Vaughan's Travel Blog

Photo

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:12:00 -0400

the only bar

our island of paradise, with our cabanas

that's my knuckle

elusive eagle ray

hiding stingray

flounder anyone

can you see the scorpionfish?

Photo

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:03:00 -0400

Our home

hanging out....

Barracuda

the beginning of sunset

local drinks on the patio

Tobacco Caye – A little piece of paradise

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:52:53 -0400

So we headed out of the jungle to our final destination in Belize, Tobacco Caye. This is a small island, about 2 football fields, off the coast of southern Belize. We got in a small speedboat that headed directly out into the ocean from the small city of Dangriga. After about 30 minutes, we saw a small island, ala Gilligan’s Island, coming over the horizon. With small buildings and about thirty palm trees, we could tell this was going to be a good 4 days.

Upon arrival, we found our place, Tobacco Caye Paradise, and that’s what it was. Our small cabana had a bedroom and bathroom, but walking out onto our patio turned our place priceless. The patio opened our over the coral gardens and looked onto the reef break. After settling down, we walked around the island, an adventure of only about 15 minutes, and realized we truly were isolated. There were only 2 open ‘resorts,’ both with cabanas, a tiki bar, snack shack and marine reserve station, that’s it!

We decided we were going to dive for a day, and found the dive shop located on in a building on the end of dock, with the customary sea eagle nest adorning the roof. The travel time to the dive sites was 5 minutes, as the Divemaster pointed out, were right behind the island. Our dives had many of our underwater friends, from schools of lionfish, to the odd turtle and various other critters. The experience of diving a reef that sees less than 5 divers a week was a special one.

The remaining days were spent doing what we do, snorkelling, hanging out, sampling the local rums. Mornings were spent sitting on our patio, reading, as the odd stingray floated by, searching out its next meal. In the afternoon, we cruised over to the opposite side of the island for some of the best snorkelling we’ve ever witnessed. In our three days, we saw large grey stingrays, plenty of fish, small spotted stingrays and the elusive eagle ray, something we’ve never seen. After dinner drinks were taken on our patio, ‘bug-less’ from the warm ocean breeze, as the full moon gave the water a shimmering appearance. After a couple of rums, we headed off to the tiki bar. This bar is straight out of the movies, set in the sand, made of local timber, local rums and cool vibes coming out of the old speakers. All the residents, maybe 30 people, hanging out, talking to the few tourists and reminding us about how they’re ‘living the life.’

Few countries catch my imagination like Belize did, and for a second time. Tobacco Caye was the perfect ending to a brief but needed break…..until next time

Photo

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:42:04 -0400

Photo

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:33:00 -0400

Caye Caulker motto

CC's main activity

The view from our cabana

sunset hangout, the "Split"

watching the world go by

manatee anyone?

baby cowfish......about 3 inches long

interacting with the local wildlife

Caye Caulker - breaking my one rule

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:23:10 -0400

The world is too big, so I have made a life rule that I do not travel to the same place twice, unless we’re talking Caye Caulker. The moment I left CC 2 years ago, I knew I’d be back and the when we stepped off the water taxi, I remembered why.

We were greeted by the locals as we walked down the street, and by street I mean sandy path with a smattering of a few golf carts, with words of welcome from “enjoy paradise” to “welcome to our beautiful island.” It was exactly as I remembered.

We got situated at our cabana that faced out into the water and the distant reef break, catching the ocean breeze before setting off on our 4 day adventure. It consisted of roaming up and down the main ‘street,’ sipping cold beers, chatting with locals and tourists alike and finding the best fresh cooked meals on the cheap, Bob Marley never far from our ears. Dinners were taken at places that ranged from a kitchen in a shack and food on a picnic table to tables set in the sand with the restaurant at our back and views for miles.

Our nights began to become repetitive as we found a hangout in the back streets called ‘Wish Willy’s.’ An island man had turned his backyard into a gathering ground for the hungry and thirsty. Originally we were lured in by the $1 mixed drinks but returned night after night to hang with the owner and soak up the vibe. He would sit out with us and chill, always ready to bring us a new cold island rum and coke, while telling stories of the US, the island and anything else he thought of. The visits culminated in a final night where we bartered our left over tequila for free rum after the place had closed down, and sat around with his buddies and heard them roundtable about island politics and life in general, which seemed pretty great to me.

As always, the ocean beckoned us and we listened. A day on the boat brought us one of our most perfect days ever. Our first stop was on the edge of the reef break where we climbed into the water, swam about 30 ft and glimpsed the graceful ocean manatee. After the experience, we quickly moved to the Hol Chan marine reserve that offers unbelievable snorkeling. We saw a phenomenal array of underwater friends from moray eels to large groupers, schools of large jacks and giant coral. The preservation effort was in full effect. The final stop was shark and ray alley, which delivered just that. Boats pull up to a designated area and with a small amount of food. They chum the waters; this brings in the local sting ray and nurse shark population. We were able to have these beautiful creatures gracefully swim around us, close enough that we could touch the mild sand-papery skin of the sharks and smooth wings of the 5 foot stingray. Our day was completed by one more swim with the wild manatees.

So, for 2 years I had always looked back to CC as a magically perfect place that I could break my #1 travel rule, and after a second visit I’m glad I did.

Photo

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:59:00 -0400

The BIG ones....

amazing turtles of Akumal

another sea grass friend

getting down there

so much TEQUILA!!

Photo

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:45:00 -0400

Our Mexican Eats

Ek' Balam by ourselves

Locals doing what locals do

Clear cenote waters

When in Rome...

Do as the Romans do

Official Magaritas

Tulum

Mexico - our own way

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:38:01 -0400

So we’re sitting on an air conditioned coach bus going toward the Mexican-Belize border and it gives me a chance to reflect on my week in the Yucatan. Having travelled through many countries in southeast Asia, some of which have legitimate terrorist organizations, I was more scared of my brief foray into our NAFTA partner. But I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Our version of traveling consists of local transport and off the beaten path destinations. It’s nearly impossible to go somewhere no one else is as this place was packed, however we did get to do it OUR way.

We rented a car and left super early to travel to the ancient ruins of Ek’ Balam, a lesser known Mayan city, but were greeted with beautiful temples and buildings that peeked through the jungle canopy. With these ruins, guests are still allowed to climb to the top and we were witness to fantastic views of the surrounding forest, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves, of which our pictures can attest. After a second day of ruins, the ocean-side city of Tulum, we were ready to see some natural sights. Our travels took us to a cenote, a fresh water spring that forms caves and swimming holes. The crystal clear water, fading darkness of underwater caves and huddling bats above us gave quite the experience. We also signed up to swim with whale sharks! This would be our second time, having done it once before in the Philippines. Our experience was made all the more special as this time we were swimming through water with limitless visibility. With our strong swimming skills, we were able to cruise along beside the giant fish and watch them feed and look directly into their eyes. The experience was amazing!

Our brush with nature wasn’t complete as we took the local ‘collectivo’ to Akumal beach. This is a famous beach where turtles come to feed on the seagrass. With fins and snorkel in hand, we submerged into the beautiful blue water and found ourselves surrounded by feeding turtles. It was quite the sight to be able to dive down the 4 or 5 feet to the bottom and watch these gentle creatures chomping away. There was also a coral reef that held a wary spotted eel, large parrotfish, squid, stingrays and a variety of other reef inhabitants.

Mexico was a wonderful place to visit and beyond the sneaky gas attendant trying to overcharge us for gas, a completely safe country. We spent our days eating at local restaurants, having authentic food, cervezas and margaritas, meeting locals who had even visited Canada, diving the beautiful coral reefs and relaxing to people-watch the hoards of visitors from a rooftop Rasta bar. Mexico has so much to offer and I can definitely see ourselves coming back, but only if we can do it our way again.

This guy was upset….such a cool find on the trail though

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:26:54 -0400

This guy was upset….such a cool find on the trail though

It's all over...so what did I think?

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:55:21 -0500

Alright, so now that I’m on my way to Singapore, how was the last six weeks and what will I say to everyone? In short, “Great but hard! Yes!” So what were the questions, well, “how was it? And would I recommend it?”

For anyone who has read the blog, almost all stories involve a negative aspect, which I don’t think was really an issue the last trip, but I’m writing about what happened and I’m not ready to sugar-coat it. The hard stuff usually involved traveling from place to place. The buses in the Philippines rarely had air-conditioning, almost always were cramped and never had working shocks. We suffered through hours of bumpy roads, roosters in bags and sweltering heat. Our destinations were often hard to get to, taking at least 3 modes of transport, once 9 different ones, and a constant barrage of Filipino men yelling at us and trying to rip us off. There were steroid filled roosters crowing from 4 am to noon, Asians swarming touristy places and body jarring boat rides. On numerous occasions we paid for food we couldn’t get past three bites and had locals staring at us like freaks. Believe it or not, the Philippines is not wholly on the travel radar so the people, hotels and organizations don’t quite know what to do. So how can I possibly recommend this place. Simple, the good is great and you can do/find things here that can’t be done/found anywhere else in the world. Just ask me first and I’ll tell you the where and how :).

We sat on beautiful beaches that were surrounded by coral gardens better than we’d seen anywhere else, we saw animals that will forever been engrained in our minds and had experiences incomparable to our last trip. Let’s recap, I swam with whale sharks, climbed and swam in a live volcano, saw the smallest primates in the world (tarsier), dove in crystal clear waters with literally thousands of fish. I drank 75 cent beers, watched the Superbowl with hundreds of westerners, had a nipa cottage with beachfront views, saw the sun set into the ocean, caught toads and geckos and snorkeled with sea snakes. Again, would I recommend it, hell yes!!

Closing that chapter…

The pictures…remember its the size of a long minivan

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:41:00 -0500

the head

tail

pectoral fins

chipped tail

gills

ally diving down, see the shadow?

The pictures…remember its the size of a long minivan

My mind was blown...

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:32:38 -0500

So I booked these flights in April of last year knowing only one thing; whale sharks. I had no other information about the Philippines and no idea if I’d even like it, but I knew there were sharks and I knew that I wanted to have that experience.

Now when I do get the pictures up, they will do no justice to the experience. Just like a picture of a beautiful mountain or sunset cannot truly capture the enormity of it, so I’ll add my words and try to help out the pictures.

We were in Donsol for 4 days and had the intention of swimming as often as possible because it only cost $15 each per day, compared to over $150 in Aus. There had been a storm come through a week earlier so we were warned that the visibility would not be fantastic (as per the pics), but that the sharks were there. We were raring to go.

After about 2 hours on the boat with no sightings we were beginning to lose hope, when our spotter yelled “butanding” (filipino for whale shark) and pointed to our left hand side. The procedure went into action where we threw on our gear and readied ourselves at the edge of the boat waiting for our guide to say go. “Go!” and I’m in this murky green water with 6 other people looking underwater for the shark. Our guide is right above it and swimming towards me and pointing down, again I stick my head under the water. Visibility is about 3 m so I can’t really see much and then bang, right in front of my face, 2 m away is this massive beast, with a mouth over a meter and the body of a stretch limo. Now I’m a competent snorkeler and let’s just say the expletive that came out of my mouth caused the snorkel to come out and me to choke on a liter of sea water, and it was gone. I surfaced and looked at Ally with the biggest smile on my face.

Now, for anyone who doesn’t know, a whale shark is completely harmless; it feeds on plankton and it’s mouth though long, doesn’t open very wide. They are also extremely gentle and generally fearful of us. However, your mind can TELL you one thing but your eyes and instincts are going to DO something else entirely. Like I said, seeing a giant fish emerge out of the murkiness and float by you is intimidating to say the least. This feeling stayed with me throughout the week every single time I entered the water.

So we ended up going 3 times, one time we did not see any sharks, but one day we saw 3 and swam with them and the other day saw between 2 and 5 and swam 10 times for extended periods of time. I can honestly say that if I did it every day, one hundred times, I wouldn’t get sick of it ever. These creatures are extremely humbling and I must say, stir your emotions. We were also extremely lucky as there was a guy there from WWF who was doing research into the whales as they are virtually unknown in the scientific community. Having had marine biologist aspirations in university, it was amazing to talk to Darren. We even had the luxury of seeing him at a restaurant and ended up sharing Tanduay and cokes until we shut the place down. I must say it was awesome talking to someone who has so much passion for our underwater environment and to my own credit, I was able to keep up and even add my own underwater knowledge (thank-you Discovery Channel). We about everything from stopping shark finning to ecotourism to what Ally and I could do to help.

Overall, this experience was nearly indescribable and completely mind-blowing. I would suggest to anyone to find where these creatures congregate (just north of Cancun is the closest) and do everything in your power to have this experience.

What a happy way to say goodbye to the Philippines…

Check this out...

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 07:18:14 -0500

Check this out...:

Snorkeling with our favorite fish, cheeky clownfish

Tarsiers…..so wierd

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:28:00 -0500

Can you see it?

Tarsiers…..so wierd

Malapascua Is. - crazy and calm diving....

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:25:10 -0500

As I have mentioned numerous times, travel here is much harder and to be honest we were getting tired of the grind. After changing our plans a couple of times we decided we would spend the rest of our time before our flight to the whale sharks in one place. We chose Malapascua which was of course a long bus ride and battling with sketchy Filipinos over the boat ride but we made it to our small island and settled in for the long haul.

As always we consulted our lonely planet book and chose Blue Water Resort because the price was right for both staying and diving. Well the long and short of it was that it was disappointing. To break it down the owner was gone and the people running it didn’t give a $#!t about anything. More on that later.

We spent our first couple days unwinding and letting the travel wash away. We took a couple hour walk and went around the whole island. We also ate dinner at all the restaurants and cruised along the beachfront walkway at night. In all honesty, you could walk the pathway and pass maybe one other person. We felt like we were alone out there. We even spent a couple hours snorkeling on a secluded cove where we saw our usual suspects of fish.

After a couple of days we wanted to get under the water and see the thresher sharks. This was why we came. We asked our hotel 2 or 3 times if they could take us and they kept making excuses for not going. We actually had to tell them we were leaving to go to another shop before they finally begrudgingly did…and it was a disaster. Our guide didn’t have a clue, and broke every diving rule in the book from disrupting sea life to smashing coral because be had no control of his fins. Our regulators leaked and unbelievably on our second dive they brought a guy who collected shells for sale!!! It was disgusting and we have decided to report them. After that we made a decision that even though it would be more of a hassle and cost more we were not diving with them again.

We headed down to the beach and spoke with the guy at Evolution and signed up for our big thresher dive. Now this place is a sunken island with nothing to see except maybe a thresher. Its sort of unique but is the only place in the world where they congregate consistently. Unfortunately because of a storm, the shops on the island hadn’t gone in a couple days so when we got there, there was 13 boats and over 100 divers. Needless to say the shy creatures never appeared. After that we headed to Gato Island for 2 more dives and we were pleasantly surprised. Though, again because of the storm, there were a lot of divers we saw sea snakes, a 3 m whitetip shark, moray eel, baby squid and the 6 mm long Pygmy seahorse. This thing was almost impossible to see but a great check off the list. It softened the pain of not seeing the thresher. We decided not to dive for the thresher again, you have to be at the boat at 5 am every morning and of course when we asked later they had gotten a sighting, but I guess that’s the luck of the draw.

Anyways, all in all the island was a pleasure, we saw cool things, met two awesome Canadians (the first on this trip) and got to officially chill.

Now we have 2 days in Cebu to watch the superbowl, Ally’s Steelers are in it, then it’s off to the mother of all fish, whale sharks where we will not be leaving until we get some facetime with them.

Our first impressions….

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 02:50:26 -0500

Our first impressions….

Apo, Diving, Twin Lakes and Casaroro Falls

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 01:52:00 -0500

rooster on the bus....

More animal friends

Twin Lakes

THE FALLS

Apo, Diving, Twin Lakes and Casaroro Falls

Bohol - rain, rain and tarsiers

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:54:52 -0500

This one will be short. After our mind-boggling day of travel we couldn’t wait to go see the sights of Bohol. Tops of the list was the tarsier research center. For anyone who hasn’t seen one of these things, they are weird but cute at the same time (insert joke here). We rented a bike and headed out into the pouring rain. After about a 25 min ride into the interior we made it. Our $1 entry fee got us a half hour video and walk with a guide to see the tarsiers. We had no idea what to expect as it was raining, plus tarsiers are nocturnal, so we were hesitant to say the least. To our surprise we were led into a caged sanctuary where the tarsiers can roam and hunt free. Before the PETA people get up in arms, this is a breeding program and the area was big enough for each tarsier to have their own territory, which in the wild they rarely leave. We were shown 3 tarsiers, 2 at head level, within arms reach. Seeing these yoda/ET/gremlin creatures in real life is something. It made our day. Check out the pics, and just to give you a size reference, they are about the size of your fist!!

Anyways, due to the rain we headed back to the hotel to wait it out. Long and short of it, it didn’t stop, plus Ally came down with a terrible migraine and that was Bohol. Though I wanted to see more, the weather did not cooperate and we just gave up.

There are two more stops on our Philippine adventure, Malapascua, where we hope to dive with thresher sharks and mantas and donsol with whale sharks. After so many tough days, I’m looking forward to the beach and some R & R.

On the millionth bus with no shocks this trip…

Really Vaughan, you videotaped Ally tossing her breaky?? REALLY? haha

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:17:10 -0500

yes i did and it will be up as soon as i get good internet!!!