 | | Almost there! Enroute KDFW - KBZE!!!
Somewhere over Mexico
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 | | The mandatory safety drill to make sure everyone knows where the kid's life vests are. Doh!
Belize City, Belize
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 | | Chilling for breakfast, getting ready for the first dive of the trip!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | So we tried to get some of our friends to go on the trip. Perhaps we should have played up the 'talent' factor. This is Aaron, one of the divemasters.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Scenic shot of the free from over the lip of the wall.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Turtle time!!!!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | John, a local doing DM this dive, saw everything. This is a short neck crab, one of those decorator crabs that puts on a gillie-suit and hides... very well...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Two Queen Angel fish doing a dance (or trying to get away from me)
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Another scenic shot above the wall, taken by one of the girls w/ the underwater mode to remove the blue tint.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Some fish swirling around, Aaron hovering, and me in the background ruining a picture of something cool. This being my first few dives w/ the camera+strobes i botched quite a few opportunities : )
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Standard Barrel Sponge. They're everywhere but i still think they're way cool.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | More sponges, there guys are everywhere too.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Schools of fish would hang out under the boat looking for stuff to eat. Usually Horse Eyed Jacks (in this case), but often Tarpon and Chub.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Yeah buddy! One of the things Peter Hughes is known for is having the safety stop bar. As the boat drifts in the current it takes you for a nice ride, it makes it easy to do your 3 minutes too!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Kathy at the edge of the wall keeping an eye out for cool pelagics!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Remora cruising out in the open looking for something to mooch off of.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | The Sun Dancer II moving, that's the emer outboard rig being towed.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | DM Elsie pointing out something cool. For you fellas that didn't want to go- your loss!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A pregnant banded shrimp hanging around...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Green Moray trying to get away from us.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A school of Tang, the non-orange kind.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Some more scenery.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Another fishie trying to get away.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Throughout all the the dives we were shadowed by Tarpon and other fish higher up on the food chain trying to see if we'd kill anything they can mooch on.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | All the ladies on the trip. It reminds me of the Cingular commercial, or that fish-to-caveman pictorial...sorta.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | So i saw this ray in the distance. No, it was a shark. No, a swordfish... uh.. a trashbag... drifting in the current. Doh.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Hi itty bitty fishie!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Another banded shrimp trying to be careful around something big enough to eat it.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Here's the wall.... with a haze a foot or two off it. But the haze is alive. Something must be spawning so we're going thru coral spooge or something. You can see the little specs move in front of your facemask...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Barracuda that's been assigned to me for this dive. No worries, they're not after us. We're way bigger than they are. But they can sure as hell freak you out at night!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Some crew hijinks. Capt Mike was dinking around on the surface when Aaron swam up w/ a tank of air and a spare reg...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | That's a big shell that hermit crab has. And he lugged it up that sponge! Not that there was much up there for him except a balancing act...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A squid i lit up w/ my twin strobes and flashlight. Not only did i blind him for a bit, i advertised his presence to the barracuda, groupers, and everything else that eats other things. But he got off lucky this time and i got a nice shot.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Little bugger.. these octopi like to hide. They constantly change color and shape... at lease when pursued by photog divers : )
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A group chilling...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Another octopi trying to get away...
LighthouseReef, Belize
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 | | A medium sized nurse shark just sitting there all innocent like. I came along and shined a few lights in his face and he tried to get away.. right at me because he couldn't see where he was going. I had to bop him (gently) on the nose to make him go away! How cool is that!!!!!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | That's me swimming about with my tarpon buddy in front of me.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Me again going through a break between coral heads...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Checking the sand for things to eat...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A nurse shark getting away from us. I plopped down a foot or so in front of him and bugged him enough that he wanted to leave : (
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Everyone going through the coral (or about to).
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A stingray cruising, they normally don't fly so high...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Triggerfish passing by...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A couple of tiny critters inside a sponge. You normally don't see the blennies in sponges...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Suckers! The poor people and/or non-real-divers take day boats from the city. It's a 3 hours bouncy ride each way... we just wake up, take a nice stretch, and splash in. Screw waking up at 5am to torture ourselves in paradise!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A stingray looking for food in the grass...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Fariy Basset on the side of a Barrel Sponge.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Gray Angel Fish...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A sting ray taking off after being buried in the sand.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Capt Mike (macroman) catching the action with his photon torpedo cannon of a camera.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | That's me at the bottom inching up to the shark. Check out the ghetto rig!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Kathy hovering over a barrel sponge.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A closeup of a stingray from a foot away.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Little fishes resting on some coral.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Hind just kicking it.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | An Arrow Crab (and a baby urchin) inside a sponge. It took many pictures to get one that sorta came out!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Sargent Major protecing his/her eggs on the rock (see blue tint of the fish? it'll get darker). Also note the white marks above his head- teeth marks from another fish trying to make dinner from the eggs!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Blenny hovering above his hole. They spook easily but if you stay still they come right back out.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Parrot Fish sleeping at night. Did you know each one of those critters makes ~1 ton of coral sand a year?! (from dead coral so it's ok/good)
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Some Brittle Stars at night on some sponges.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A bug.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | More bugs, this time of the shrimpus variety, banded.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Fairy Basslet sleeping inside a sponge at night on the wall.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A Spotted Moray trying to get away from me on this night dive. It is a little spooky diving on the wall at night, you have your back to the open ocean...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Sunset on day 3 of the trip.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A conch checking if it's safe to come out. He got lucky, an Eagle Ray just tried to eat him.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Around 120 ft down or so, me taking a picture of Kathy.
The Blue Hole, Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Kathy making the splash off the dive deck and me about to follow.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Awww... how cute. Lance and Kathy.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | It's hard to get a good picture of these guys since they're always crusing at a decent speed.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | One of my favorite pictures of the trip, too bad i didn't take it. A big ol' Eagle Ray is about to chomp on that conch!!!! Whoa.. those things are big with some seriously massive shells. The literature doesn't say they eat these buggers, but we even have video of it. John, the local, always thought it was the dolphins/octopus littering the ground with busted up conchs too.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | The name escapes me at the moment but it's basically a slug with some frilly stuff on his back.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | More turtle time! This was a fantastic dive site for big critters.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | After going to 135ft we needed some surface time so we make a short excursion to Half Moon Cay. That's Aaron and Katie in the boat with us.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Hahaha... not all of it's for sale btw...
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A big old hermit crawling around on Half Moon...
Half Moon Caye, Belize
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 | | A frigate bird soaring over us...
Half Moon Caye, Belize
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 | | Some Boobies chilling in the treetops.
Half Moon Caye, Belize
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 | | Some coral to offset all the fish pics. Elephant Ear i think it is.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | At 135ft only the sharks can hear you scream. During one of the last ice ages when the ocean levels went down the cave was made. Later it collapsed and you can swim down it to see the stalagtites.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Capt Mike trying to avoid a prop strike on the coral while extracating us from the blue hole. That's Half Moon Caye ahead of us.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | This little crab was right under me and scurried away asap. He then buried himself a foot or two away.. right by Katie who was lounging about.. and she hates crabs. I guess college in london was hard for her : )
Half Moon Cay, Belize
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 | | Aaron trying real hard and putting in some time with the Ranger/Gift Shop girl. He put in a lot our hours that week, not much return for him.
Half Moon Caye, Belize
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 | | The light house(s) on the island and some of the local's residences. It's not as populated as it was the last time i was here... a hurricane busted it up in between (again).
Half Moon Caye, Belize
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 | | Some Creole Wrasse streaming by. I love these little buggers.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Splish-splash!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Some Chromis and something else above some corals.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A butterfly fish with a little contusion!
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | A big hermit crab in a conch shell trying to figure me out.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | I'm not sure if you can make it out but there is a jelly in focus in the middle of the picture. It's all black because it's night, you can't really see them during the day (and they don't come out during the day anyways)
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Kathy and I swimming along the wall.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Me silhouette against the surface.
Lighthouse Reef, Belize
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 | | Great shot by Collette! A Kodak moment of the group watching a turtle do it's thing.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | What you see going in/out of the water. Someone is always there to lend a hand or a fresh warm towel straight of the dryer. There's no other way to do this!
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Me and the other half!
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | John the fish leading the pack.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | The crew. They did a fantastic job with us 5 passengers. The crew: Jerry, Mike, Elie, Aaron, Barb, Carlos, John, Elsie.
Sun Dancer II
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 | | Yet another banded shrimp.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A christmas tree worm and a tiny fish that i forgot the name of.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A Triggerfish lodged in there so that he can't escape me... ha... fishes.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A Fairy Basslet on a Brain coral.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Big ol' crab just chilling and waiting for us to go away.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A Honeycombed Cowfish. Note the scrape marks on his side.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A squirrel fish hiding about. I was never a big fan of these funny looking critters. They never did anything except hid and look ugly (to me anyways)
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A something or other on a brain coral.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Ummm... so kathy pointed these things out a few times on the trip. Like i need more pictures of them but i obliged. Turns out she just wanted to know what they were : )
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Turns out the little blueish fishes will come out to clean you if you sit still... cool...
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Cool looking baby fish but it's not a baby. It's the best picture i can take with my canon point-n-shoot : (
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Chromis sitting by some algae and some star coral.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | 3 minutes of safety stop!
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | I think this is a baby fish trying to hide all concealed like.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | An anenome and the shrimp that hide in them.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | I think this is a scorpion fish but it sorta looks like a real fish. Maybe it's a juvie?
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | I found this crab sitting on a sea fan and molested him with about 20 pictures/flashes at night. He's still blinded.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | These brave little fish are out in the open at night. Hard to focus on them, especially with those @#$*%@#$ f*king shrimp swarming you and and your lights... little fuckers..
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A tiny hermit crab in some coral.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | x-mas tree worm.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | So here i am crusing about at night and i see this fishmarket display of a fish. Ha! This little bugger is hiding/sleeping in this sponge! How about that... he's kinda big for it don't ya think?
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Everyone decending at the same time...
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | The Sun Dancer II and a barracuda guarding it.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Feather Duster worm collecting food.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A Sand Diver sitting like they do on the coral.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A Toadfish holed up. There were a ton at this dive site, but it's hard to get a good shot of them since they pick the smallest and darkest holes.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A spotted moray checking me out.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | 3 shrimps hanging about and making some wierd motions in the water...
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Run away! Two fish making a beeline for the nearest cover.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | An anenome of which i've never seen in the caribbean.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | *yawn* Arrowcrab, they were everywhere here.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | A Spotted Golden Moray, a baby one.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Another one of these anenome that's new to me.
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Yeah, i don't take pictures of algae and display them. There's something there. Where's waldo?
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | *sniff* Surfacing after the last dive. It was a great trip, i'm glad kathy didn't kill me and had a good time : )
Turneffe Islands, Belize
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 | | Friday afternoon we took a short drive to tour Altun Ha. See the cracker americans on the left... ai... we had to apologize for their behavior.
Altun Ha ruins, Belize
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 | | Some of the reliefs on the pyramid.
Altun Ha, Belize
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 | | The big pyramid at the site, the area was mostly a merchant/trading zone. The religious centers had bigger structures.
Altun Ha, Belize
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 | | Back to the boat docked at the Radisson dock.
Belize City, Belize
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 | | So Saturday we signed up for a tour... and it happens to be pouring. So we ducked into the walmart of Belize (brodies) for some ponchos...
Belize City, Belize
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 | | We're supposed to get out to go on a boat ride and then hike some?!?
Western Highway, Belize
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 | | Some snake cactus on our jungle cruise.
New River, Belize
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 | | Kathy being a good sport : ) For us white folks this was a total disney jungle ride to the ruins. Sweet!!!
New River, Belize
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 | | A jesus bird (he walks on water) that's been talked into showing his yellow feathers by Roberto (a mayan).
New River, Belize
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 | | A lilly pad and associated flowers.
New River, Belize
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 | | The menonites. Kinda of a wierd arrangement they have. Live off the land like the amish, but they're good welders and people contract them to make boats and stuff.
New River, Belize
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 | | When you see a vulture stretching his wings in the rain he's trying to tell you how big of a house he wants. Because if he had that house he wouldn't get wet and have to flap his wings to dry off (not water proof)
New River, Belize
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 | | Roberto showing the famous head at the jaguar temple. We were the only ones on the tour!
Lamanai, Belize
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 | | The view from the talled pyramid at 'Lamanaiun'. The spanish screwed up when they recorded the name...
Lamanai, Belize
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 | | Ok, i kind made her climb it. I mean, how many time will you have the opportunity to do so? : )
Lamanai, Belize
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 | | Two memonite kids catching dinner.
New River, Belize
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 | | So all the telephone poles in the rural areas were covered in political slogans. PUP vs UDP.
Western Highway, Belize
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 | | The local ironman contest. The turnout wasn't as big as the carival the previous day and there were some shady looking folks here and there. Especially on the way back! (want to buy some ganja man?)
Belize City, Belize
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