone else around so we had the place to ourselves. Lovely day, although we had to endure the scary boat ride back across the choppy sea. Poor Simon still has nail marks on his leg where I clung on for dear life.