Uncle Steven driving his sparkly-blue Glastron speed boat, which we all grew up calling THE BLUE BOMB! I grew-up waterskiing behind a tiny boat called a Boston Whaler, but by the summer of 1988, I was a few weeks away from turning 12 and Steven said I was big enough to ski behind THE BIG BOAT!
So good to spend time catching up with these guys! When we were in high school, the Little Toot, the boat you see in the background, was in the water at various marinas around NJ and upstate NY and we used to have sleepover parties on it.
I managed to get a ticket on the 9am ferry over to Caye Caulker, a small, 5-mile-long coral island about 20 miles out further away from the mainland in Belize City.
Percy also pointed out a yellow flower, which if made into a tea, acts as a natural antidiuretic, earning it the local name "Piss-a-bed plant." Hahaha.
After another TWO HOURS on the boat, we took a car from Tagbilaran to Alona Beach and finally arrive a little past 1:30am. Our taxi driver took us to a few different hotels trying to find vacancy without much luck. Then he looked us up and down and said, I know a place that probably has vacancy if you don't mind a place that's a little....different.
Before passing out, we had managed to book a snorkeling tour with a local named Ricky who pulled his boat up on the beach right next to where we were finishing our breakfast!
After waiting thirty minutes of no one else showing up, we decided to pay 1,000P (around $20 USD) for our very own ferry. The minute we'd paid for the ferry to go over, all of the locals who'd been hanging around waiting for the boat to leave piled onboard with us. Always great when you can drop a Jackson and feel like a baller.
This is what the ferry terminal to Malapascua Island looks like! We weren't in a big hurry, so we decided to hang out for a bit and see if any other people showed up who wanted to take a boat together.
