It’s Good... It’s All Good!

(Click HERE for Belize Photos!)

It’s always exciting to be part of our Eels on Wheels group. We always have so much fun together as a group, and this trip was no exception. The cast of characters remains very much the same as on past trips, but the additions to this year’s trip were awesome. This year, Sherrie and I decided not to drive to Houston to meet the group, but rather to fly there from Austin. June 26, 2004 couldn’t come soon enough, so at 6:30am the shuttle picked us up from Sherrie’s house. We arrived at the airport at about 7am for our 9:30am flight. We had no more stepped onto the sidewalk when we learned our flight was running 2 hours late. Lovely. We could have certainly used those 2 hours to sleep since the night before was spent twirling around trying to get it all together! But what concerned us most was the fact that we were scheduled to connect with the rest of the group at 11:30am to fly together to Belize. We knew we’d miss that flight. We found out that another flight would leave from Houston 2 hours later, and we’d be on that flight. Then, I remembered I was holding the transfer passes for the ENTIRE GROUP to go from Belize City to Ambergris Caye. I phoned Chad to let him know our plane would be delayed, and informed him of the crisis regarding the transfers. I don’t know why I worried because, as always, Chad assured me he would take care of things, and not to worry. So it’s all good. We’ll arrive later than we planned, but it’s still all good. As we waited in line to check our luggage, we heard a loud, yet very familiar voice. Low and behold, there was Dr. Joe at the front of the line (of the first class section, I might add) checking in. We were thrilled to see yet another member of our group who would be late to Houston as well. Misery loves company! Dr. Joe is obviously known to the Austin airport personnel, because before we knew it, we were all three checked in for our flight. The only person missing was Kiran. We told him to be at the airport at 7am, but maybe he was still on India time, because it was close to 8am when he arrived. This doesn’t sound like a crisis, after all, we have a 2 hour wait, however, the seats on the flight from Houston to Belize were limited. It was critical that we get Kiran checked in and confirmed on the next flight. By this time, there was a line that extended at least half the length of the waiting area. It was not a fast moving line at all. Thank goodness, Dr. Joe used his charm and personality to sweet talk an employee to take care of our situation. If Dr. Joe had not been there, Kiran would still be in that line! We passed through screening and we sat at our gate and started to catch up on the past year’s events. Time flies when you’re with friends, and before we knew it, we were boarding the plane! We had already accepted the fact that we would be 2 hours behind everyone else, but hey, we were heading to Belize, and it’s good, good... it’s all good! Well, wait a minute, things were good for US, but not for Chad and Sonja. As soon as we were seated in the plane, I picked up my cell phone to turn it off during the flight, and I noticed a missed call. I checked the message and it was Chad. He and Sonja had left their passports at home, so they had to turn around and drive back to Galveston to get them. Since we had the 2 hour delay, we thought they might be able to join us on our flight. I was happy cuz more of us were going to be arriving late together. I could only imagine Chad’s disposition during the drive back home. Chad had no idea that I was thrilled with the news that every once in a while, the perfect doctor messes up now and then! This was so unlike Chad! If ever there was an organized, meticulous, all I’s dotted and T’s crossed, it is Chad! However, knowing Chad, he was probably on call all night, delivering babies or administering anesthesia and didn’t get any sleep. All of us felt the pain Chad was feeling, because we knew he going through his own living hell! Chad called Tammie to let her know that not only was I going to be late with our boarding transfers, HE was going to be late as well! Here we were... the trip planners, and neither of would be accompanying our group! Tammie took charge and sprung into action. The Eels were once again in capable hands! When we arrived in Houston, we headed for our gate. On the way there, we unexpectedly ran into a couple members of our group who informed us that their original flight was delayed 2 hours. Somehow, we still don’t know quite how, three members of our group left on the scheduled flight, but the rest of us would fly to Belize together. We had time to grab a bite and visit briefly before it was time to board. It was so cool to finally be on the plane with the gang! We arrived in Belize City, and we had to divide up into groups for the puddle jumper plane ride to Ambergris Caye. After much shuffling, we got 2 or 3 groups off. I took the last flight, just to make sure everybody had been taken care of. When we boarded the plane, we discovered they were allowing our disabled members to remain in their chair during the flight. I learned later that Lynette prayed the whole way over!! When we arrived, we were greeted with rum punch! We were assigned our rooms and we started unpacking our clothes. After that, Tammie and I (at Chad’s direction) walked to Amigos Del Mar Dive Shop so we could make arrangements for the next day’s dives. We were not pleased with the boats we would be using, but we trusted that they knew what they were doing. They assured us we would be fine. We came back to the resort and found some of our friends eating. Sounded good to us! It was at that time that I FINALLY got to meet Don & Robyn! I’d been e-mailing Don for quite some time regarding underwater videography. He is the master! He’d sent me some DVDs that he’d shot, and I was just blown away! I was really looking forward to meeting someone who shared a love for the same hobby as mine. I was ready to learn anything he had to offer. After we had dinner, Don told me to bring my video housing over to their room so we could "grease o-rings." From now on, anytime I hear that phrase, I’ll forever think about Don! He took my housing apart and totally replaced all of the o-rings, and showed me what I needed to start doing. We must have gotten caught up in the excitement of the greasing of o-rings, because we worked on those o-rings almost 2 1/2 hours! Poor Robyn! She said, "Haven’t ya’ll got those o-rings greased yet?" She was ready to fall asleep, and I was almost asleep as well, not from the o-ring greasing, but just from travel in general! Finally, around midnight or so, we called the o-ring greasing a success!

The next morning, we all got our dive gear ready and headed for the boats! We learned we would be on two boats. We didn’t like that, because it’s so much more fun to be on one boat, but due to the size of these boats, there was no way we could squeeze into one. So, on my boat we had: Don & Robyn, Tammie, Tracy, Kyle, Lynette, Connie, & Sherrie. On the other boat they had: Davin, Doug, Jo, Dr. Joe, Kiran, Shannon, Jim, Dana & Chad (when he arrived the next day!) We decided to shuffle people around midway through the trip so we could all dive with each other. The excitement of the first dive of the trip is always electrifying! Gear is being tried on, masks being defogged, straps being adjusted, etc. This would be Lynette’s first blue water dive, and I couldn’t wait! I wanted to capture on video every moment of it! Don had the same plan, so we knew we’d have great footage one way or another. Normally, we have a flat dive platform, and we sit people there to gear them up, and then they are gently placed in the water. Well, we ALL had to do backward rolls of the side of this boat. Actually, I prefer backward rolls, due to my knee injury, but I knew it had to be frightening for Lynette. She handled it like a trooper! I was already in the water waiting for her arrival with the camera rolling! Once Lynette was in the water, Tammie helped get her adjusted and they made their way down with the rest of us. The look on Lynette’s face was just priceless! She was absolutely glowing! I couldn’t hold back the tears! I looked over at Sherrie and saw her wiping her eyes as well. It was just so cool! We all had a great dive, and the critters were all there to welcome us to Belize! During the week of diving, we had dozens of sharks swimming with us. We were even allowed to pet them, and at times, even hold them! What a trip this would be! We kept telling Lynette & Connie that this was definitely not the norm, and not to expect this type of diving all the time! Some people dive their whole lives and never see a shark, and here we were, diving with them all around us like they were puppy dogs! Huge groupers were filling in the gaps that the sharks left! We couldn’t believe what great diving we were enjoying! When we all came back to the boat, it was constant chatter, "Did you see this, " and "Could you believe that?" WOW. The rest of the day’s dives were equally exciting.

Finally, Chad & Sonja arrived. Sonja, 7 months pregnant, could not have looked cuter. Since she couldn’t dive, due to little Nicholas, she spent part of the week designing the nursery. Talk about details! She had every square inch of that room planned! We couldn’t stop talking as we all tried to tell them about our fantastic dives! Chad was pleased that everything went well in spite of the fact he was not with us. We were so happy to see them, and now that we were all together, the fun could "officially" start!

I spent a lot of the dives watching Don shooting video. When one of us wasn’t videoing something exciting, the other one was. We covered those dive sites in great detail! We went to a shark feeding site "Shark Alley" and the sharks would literally come nose to nose with us. Don and I both were laying on the sand filming. I saw a shark take a nibble at Don’s camera, and about that time I felt a little nudge. A shark was trying to get under my arm! It was wild! We were told to dive our computers. Yeah, right. We stayed down until we practically sucked our tanks dry! We didn’t want to miss a moment of these great dives! Tracy was the primary person diving with Kyle on this trip, and either Sherrie or I was the backup. Kyle is so experienced that he practically dives by himself! I enjoyed watching Tracy and Kyle dive together. It was only a couple of years ago that Tracy was new to our group, and he was just learning to dive himself. It’s obvious Tammie has spent a lot of time with both Tracy and Kyle in order to give them the confidence and skill level they were at now. When I wasn’t videoing Lynette, I was videoing Kyle. I joked, "This is going to be the Lynette and Kyle show." Connie, Lynette’s attendant, was also a newbie to diving. By the end of the week, she was looking great! On the other boat, Doug and Jo were newbies as well. What was really interesting is that during training, Doug was the one who was so excited about diving, and Jo was very fearful. She said, "I’m just doing this because Doug is so excited about it." By the end of the week, Jo was looking great in the water as well! Apparently, her fears were long gone. One day I dived with the other boat so I could get some video of that group, and I couldn’t help but notice the huge smile on Jo’s face after a dive! She looked so relaxed in the water! It was hard to believe she once dreaded diving. She’s a fish!

After the 2 morning dives, we were starving! Some of us stayed at the resort for lunch, some walked into town. The last time I was in Belize, there weren’t nearly as many places to eat as they’ve got now! From what I remember, there were only a couple places to shop. The place has grown. We had quite a few choices of really nice restaurants as well as fast food! We ate great pizza - Polly’s Pizza., freshly made tacos from vendors in the streets. We also ate at Elvie’s Kitchen, ____

Of course, we had some silliness going on throughout the week. Dr. Joe always enjoys putting in his "bubba" teeth with his Coke bottle bottom glasses. This is something he does when we’re either at a restaurant or boarding the airplane. So this year, we decided to bring our own set of bubba teeth and "one-up" him. While he was still getting dressed for dinner, I passed out the bubba teeth and we all put them on together. When Dr. Joe came out of his room and came face to face with all of us, he died laughing! It will probably be the only time we’ll ever get him good!

However, we learned not to mess with Dr. Joe because he WILL get even. We were at a restaurant waiting for our food, when Sherrie and I noticed two guys who were gorgeous! We drooled over those guys until we were almost obnoxious to the rest of the group. The next thing we knew, Dr. Joe wheeled over to their table and said something to them. The two guys got up and came to our table and one of them said, "Which one is MY mom?" Without missing a beat, I said, "ME!" We posed for pictures with them, unaware that Dr. Joe had requested them to come to our table by telling them, "Two of the women at our table swear ya’ll look so much like their sons and they’d love for ya’ll to come and pose for pictures for them to take back and show their sons." We were mortified! But hey, now we’ve got pictures of us with those guys, so although Dr. Joe intended to humiliate us, he really did us a favor... Thanx Dr. Joe!

After dinner, there was always shopping to be done. Kiran found some rastafari caps on sale, so Sherrie, Dana and I had to have them! And then there was karoke night. Lynette and Sonja wowed them as they belted out the songs. We also found a jewelry store and they had the coolest pendant with a diver on it. Sherrie, Lynette and I bought one. We had to buy them because they literally dove onto our necks and wouldn’t let go. What’s a girl to do?

We also started a new tradition called "awards night" which turned out to be a hit! We had various gag gifts for each member of our group. The gifts varied from a bag of marbles, given to the one who had lost theirs during the week, to a pair of Speedos for Kyle.

If anybody had a lousy time on this trip, it was their own fault. The diving was awesome, the food was great, and the company was superb. I don’t know this trip could have been any more fun than it was. Except for the fact that my dive computer’s batteries died. Oh well, it’s still all good!