Sunday, January 27, 2019

1-25 to 1-27-2019 Birthday Trip to Caye Caulker

Our friend Emma organized a trip to Caye Caulker with several of our other friends to celebrate
her 40th birthday.

We love Caye Caulker (and Emma), so we jumped at the chance to go.

Checking out the area at The Split...


Oli, Pam, Amanda and Emma


It happened to be the same weekend that some friends of ours were playing on the island also.


Blues International at The Split sign -
Mickey Mercury, Steev Inglish (aka Mr. Downchild) and Trevor Wall (from left to right).
 
Emma's Swedish and IKEA inspired birthday cake


Happy Birthday, Emma!

We enjoyed watching our friends play some great blues music for a while.


We went to several other bars, and somehow Pam ended up with the birthday crown (and took total advantage of it).

Just a guy hanging out in his Speedos.

There was even some night swimming.

Birthday girl Emma looking good on our boat excursion the next day.

Coco King is a relatively new establishment on the north part of the island, and we stopped there for lunch and a swim.





Then we headed out to the reef to go snorkeling at a couple of different spots. This is Shark Ray Alley, and we saw several
nurse sharks and rays there.




Rays

Forgot to bring the GoPro, so we didn't get any underwater photos.

Waves breaking on the barrier reef.


Coral as seen from above the water.

Some of the ladies hung out and walked around the island tagging it with stickers for Emma's business.



Emma putting her stickers on the back of a sign with several other stickers.

It seemed like a good place that people would see a lot, because who wouldn't walk up to it to
see about Mandingo Sex Machine!?  (We actually met this guy later in the evening, lol.)

Beautiful skies nearing sunset!



Pelican party on the dock at Iguana Reef Inn.




The seahorse habitat there is much smaller since they expanded their beach, and we didn't see any seahorses.

Our musician friends played at The Split again in the late afternoon/early evening.


There was even a nice bonfire.




We all joined up later, and Amanda took her turn wearing the birthday crown.

Emma's boyfriend, Gilly, brought several (eco-friendly) lanterns to light and release.




Some didn't rise like they were supposed to.

Others floated off into the night sky and were beautiful.

We had a great time sitting on a dock watching the lanterns, talking, laughing a TON, and making up a whole new country
(Baklavia) of which we are all now citizens! (Sorry, we have lots of private jokes now because of this trip.)


Cheryl attempting the splits at The Split.

Luckie attempting the splits at The Split - gotta love his face!!!

We had to get a pic of Eric with this manatee sign because of his "run in" with a manatee -
sorry, another private joke.

69 dolphins, lol!

We found it to be a funny design they picked for their wall.

The following morning half the group headed back on Gilly's family's boat.

Half of us went back on the water ferry to Belize City (then drove to Hopkins).

Amon brought his computer so he could play games in the down time, like on the ferry boat ride.

We had a couple of fun detours on the drive back to Hopkins. This pretty sky was seen leaving our last detour to the Jungle Dome outside Belmopan.