BLACK BIRD CAYE - Turneffe Atoll- November 2001

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	For me the adventure begins the minute I make the decision to take a trip and get on the Internet, shopping for airfare. When my daughter, Taylor, said she wanted to skip Thanksgiving I figured I could do the same and what better place to do that than in a different country. Since my first trip to Belize in 1998 I have just kept going back. After nailing down a great fare with my favorite, American Airlines, I called Rebecca the US agent for Black Bird Caye Resort and the Royal Mayan Resort. I had previously talked to her about bringing a group down in March of '02 for their combination package. This usually is four nights on the island and three nights in the mountains (or vice versa).
	She put together a site inspection package for me -- three nights on the island, one night in the jungle. I can't say enough nice things about the service.
	A week later American called to say they were re-routing a lot of their flights and for the time being had canceled their mid week flights from Dallas to Belize City. Not only would I have to go through Miami, as in days gone by, but I could not go directly from Oakland or San Francisco to Miami, I had to do SF to DFW to Miami then Belize City.  AND I would have to leave at midnight instead of 6 in the morning. ARGH I tried to talk them into upgrading me to 1st class - no go. The nice lady said, "But you will get in around noon instead of four o'clock." I laughed and told her that wouldn't do me any good, as the boat didn't leave until five.
I called back the next day and tried again, asking if I could use my measly 17,000 frequent flyer miles to upgrade- no go. The next day I saw on the Internet, that they were offering some specials using frequent flyer miles so I called again. The nice man explained that I didn't have enough for a round-trip upgrade. I said I didn't need RT upgrade only out going. Well, what do you know? He said yes. I had to go through a rig-a-ma-roll but got some strange paperwork that I carried with me. First class is very nice and although I can manage to sleep in the most uncomfortable positions, wide leather seats are better.
A NCUPS - www.ncups.org -friend lives close to the SF airport and several times I have parked my car in front of her house and caught a taxi to/from the airport. Sure beats $45.00 and two hours from my place for a shuttle. Bev insisted on dropping me off since I had to be there 3 hours early for check in. What an experience that was. I've traveled through a lot of what we call 3rd world countries where there has been military presence but nothing like this! There were more people in camouflage carrying guns than there were travelers. I had no waiting in line and no hassle in passing my film around the x-ray machines. I've also learned it helps a lot when I tell the scanner that my carry-on is full of underwater photography equipment; doesn't scare them when they see all those light canisters, batteries and wires. On each leg of the trip coach passengers got, at best, snacks. I got great food. From Miami to Belize I had a meal that challenged the finest restaurant meal I've had (scallops in a fine white wine sauce over seasoned rice). Yummy. As promised by Rebecca, there was a man at the international airport exit holding a sign that said "Black Bird". "Juni" said we had to go to the Muni airport and pickup a couple that had been out on Ambergris Caye. They were Brits. He was probably about my age and she was beautiful.
				It wasn't yet 2:00 when he dropped us off at the new Tourist Village on the waterfront. In the heat of the day one can only do so much window-shopping. I am impressed with the improvements being made in Belize City. It has a deep harbor and welcomes cruise ships.
The Brits settled into reading at a table and, as there were no empty tables, I selected one where only one person was sitting. My luck was with me. Mario Guerrero was the most interesting person I could have found in that city. He owns a fleet of boats called The Dolphin's and knew everything about everyone and everything. The three hours flew as I listened to his stories. He was quick to point out that he was "working". There was a constant stream of strong young men coming to him asking, "What now boss?" It seems he runs his entire operation from a table in the shade in the plaza of the Tourist Village. At five the Black Bird boat, loaded with supplies, a bunch of hired help and three paying (well sort of paying) passengers set off on our two hour cruise. (Where have I heard that?) Mind you, the sun sets at 5:30 and it was dark by six. There was a nice sunset behind the Belize Mountains. Well, the word mountain is open to interpretation. I learned from Mario that their mountains are between three and four thousand feet (the Sierra foothills are that high). I laughed and told him about our Mt. Diablo, over four thousand feet rising up in the middle of a big valley. David Ball, the on sitemanager and Oscar and bartender greeted us with "Rum Punch for everyone!" I opted for a plain orange juice. It was pretty much a party crowd and one morning a number of divers couldn't get out of bed.
The food was good, plentiful and well presented. Breakfast at 7:00, lunch at 1:00 and dinner at 7:00. The main building held the lounge area, dining room, bar, self-service area and kitchen. This was equal to a two-story building with typical thatched roof and the interior was finished in beautiful Belizian hard woods. The individual cabanas were strung along the beach with more than enough space between. Mine was #8 and a good walk down the beach. Each cabana has a hammock on the front porch. The room was large, simply furnished and air-conditioned.
There is no need for hot water as all water is warm. The air-conditioning was too noisy to run and sleep at the same time. It was not wise to open the windows, even though the screens are made of fine mesh, the Mosquitoes are of the "no see-ems" variety and come right through. Mosquitoes seldom bother me but these ate me up along with big black sand flies. I had not taken any insect repellent and from ankles to knees I was a mass of itching red welts.
Black Bird Resort is one of three resorts in the Turneffe Atoll, which is one of three atolls in the Caribbean. On my previous trips I've paid $150 US to leave San Pedro Town at 6:00 AM, travel one and a half-hours on a dive boat to do three dives on the Turneffe walls. From Black Bird it was usually a 5 to 10 minute boat ride to the dive sites						Reuben Natividad was my dive master and we usually had only two to three Brits diving with us. Our boat was fast and half of it was covered. I have to work to stay out of the sun or I would be burned to a crisp. Reuben was not only a good dive master but very handsome and polite. I've seldom had such personal attention.
I have learned not to put my cameras together when I'm tired and I was exhausted from having only three hours sleep the night before. Anne, Oscar's woman, told me she would bring me coffee at 6:30 so I didn't worry about waking up. HA! I woke up at 7:30 and had just a half-hour to get ready to dive. When I went up to the dining room I asked Annie what had happened. She told me she had knocked softly at 6:30 then left the service on the porch. I laughed and told her to knock LOUDLY the next day. So, for the first time in ages I dove without a camera. It was really rather nice.
The three Brits, for fairly new divers, were good. John took the lead, his wife Cheryl, the other gal and Reuben followed with me following Reuben. What their inexperience cost us was that they stayed at pretty much the same depth, 60', and just off of the wall. Finally I motioned to Reuben that I wanted to go up one of the sand channels, as that is where the turtles and rays tend to hang out. I should have done that earlier as the Brits soon fell in behind us.We had a nice one-hour dive and we all used about the same amount of air.
			Since we were only minutes from the resort I had over an hour surface interval so put one of my camera's together. I used my manual camera with two matching strobes, one of them brand new. The next dive was as pretty as any I've seen. Huge brown Barrel sponges, Azure Vase sponges, rigid pipe like clusters of Yellow sponges, Red Rope sponges that take on strange shapes and GREEN rope sponges. I've never seen any sponges the green green that these were.
I got very engrossed in my work. Time does fly when you are having fun! It seemed like a very short time, when I looked up to find the other three about 50' ahead of me. Just then, as I breathed in, I had to "pull" on my regulator. I looked at my gauge and saw that I WAS OUT OF AIR! On the next intake I got half a breath. Lots of things went through my mind all at once. I knew I had been down to 80' and was now at 42'. I could have done an emergency ascent and taken a chance on getting bent or an air embolism. Since I was already swimming towards the dive master I knew that was the choice I had to make. I've never kicked so hard in my whole life. I had exhaled and tried to take in another breath and there was nothing there. I kicked harder. I never for one minute thought about dying but my mind did say with every kick, "You're not going to make it!" Simultaneously I had to think of a way to immediately let the DM know what the problem was; no time for confused hand signals. As I lunged, grabbed and jerked his fin I took my regulator out of my mouth and held it w-a-y out to the side. I don't ever want to see that look on someone's face again. His octopus was immediately in my mouth but he hadn't thought to purge it. My first intake was more water than air but our bodies are amazing. Automatically my tongue closed off my throat so that the water was held in my mouth and a trickle of air went down my windpipe. The next breath was about half-and-half and the third was pure air. We automatically assumed the buddy breathing position; each of our left hands on the other person's right shoulder, eyes locked on each other, and hung motionless for three or four minutes. Then we started a v-e-r-y slow ascent. After a five minute safety stop at 15' we reached the surface. I took his octo out of my mouth and laughingly asked him to orally inflate my BC (Buoyancy Control Devise).
We had lunch and went out for our third dive. I don't think I had time to change film and went without a camera again. I had a long nap before dinner! After dinner I was talking to Reuben10:32:09 PM 08/30/02 and asked him to be totally honest with me, as I needed the feedback. I felt I had not panicked but wanted to know his take on it. He said he was shocked at how calm I was. Later, when I thought about it, he had to be scared half to death. Not many people drown diving but when they do there is a big investigation and the poor DM is put through hell. We photographers are their worst nightmare. The fact that we had all dived the same profile on the first dive caused all of us to think we were diving the same profile on the second dive. However, taking pictures uses up a lot of energy as you move around, fin hard sometimes just to stay in place, etc. Also, I had obviously gone deeper than the others had, probably chasing a fish. After I was back I told my dive buddy/friend Patti about it. She said everyone does it ONCE! Then she tattled on me at the party that night and any number of people told me about their experience of running out of air - ONCE! I have a devise called Spare Air. It is a small canister that holds enough compressed air to provide you with a safe ascent. I've taken so much crap about carrying all my emergency equipment and, since this was shortly after 9/11 I didn't want the hassle of getting it through security (It's shaped like a bomb). I'll never do that again!
That was not the end of this adventure. The next day I put my fish eye lens on my manual camera and took a roll of what I know was the worlds greatest pictures. Black Bird was wonderful about providing me with a very large tank of fresh water to rinse and store my camera in and I was the only photographer.				It was so big that my whole rig fit in it. Once I was off the boat the boatman handed me my equipment.For some reason it felt light. When I looked down I said, (almost screamed) "Where's my lens? Look in the rinse tank." Thank God, there it was! I was just sick. Dave, the manager, later reminded me it was fresh, not salt water.
Thank goodness for small miracles. The camera dried out fine (no electronics) and seems to be working. However, the $1,600 lens was full of water. AND, of course the film is all stuck together. Sure put a damper on my picture taking.  In addition to great diving the Atolls are noted for their fishing. Mimi, her two grown sons, and some of their children come every year and they are fishing maniacs. Each of the kids had to lay down beside Grandma's Wahoo to have their picture taken. The chef prepared it, in addition to the complete Turkey spread, for Thanksgiving dinner.
I would recommend this all inclusive resort as an alternative to a live-aboard for scuba-divers. It is paradise for deep sea fishing. Wednesday at 8:00 AM we pushed off for the boat ride back to Belize City. 'Juni' was there with his van to whisk me off to the Royal Mayan Resort.
Click here to see a page of images around Turneffe Island Click here to go to Mayan Resort page						THE END Thank you for visiting. Please SIGN GUEST BOOK I would appreciate your comments