Belize, Honduras and Mexico
For Rylie’s senior trip and 18th birthday, we decided to go on a cruise to celebrate.
Day two and three were both at sea days. We tried to lay out by the pool, but it was either packed with people or too hot! We did attend more karaoke, movie night and a couple comedian shows on those days. Day three was actually Rylie’s 18th birthday. I had our steward decorate our room and I had ordered a cake. Rylie and her new friends came up from the pool mid-day to have a piece and celebrate. That night Rylie went out to the “club” with her new friends since she was now of legal age. 
Day four we finally got to our first stop, Roatan, Honduras. This day we had scheduled a beach/snorkeling excursion at a local beach. When we first got there, we went out on the boat. Our first stop was to snorkel the reef. Our guide was a bit annoying… he wanted us to stay super close to each other and keep yelling at us to stay close, keep your head in the water, stay away from the reef, etc. I’m sure these were all great instructions, but because we had to stay so close, we mainly got to see only each other flippers. It was not fun. Our second stop was to Starfish Alley. This was a much better experience. We were able to spread out much more and our guide didn’t have any restrictions for this section. It was deeper water and we saw lots of starfish. One guide would go down and bring them up for us to hold (underwater, since we were told not to lift them out of the water). After our snorkeling session, we were able to relax on the beach and taste some mangos from the tree until it was time to get back on the van to be shuttled back to the boat. That night Rylie did her thing at karaoke again and I went to another comedy show.
Day five we arrived in Belize City, Belize. This was the stop we had been waiting for…Rylie was so excited about this excursion, to swim with the sharks. This was a long day…first we had to be ferried from the cruise ship to the dock in Belize due to the shallowness of the water in the port. Then we had to wait in a line for our excursion. We finally got on a boat with about 15 other people and 4 guides and took a 45-minute boat ride to Cay Caulker. Our first stop was swimming with the sharks and sting rays. I was not too excited about it, but Rylie was. The guides started chumming the water and here come the nurse sharks, sting rays and jackfish. That’s when I decided I could get just as good of a look from within the boat. So that’s what I did. I stayed on the boat with two of the guides and watched them throw bait in the water. Rylie (and everyone else) got in the water and the guides were playing the animals… Rylie got a chance to pet one of the nurse sharks and was super excited. Our next stop was part of the reef. I decide I was going in this time. As soon as I jumped in, I saw a huge barracuda. We did a drift snorkel along the reef for about 45 minutes. We saw lots of fish, a hawkbill turtle, an eel, etc. On the way back we stopped at the underwater cave and saw lots of tarpon and got a chance to try to feed them. After that trip we went back to the island to eat. Rylie decided to try the lobster and I had nachos. They also had a tall “diving” platform right by the restaurant. Rylie had fun with that. We took the boat back to the mainland then the ferry back to the ship. Rylie played basketball with her friends that night and I called it an early night.
Day six we were in Cozumel, Mexico. We chose the “Save the Turtles Experience” excursion. We got off the boat and a bus took us to San Miguel. We first stopped at a small roadside market. Rylie got a chance to hold a huge iguana and she bought her first drink… and Pina Colada. We then headed to the beach. The biologists at the beach had already pin pointed 4 Loggerhead turtle nests that had hatched the previous evening. Our job was to dig up the nests (about 3 feet down) and find the remaining 20% (ish) of baby turtles that were not strong enough to make it out the nest and to sea. We split up and we had 5 people at our nest. Rylie and one other lady took the lead with the digging. At the end of the dig, we discovered about 60 shells that had hatched and we found 4 little turtles that were still alive! We named them Queso, Guacamole, Taco and Hope (she was the weakest of the bunch). After all the groups had finished, we set them all (12 total) out to sea. It took them a little while to get past the waves, but we watched for about 20 minutes as the struggles and grew stronger. Once the last one made it out past the rocks, we all screamed and cheered. When we were leaving one of the biologists had a very rare baby albino turtle. They were going to wait till night to release that one since it’s easier for the prey to see the that one. We got back to the port and did some shopping then back to the ship. That night Rylie hung with more friends and I went to a Rock and Roll show. I enjoyed a few glasses of champagne. At first, I thought I had too much champagne because I started stumbling after watching the show… then I realized that the seas were so ruff from following in Tropical Storm Barry that was sitting in the Gulf. So, I had a few more glasses and called it an early night!
Day one on the boat was a bit of a blur. Between waiting to get in the room, then waiting for our luggage, the safety drill, our A/C in the room not working, etc., we were exhausted. That night was pretty low key. We did go to the karaoke bar for Rylie to sing a couple songs and make some new friends.
Day seven was a day at sea. I woke up for breakfast and noticed that the boat was rocking so much that the pool looked like a wave pool. I quickly ate, took some Dramamine and went back to bed. The boat was rocking ALL DAY/NIGHT. So, I stayed in bed most of the day and watched HGTV. Rylie did her usual.
Day eight we woke up early and headed off the ship along with another 2,500 people. It was a bit chaotic, but went faster than I thought it would.
