Three Years Ago Today, Part Two

Dennis and I celebrated our first New Year's Eve in Belize three years ago today. And it has been an exciting, exasperating, exhilarating, exhausting, exquisite, expensive, and expansive three years!

In 2013 we started construction of the addition to our vacation cabana to make it suitable for full-time occupancy.  Still not completed, but the end is in sight.  2016 will see us moving in.

Lots of butterflies.

Our friends Julie and Phil helped us celebrate my retirement after I spent most of 2013 commuting back and forth from Belize to Rochester for work.

The deck decked out with pennants to celebrate my retirement.

Out in the jungle behind our cabana are wild orchids.

Orchid flower stalk after the rain.

Orchid in bloom.  

Orchid seed pods.

Along the Monkey River Road we often see chachalacas.

Boom chachalaca!

 The weather is always interesting.

Waterspout at sea.

Also along the Monkey River Road are provision trees with their gorgeous blossoms

These flowers peel open like a banana to expose their showy pompom flowers.

The sea casts up its treasures at our feet.

Beautiful silver and teal blue chondrophore hydrozoans about the diameter of a bottle cap wash up now and again.

 Battles are waged in the jungle.

Male blue land crabs get feisty as mating season approaches.  The fighting claws on these huge fellows are bigger than my hand.

 Birds survey their water-side domain.

Bare-throated tiger heron looks out from a treetop along the Monkey River.  They also patrol our beach and Black Creek.

Out in the jungle are the remains of past civilizations.

Dennis in the partially restored Mayan ruins of Nim Li Punit.

The photos above are only a small hint of what Belize holds for us.  There is so much to explore and experience in our new home country.  So much to look forward to in 2016 and the years to come.

Wishing you all a peaceful, happy, and healthy New Year, where ever you are.

Paradise Indeed

Since getting that giant mess that washed ashore cleaned up, we have had some lovely weather showcasing the natural beauty of Englishtown, Belize.  The photos that follow were all taken in the last 3 days as we strolled along the beach and around our property.

Hermit Crab posing nicely for me.

In fact it was so still thought it might be dead!  But it skittered off a few minutes later.  These guys can move fast!

 We have a fair number of hermit crabs around here and a paucity of shells for them.  I have seen quite a few using small bottles, bottle caps, and even the cap to a marking pen as homes.  I recently found an article describing hermit crab behavior under conditions of shell paucity upon the sudden availability of a new empty shell that was larger than most of the crabs could use.  The crabs queued up in order of size, and once a large crab arrived that could use the new shell, the others would then all advance one shell size.  That was actually here in Belize and the article is here.  Very interesting - you should check it out and be sure watch the video!

A male hooded warbler has been keeping us entertained.  It hangs out around the cabana near the hibiscus shrubs and also in the space just under the cabana near where the water vats are located.  I have seen it perched on the handle of a wheelbarrow and on a flower pot.  Great fun to watch.

Tweety Bird pose.

Watching me watching him.

 The mountains of Honduras to our southeast were unusually visible yesterday.  Usually it is too hazy to see them, but the air was quite clear. 

Mountains of Honduras visible behind Little Monkey Cay.  If you look closely, you can see birds flying in to roost at Little Monkey Cay.  The cay is host to pelicans, magnificent frigate birds, great egrets, white ibises, and other birds.  This is the view from our dock.

 The nearly full moon was a glorious orange color as it rose last night.

It had just cleared the water at the horizon when I took this shot.

 I had been reading about the "staircase to the moon" that Broome, Australia is famous for and decided to see if I could get a staircase here.  I think this almost as good as what the Broome Visitor Centre shows on their website.  Take a look. 

Belize Stairway to the Moon.

 The sea stayed flat all night long and we awoke this morning to a mirror sea surface.

Look at the reflection of the sun peeking under the dock.  I love days that start like this.

I noticed the Tiger Heron out on the dock soon after I took the dawn photos.

All hunkered down.

As I got closer to it, it straightened up and then flew down the beach.  It has wandered up and down the beach several times today and we can hear it even now.

"Don't get too close, now!"

 I noticed its footprints in the sand and saw that something had left a little present for us.

More crap on the beach - literally!

And as I turned to walk back to the cabana, there was the moon again, beginning to set just over the new addition.

A great start to another day in paradise.