True temptation: TV show aside, Belize's biggest lure is under water
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AMBERGRIS CAYE, Belize - Don't blame Ambergris Caye for "Temptation Island."
Oh sure, the TV show was taped here, with live bikini-clad Barbies and Kens tempting four supposedly faithful couples.
And it is a tempting island. It's tempting to sleep all day. Tempting to scuba dive in an amazing underwater world. Tempting to laze days away on the beach, tempting to order extra desserts at dinner.
My three older brothers and I were here in the fall, pre-Fox TV's "Temptation Island," which is the rage now on Wednesday nights. We stayed at Captain Morgan's Retreat (where the "faithful" guys are wooed by the Barbies) and dined several times up the beach at Mata Chica (home of the girlfriends and their tempting Kens).
But the truth is those who want to experience anything like the hormone-fest shown on TV probably would have a better chance in Cancun, Mexico.
Captain Morgan's Retreat doesn't have a disco or jet skis or limbo contests or Jacuzzis or even televisions in the rooms.
Which were among our reasons for coming here.
What Captain Morgan's does have is a gorgeous white sand beach, hammocks strung between swaying palms, private casitas, a helpful and attentive staff, and access to some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling in the Western Hemisphere. Ambergris Caye offers very few alternatives to doing absolutely nothing.
The island off the coast of Belize has weathered several hurricanes, including a direct hit from Hurricane Keith last October, so the "Temptation Island" phenomenon will blow over, too.
Visitors will keep coming in response to Ambergris Caye's greatest temptation, the largest barrier reef this side of Australia.
On our last day here, the sea was angry and violent, practicing for the coming storm. My soaked, white knuckles death-gripped the gunwales of the open 30-foot dive boat. Ahead lay the only passage out to open sea and the wild side of the barrier reef. Waves in the coral-framed narrow channel out of the Hol Chan Marine Reserve could have been stunt doubles for "The Perfect Storm."
Clearly, there was no way to cross to the open sea and the atolls beyond for a final day of snorkeling, diving and searching for elusive wild things. It seemed obvious we would join a dozen or so others snorkeling in Hol Chan, the five-square-mile underwater park that teems with an encyclopedia of marine life.
I was sure we'd go back to Captain Morgan's, hose off, and raise the red flag at the end of the hotel dock to hail the southbound water taxi to San Pedro, the caye's main town a few miles down the beach. We might stroll on the town's three sand streets, then sit under a palapa on the beach and watch fishing boats disgorge the day's catch while we peeled labels off our sweating Belikin Beers and dug our toes into the sand.
We might spend the afternoon telling tales of the week's aquatic adventures until the orange twilight cast long palm tree shadows across our table. Maybe we'd then catch a water taxi to the windward stretch of jungle beach and head to Mata Chica to listen to the music of an Italian expatriate and her French husband, watch an impromptu play starring their kids and maybe, if we stayed too late for the last taxi, hitch a ride in a rowboat with a fisherman just sober enough to point the bow toward the single bare light on our hotel's dock.
But the boom of the monster waves jarred me from my visions. And I noticed the look in the boat captain's eyes. He glared and grinned, his head bobbing as he focused on the waves' timing. He shoved both throttles forward and shouted, "Yee-ha!"
The lessons of Melville and Hemingway washed away as the first wave towered impossibly high overhead. The boat teetered on the crest, then smacked down on the backside of the wave. Salty sea splashed our faces.
The next wave loomed. Someone cried, "This is gonna hurt!"
Someone else, possibly me, yelled "Yee-ha!"
About 30 miles offshore from Belize City, Ambergris Caye is 25 miles long and four miles wide. It is the most populous of the cayes and the most popular land base for diving and snorkeling on this barrier reef.
Second in size only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the reef off Ambergris Caye stretches nearly 200 miles from the tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula down to the border of Guatemala. It includes three atolls and more than 170 cayes (pronounced "keys"), with 347 miles of coral reef worth exploring.
Australia's reef may be bigger, but it also features more deadly creatures per square foot: sea wasps, great white sharks, stonefish, banded sea snakes, lionfish ... the list goes on.
So far the deadliest thing I'd seen in Belize was the wave we had just passed. We reached open sea and headed toward Lighthouse Reef, the easternmost of the atolls, ordinarily a two-hour jostle. A pod of dolphins joined our wake and played in our bow wave, a good omen.
It was time to scuba dive. We descended slowly to 130 feet in the Blue Hole, a perfectly round vertical shaft on Lighthouse Reef. A few hundred feet across and by appearances impenetrably deep, it is the product of an Ice Age collapse of tunnels. Looking down into the midnight water, I might have been convinced I'd discovered a passage to Australia. That might explain the sharks rising from the gloom. The excess nitrogen in my blood made the voice in my head sound like the Crocodile Hunter ("Wur 'ere in Bay-leeze's faymus Blue 'ole looking foh SHAHKS!"). About a dozen sharks, a combination of lemons and bulls, spiraled upward and streaked in for a free lunch.
As our dive computers screamed for us to surface, we reluctantly started a slow ascent, eyes cast downward. The sharks trailed us up, and patrolled the sandy lip of the Blue Hole at 40 feet. We took our decompression stop higher. Snorkelers from another boat floated wide-eyed overhead until the sharks retreated to the depths to await the next visitors.
Off the coast of Half Moon Caye, we went back into the water. A green turtle ignored our entry splashes. Tiny black garden eels retreated into their sandy burrows as we made our way through the gin-clear water to the top of the underwater wall.
It was like looking through the window of a skyscraper at a vibrant coral city descending to impossible depths. A moray pumped its lower jaw from a crag framed in fire coral. A king crab spread its claws wide. Yellow snappers darted like wannabe sharks. Purple sea fans undulated in the current. A queen angel retreated, leaving a memory of electric yellow and blue. A damselfish defended its square foot of staghorn coral.
Few places on earth feature the diversity of life found above and below the water of Belize. Several hundred species of fish and countless invertebrate creatures, corals and sponges inhabit the reef.
My brothers and I had only a few minutes left to see as many of these creatures as we could before bouncing back across the Caribbean to land. And in these final moments, 50 miles out to sea, 70 feet below the water's surface, we stared in wonder at the reef dancing with multi-hued wild things.