Kayaking Glover's Reef, Belize

October-November 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Lyn Hancock

I wake at 5:30 am to the noisy chatter of grackles in the mangroves and windswept waves crashing against the jagged black coral of the ancient barrier reef. Inside the atoll, the emerald waters of the lagoon lap gently against fine, white sugar sand. I watch the rising tropic sun as it rolls a golden carpet to the open door of my airy canvas cabana.

No need for sleeping bags or mosquito nets, as warm trade winds whisper ceaselessly through the coconut palms and keep the bugs away. A kayak or a hammock waits for me on the beach. But before making a decision, I revel in the morning parade of wildlife which I can see through the netting of door and windows without moving from my bed.

Ungainly pelicans flap along the surface of the lagoon in search of breakfast. Suddenly, they pull in their wings and torpedo into the sea after schools of jumping needle fish. A few moments later, up come heads and necks, and with several waggles of their bulbous throat flaps, the birds gulp down their prey. An osprey plunges into the water and flies up with another fish. I marvel at how neatly and efficiently it arranges its catch lengthwise in its feet before flying to a nearby nest.

My reverie is suddenly interrupted by a mournful wail as Rock blows a conch shell to announce my own breakfast. Marta, our smiling Garifuna cook, is serving fresh mango, papaya and pineapple, omelettes and fryjacks in the breezy thatch-roofed dining room on stilts. My companions on this Ultimate Adventure organized by Island Expeditions are already sipping coffee on the deck overlooking the lagoon. Another day in Paradise is about to begin.

Paradise is Glover’s Reef, one of three atolls off the coast of Belize (formerly British Honduras), a tiny country in Central America between Mexico and Guatemala. Glover’s Reef Atoll, about 35 miles from the mainland at Dangriga, is recognized as the biologically richest atoll in the Caribbean Basin and an important breeding ground for marine creatures over-harvested in other parts of Belize. It is a National Marine Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is reputed to be one of the three best dive and snorkel spots in the world. With its remote location yet easy access, mainly calm waters and amazingly clear visibility, Glover’s is an excellent choice for a winter getaway.

Our tropical isle home base.

I had chosen not to kayak from caye to caye or to paddle along the inside of Belize’s 185-mile barrier reef (the second longest in the world, next to Australia). Belize’s cayes are lower profiled and more distant from each other than my haunts in British Columbia, and I didn’t want to set up camp each night after a long day’s paddle in open water between low-slung islands.

Instead, I chose the Ultimate Adventure, because it offered a variety of paddling experiences. We left Dangriga in the Creole Wrasse with personable Alex Usher, a native Belizean whose family owns Southwest Caye, the southernmost of six tiny cayes inside Glover’s Reef Atoll. En route, Alex cruised us by some of the 200-odd cayes inside the barrier reef but paused at Man-O’-War Caye so we could photograph the magnificent frigate birds and blue-footed boobies nesting in the mangroves. He then dropped us off at otherwise unoccupied Tobacco Range Caye to camp and meet our kayaks.

Most of our group had never paddled before, but with faith in our guides Omar and Andrew, we set off enthusiastically to Tobacco Caye, a misty smudge on the horizon a mile and a half away, for a snorkeling trip and some mandatory self-rescue practice. Despite the onset of a sudden tropical squall which spawned pelting rain and bouncing waves, our stable double kayaks and the comforting knowledge of warm and shallow waters if we tipped, gave us the courage to keep paddling. When we reached our destination, we found it to be not much more than a coconut grove encircled by a conch shell-littered sandbar. Most kayakers prefer the solitude of such remote and little-known islands compared to busy tourist resorts such as Ambergris Caye or Caye Caulker.

Snorkeling on the 185-mile long barrier reef, second longest in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

We landed at a thatch-roofed beach bar which was closed, but fortunately our guides had packed a few Belikins (beer) with our lunches. The 35°C (95°F) heat and humidity of Belize at the end of April tempted this Aussie non-beer drinker into the habit of a couple of Belikins a day. Back at Tobacco Range Caye that evening, we celebrated our adventure with a succulent dinner of conch shell soup, flamed bananas and rum punches. Darkness comes swift and early in the tropics. “No swimming at night,” warned Andrew. “Salt water crocodiles cruise by camp after dark.”

Next morning, a few of us poked our kayaks into the calm channels of the mangroves behind camp to find the bottom studded with flamboyant sea stars, sea urchins, upside down jellyfish and tiny forests of green algae trees that looked like pompoms. Upsidedown jellyfish have plant cells in their bubbly tentacles. They live in shallow water upside-down so the sun can shine on their tentacles and produce food from these cells.

Outside this calm oasis another storm was brewing, so we paddled back to camp where Alex came to ferry us via a cut in Glover’s Reef to Middle Caye, a wildlife research and conservation facility owned by the New York Zoological Society. From there, after lunch on the dock, sharing our shade with nurse sharks sleeping beneath us, we would sail our kayaks three miles or so along the inside of the reef to a base camp on Southwest Caye.

The winds calmed, the sun burned through the clouds and finally we found that those white sand, turquoise water, coconut palm postcards were really true. No need to be afraid of first time sailing today, with little to no wind, shallow water and a white sand bottom. “Steer with your rudder, don’t pull in your sail too much or you will tip. Give it room, let it out, but not too much,” Omar advised as our flotilla sailed away to Southwest Caye flanked by an escort of eagle rays.

For the next few days on our island paradise we learned why people do not want to leave Glover’s Reef and often add, as I did, a three-day extension. There are 700 or so patch reefs inside the atoll. We paddled to the closest ones, tied our kayaks in a line to a buoy, dangled our legs over the side to don flippers, mask and snorkel then slipped overboard. Sometimes we swam between pillars of coral, pulling our kayaks with one hand. Any who had difficulty towing a kayak, taking flippers on or off from a kayak or getting back aboard in deep water could just leave their boats on the beach and swim to the reefs.

Our flotilla sailed away to Southwest Caye flanked by an escort of eagle rays.

Among the most spectacular residents of Glover’s sunlit underwater forests were schools of blue tangs, steel-scaled tarpons, torpedo-like barracudas, flamboyant squirrel fish, stoplight parrotfish, comical bug-eyed squid and a multitude of wrasses. Andrew dived into crevices to point out the waving tentacles of spiny lobsters and invited us to join him underwater.

Buoyed by a wet suit and life jacket, I preferred to float effortlessly on the surface gazing down at the different shapes and colors of sponges and corals— delicate purple sea fans, tall standing organ pipes, mammoth aptly-named brain corals and monstrous multi-branched elkhorns. Andrew warned us not to touch any coral in this protected place, especially stinging fire coral which he likened to a red hot poker.

When not kayaking or snorkeling the myriad patch reefs inside the reef or the steep canyon walls outside the reef (underwater cliffs drop 2,600 feet in less than a mile), we could paddle or sail our kayaks, wind surf, bird watch or just swim. We could scuba dive at Isla Marisol, the Usher family’s low key lodge along the beach from us, or at more spacious Manta Reef Resort which was spread over the other half of this hurricane-bisected island. Another tour company, which operates from Long Caye six miles to the north, adds surf kayaking to its list of water sport activities. Of course you can hammock surf any time, right outside your tent.

On our last night we paddled to the sandy peninsula at the end of Southwest Caye, to toast the sunset and chat with locals who worked for Manta Reef Resort. Glenroy was sweeping leaves and turtle grass off the pristine beach. He has a home and family back in Dangriga but he loves his job so much that he goes home only “sometimes.” Like us, he had found Paradise.

© Lyn Hancock, best known for seals in her sleeping bag and polar bears in her parka, is now more likely to be nursing sharks in her kayak. If you want to kayak with her in Belize in March 2006, or wish to attend her a presentation in Nanaimo, BC on Nov. 2nd, try 250-390-9075 or lynhancock@shaw.ca. For more on Belize trips, email Island Expeditions at info@islandexpeditions.com or check out www.islandexpeditions.com.