We squeezed hands as the plane touched down in Belize City. Our spring vacation had finally arrived and after the hectic pace of the last few months we were ready for this getaway to a warm tropical place and a chance to relax and get in a little diving in the clear Caribbean Sea. It was an early flight out of Miami but that meant we were now on the ground just a little after noontime. The airport was fairly primitive and it took a bit of time to make our way through immigration and customs. This was further hampered by the apparent nonarrival of our luggage! Crap! Why does this always happen at the worst possible time. Never when you're headed home...no...only when it means all your dive gear is missing in action and you're on a dive trip. At least we had our carry on bags...regulators, dive masks, computers, camera. After filling out the forms at the lost luggage window we finally made it out of the arrival gate and saw our name being held up on a clipboard.
"Are you the O'briens," asked a young woman in a pleasant Hispanic accent.
"Sorry we were delayed," I replied. "It seems that our luggage has taken its own tour."
Frowning, the girl went back into the terminal to speak with one of the attendants. A short time later she returned.
"I've told them we'll be in touch by radio later tonight to see when your things might arrive. Aside from today's pick up day we usually only come back in to the mainland on Wednesday. We'll have to see what we might be able to work out. For now, we need to head on to the dock to get to the boat."
Our destination was Blackbird Cay. We found this resort through a dive magazine which reported outstanding reefs and beautiful tropical island feel. Located on an island that is part of the Turneffe Atoll, the resort is about an hour boat ride from the mainland in the Caribbean Sea. The pictures from the brochure showed individual grass roof palapa lined up facing the beach and ocean set back under tall palm trees. We tried to put the concern over lost bags in the back of our minds as our shuttle bus pulled up to the dock and we got our first look at the clear blue water. Clearly we were in the tropics. The air was thick with humidity but had the pleasant smell of the ocean.
Because of our delay at the airport we were the last guests to arrive at the boat that would take us to our resort and hardly a minute passed before the crew was casting off lines and the boat started to move away from the dock.
The young woman who met us at the airport was obviously our host and called us together in the back part of the boat to serve us some cold drinks and give us some introductory information about our upcoming week.
"My name is Ana and I want to welcome you to Belize," she began. "We're looking forward to having a great week sharing some of the world's best diving with you all. If you look around you'll see that there are eight of you on this boat and we'll meet 2 other couples who arrived midweek last week and are already on island. Our resort has a maximum capacity of 28 guests but as I'm sure you've already calculated there will only be 12 of you for the entire week. Since it is such a light week for our staff we've cut back the number of workers that will be out there but please don't worry that this will affect your stay. Every service that you expect will be provided and anything you might need we will be happy to try to accommodate. I'll be coming around to each of you during our cruise out to get some additional information and give you your room assignments. Meanwhile, enjoy your drinks, there's fruit up in the cabin and take advantage of the time to introduce yourselves around."
Liz and I set our few bags under the benches at the back of the boat and carefully climbed around to the front of the 45 foot dive boat to sit out on the front bow. We were joined there a few minutes later by another couple who introduced themselves as Josh and Peg. The looked to be about our age, mid forties and both appeared to enjoy the sun with dark tans which I commented on.
"We live in southern Florida and are fortunate to be able to enjoy lots of time outdoors," he replied. "I've got a surveying business so I'm out in the sun all day and Peg is an avid gardener."
We talked for a while, getting to know each other and learned that they, like us, have 3 older teenage kids who were spending the next week at various camps or with relatives. Josh had an engaging smile and laugh. It seemed he would be someone easy to spend the week with. Peg's dark tan accentuated her bright blue eyes and sparkling teeth. She made several references to spending time at the gym getting ready for this trip but was concerned about being out of shape. I've always enjoyed a woman with proper curves and to my eye Peg looked just fine. I'll admit to looking forward to seeing her in a bathing suit on the beach. I explained our luggage problem to our new friends.
"I hope you don't mind this shirt and shorts," I said. "You'll be seeing a lot of them this next week."
Liz leaned over and whispered in my ear. "At least you've got shorts that can be a swimsuit. What am I supposed to do?"
She had on a nice, light travel dress that accented her shapely calves and was cut low enough in the front to make it obvious that she had a woman's cleavage. After having have several kids she complained about being "saggy" but in my opinion her breasts made her even more appealing.
"I'm sure we'll figure something out," I responded. "There's bound to be something that's been left by previous guests or that you can borrow. Hey, it can always be like that trip we took to St. Croix two years ago. You didn't even need a suit there!"
"In your dreams mister," she smiled. "That was a private villa and we had a private pool. I'm not sure I could do that here in front of all these people."
To celebrate our 25th anniversary a couple years before we had rented a private oceanfront villa in the US Virgin Islands. The landscaping around the pool and deck had provided the ultimate privacy and we took advantage of that to enjoy some au natural tanning. Since then I'd mentioned going to a nude beach but she'd always just laughed and called me a dirty old man.
By this time we could see a flat line of a low island ahead. The mainland behind us was barely perceptible on the horizon. We were clearly "away from it all". Josh and I climbed back to the rear portion of the boat to refill our drink cups. There, Ana informed us that we still had another 30 to 40 minutes before we'd be at our destination.
The other 2 couples on the boat were talking together and I moved over to introduce myself. The first was Brad and Carol who I learned were from Maryland. They looked to be roughly in their 30's. He told me he was a firefighter while his wife worked at a children's daycare center. The other folks were Jim and Shawna. I guessed them to be in their 50's, just a little older than us. She was an attractive woman with shoulder length gray hair pulled back in a ponytail and a lovely smile. Her husband had apparently just left a business where he was an upper level executive where he was given a comfortable enough severance to allow them to take a break for a while and this trip was the start of some serious travel. Jim looked like he had enjoyed some of the perks of a good life and probably carried around a few extra pounds.