My wife and I asked a few close friends to go on an epic vacation to Central America to visit the country of Belize to celebrate her 40th birthday. We planned this over two years ago right before the Covid outbreak in March of 2020. We finally were able to make this dream happen and successfully went last week. It truly was a trip of a lifetime.
We planned the trip to one of the islands off the mainland called Ambergris Caye and rented an ocean front Airbnb for the week. The house manager was very accommodating and made our stay perfect along with many tours and activities we had planned prior to leaving the USA. A direct flight from Charlotte to Belize City was the route we took, followed by a 12 seater jumper plane to the island and a 5 mile golf cart ride to our off the grid solar powered abode.
We had a game plan in place most days with fishing tours, snorkeling, island site seeing and of course plenty of time to chill on the beach with copious amounts of tasty cocktails made by yours truly, AKA The Pool Boy! The amount of fresh seafood we caught was crazy and so delicious and each meal started with fresh ceviche on the back of the boat we chartered.
One of the highlights of my trip was catching a 4 ft barracuda off the reef. It gave me a solid fight on the fishing rod and successfully got it on the boat, fileted it and ate it 20 min later along with red snapper, trigger fish and grouper. One of the companies we hired was called Xsite Belize Sailing and Adventures and they did a wonderful job. I will post their company info along with a few others in the bottom of this post in case you are able to get down to the island.
The best part of Belize is that its the 2nd largest reef system in the world and could get to most areas within a few minutes from the dock. We all snorkeled a few times while there and what we saw was the best we have ever seen by a mile! All the images in this post were captured by my smaller Canon G15 point and shoot and it certainly does pack a punch without having to bring my massive bag of gear. It was certainly the way to go with it being light weight and easy to bring out and about each day.
Towards the end of the week we chartered another fishing company, Belize Candace Tours, which also did an amazing job! We caught another round of tasty fish to eat along with spear fishing for lobster. I was only able to spear one lobster, but it was a direct hit underneath a large coral structure and quite the excitement! We then had a beach BBQ lunch with the fish we caught followed by more snorkeling activities.
Our last day on the island was mostly enjoyed at the villa soaking in the view of the ocean and Secret Beach. We wrapped it all up with one last snorkel adventure to Hol Chan Marine Reserve which was about an hour boat ride to that part of the reef and saw all types of coral, fish, sea turtles, nurse sharks, sting rays and much more. We concluded the vacation with a sunset cruise, dinner on the boat and ton of cold beer and rum punch!
If you have made it this far in this lengthy blog post, thank you indulging me with sharing all these great images and memories :)
Please do take a moment and check out the links below to the vendors and venues we worked with while down in Belize. Be sure to put this destination on your bucket list as it was truly unBELIZEable.
Airbnb Secret Sunset Villa
Xsite Belize Sailing and Adventures
Belize Candace Fish and Reef Tours
Hol Chan Marine Reserve
Rocks Golf Cart Rentals
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