A Heaven On Earth

“This is heavy.” I grunted as I shouldered my scuba tank onto my back.

“Here, let me help you,” our instructor said. His name is Boo.

We were about a mile from the island Tobacco Caye. Hannah and I were taking classes on how to scuba dive and this was our last day. I had read the book that gives you an out line on how to go diving and then we had jumped in to the warm tropical water of Belize. Tobacco Caye, I think, is a heaven on earth. It is a very small island that is about five miles from the mainland. There are other islands that surround it. It is a ten minute walk from one end to the other and is populated by maybe sixty people, or less.

At any rate, there we were, out in the water on a nice sunny day. The last day of the class. Probably the last day for a while. In fact, it was almost a year before we came back.

I looked over to where Hannah was struggling to get her tank on as well and smiled to myself, wondering if I looked that silly.

Finally I was ready and I got onto the side of the boat and then sat there until Hannah was ready and on the other side. After a minute of waiting she pulled herself up and onto the side and gave me the thumbs up. We both held our masks to our faces and rolled off the side of the boat.

The bubbles rose around me as the water swallowed my body with a soft splash. I unrolled and came to the top of the water and swam around the back to get to Hannah. Our instructor and the other people on the boat all splashed in. We swam to Boo and he gave us the thumbs down. Which meant we were going down.

Hannah and I both sank slowly side by side. Bubbles from our mouths danced to the top.

Then we touched down. The ocean bottom was only soft sand so (if there were no stinger rays or eagle rays lying on the bottom) we could stand there for a moment and get used to the pressuer. Boo and the others all settled down on the ocean bottom and checked that everyone was okay.

A huge turtle swam by and we looked at it and I wondered how old it was.

I started a little bit when a school of large barracuda, their teeth glinting, drifted by on the current. One stopped and looked at us for a minute before joining his school again.

Finally our instructor signaled us to follow him. Hannah and I came willingly.

We swam and swam before we found the coral reefs. They were teeming with fish, big and small, more barracuda and sun fish. Stingrays drifted by and red tailed snappers that stared at us suspiciously.

I checked my depth gauge and found that I was at forty feet deep. Then I saw it. A huge fish swam by! I tried to point it out to Hannah but she had seen something else and was trying to show me. My fish swam away before Hannah saw, so, a little disappointed, I looked at what Hannah was pointing at. I almost jumped out of my skin. Right there, ten feet or so from me and Hannah, was a stingray that was at least thirty feet long! Or at least that is what my teacher said. I thought it was more like ninety.

Boo swam down to the ray and grabbed the end of the tail and the ray took off without us. Not that I wanted to go riding on a stingray! Boo let go after a moment and swam back and grinned.

Our teacher looked at his air gage and asked to see ours. We were all running low. I asked how long we had been down and he signed thirty minutes.

We went looking for the other people and found them looking at a school of small fish. We told them we were going back up and to join us when they were ready and they said, “Ok,”

We began the assent.

Thirty feet, twenty five, twenty, fifteen. Time to halt. We have to wait at fifteen feet for our blood to get used to the pressure or else it will start to bubble and it will get really sore and bad.

After five minutes we start going up again and finally reach the top. We waved our hands so that the boat driver would see us. He drove over and helped us aboard where we took off our tanks and our wet suits and waited until the others came up.

That day we went twice. Hannah was not feeling good for the second dive so we left her at home.

It was a good day.

We got our licenses and then slept the rest of the day.

Hey, what can I say? It’s hard work!

If ever you go to Belize look up Tobacco Caye. Lana’s on the reef is where we stayed.

Fresh food: shrimp, fish, conch shells and lots more.

Not to mention the giant moray eel in the cove! That thing is at least ten feet! Not kidding!

And no we do not eat those.