Glover’s Reef

Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

Jan 12-15, 2025

Early morning breakfast and shuttle to Dangriga. We boarded a shuttle boat to Glovers Reef.

Our group of 7 grew to 11 for Glover’s Reef. Now we added Jeff from Rhode Island, Kelly from Minnesota and Tim and Rachel from London UK.

It took almost 2 hours but the seas were pretty calm so the ride wasn’t very rough.

Glovers Reef is an atoll. It is part of the second largest barrier reef in the world! Great Barrier Reef in Australia being the largest.

There are 4 touring companies actively working here. They lease the land from the owner. They set up this camp for the tourist season then completely take it apart for the off season, including all the furniture and equipment in the permanent buildings! There are also a few fancy homes on an adjacent island. Apparently there was hurricane Hattie several years back that split the island. Our camp was located on the SouthWest Caye. Our neighbor camp did not have many guests so we essentially had the Caye to ourselves.

Glovers Reef camp setup…

Our camp had what I would call “glamping tents”. There were several tents in our camp but our group was only 11 people. Inside there’s a bed, side tables, a shelf book case and clothesline. The tent has windows and doors that can be velcro closed or can roll up and tie open. It’s roomy enough and the bed is very comfortable. There’s a little deck in the front with two low sitting Belizean chairs.

Also in the camp is a big building with the dining room upstairs and sitting area. There’s several reference books and games there. Some of my favorites too… like cribbage and banagrams!

Below the dining area is the lounge area. Early morning coffee and afternoon happy hour are here. Comfortable loungy chairs and yard games are in the area.

Hammocks are strung in several areas of the camp. This proved to be afternoon siesta perfect.

The bathroom-shower building was near the back of camp. There’s two shower rooms and two compost toilet rooms, a couple of sinks for cleaning up and a couple of urinals on the backside of the toilets. The shower was interesting… from the pipe the water ran into a small bucket with holes poked in the bottom of the bucket to slow the flow. The water is room temperature. The same as in Hopkins… there is no hot water… only the cold side (which is not cold).

I think this is a good place to explain what I noticed about bathroom plumbing in Belize. It is far less sophisticated than American plumbing… therefore paper waste goes in the garbage. No 1 is garbage…No 2 you can flush! You certainly don’t want to deal with clogged toilets. However… at camp there is no toilet plumbing so all paper goes in the garbage. If you were staying at a Resort then they probably can accommodate toilet paper but I don’t know… wasn’t at any resorts.

The shower water (non potable) was collected into big cisterns from rain water. There were solar panels on one building for the cooks appliances and the generator. The generator for camp lights (and charging electronics) was turned on from 5-10pm everyday. There was cell service due to a cell tower near the rich modern homes on the next Caye.

We have 1 camp manager (Steve). Young man (30 ish) originally from Manitoba. 2 kayak and snorkel guides… Ben and Matt. They are both from Belize. Ben is a farmer in the off season and has family. Not sure about Matt yet. Our cook…Miss E. She has her own little kitchen building and she makes DE-Licious food!

To orient us to our activities we took out a short checkout snorkel.Today we went in the camp boat away from the Caye and snorkeled on the reef. It was my first time seeing coral and it was so beautiful. So many different kinds. I really liked the lacy kind. Some looked like brains. The guides had a pointer stick and would point out the fish and also their names. It was important to stay close enough you could see and hear (ears above waterline) the names.

We came back to camp and had lunch, a little rest time… hammock time! Mid afternoon was for sea kayaking. Jim and I took the double kayak. We took a paddle trip around the island past the fancy modern home on the other end. Our kayaks had rudders to assist in going right or left. Then we came close to shore to learn how to get into and out of the boat when we use them to go snorkeling or if we should tip over. That was pretty humorous but we all managed. Most of our snorkeling was accessed by kayaks. Typically the areas near the reef were shallow enough to stand up when out of the kayak. They would tether the kayaks together and anchor them while we snorkeled the area.

Sargassum algae. I first met this in Florida a couple years ago. It’s a red algae that seems to flourish from Florida south into the Caribbean. It’s pretty nasty, sometimes stinks like rotten eggs and builds into large masses. It seems to be a magnet for ocean trash. It had come up on the shore of Glover’s Reef. It greeted us at the boat dock and there was even more as we paddled the island. Particularly near the channel cut of the two islands. On our shuttle over two extra guys came to shovel the sargassum out of the water onto the shoreline and separate the trash from it. Hard, thankless job.

They fed us like we were kings and queens. Miss E could put out the food. Three square meals/day. Usually rice and bean or pasta, chickpeas, chicken, pork or fresh fish caught by us. We had Porgie fish, Barracuda steaks, shrimp and conch. Always vegetables and delicious coleslaw salads. Lots of coconut used in sauces and rice. Always fresh fruit… usually papaya and pineapple. Desserts were usually cookies or a homemade chocolate cake! Almost forgot… she could make delicious breads and rolls too.

Now about the Adventure Part…

For the next 3 days we would have two outings per day. There was usually a choice in the morning of two different options.

The second day most of the group of 11 took the fishing option! They used “hand lines” to catch fish. I personally did not go fishing but have photos from Tim. They had a very successful and joyful fishing day. Much of the joy was provided by our youngest traveler Rachel from London when she was the first to catch a fish!

The other option was kayaking out to snorkel. There were just two of us on that morning option. My favorite was the Queen Angelfish.

After a big lunch everyone that was interested could learn to standup paddle board (SUP) or kayak out to snorkel. I chose the SUP but skipped the second snorkel of the day.

Day 3 on Glovers Reef.

Everyone went kayaking/snorkeling in the morning. It’s important to mention that we never snorkeled the same area twice.

The afternoon was a new adventure. They towed the kayaks and paddle boards out to another caye where everyone snorkeled and then set up sails on the kayaks and sailed back to camp.

Day 4 on Glovers Reef

This was a short day. We had the morning to SUP or paddle/sail to our final snorkel on Glovers Reef. After lunch we were being shuttled to Tobacco Caye. We would be saying farewell to the extra four people we picked up at Glovers and the original seven would stay together at Tobacco Caye.

I chose to kayak/ sail. There was just enough wind to carry us back to camp that morning. I was happy to get to sail since I had missed that the day before.

Of the 4 days at Glover’s we did not have any significant rain. I heard it rain early one morning (briefly). The temps were in the low 80’s during the day and maybe 76-77 at night. Because the tents had so many windows and were located close to the water there was always a nice breeze at night. My favorite part of waking up during the night was looking out the windows to the water. We had a full moon while there so you could see really well outside the tent at night. Just beautiful.

We were very comfortable…..except one night! There’s a story…

The virus that was spreading through Belize….

Norovirus

Have you ever had it? It’s common. Sometimes I think we refer to it as the 1 day flu. Norovirus is spread through hand contact and food contact (from hands). The only way to kill it is soap and water and bleach.

Do you recall when I said our room at Bocowina smelled like Clorox? In hindsight that was my first clue. Second clue… upon our arrival Steve (camp mgr) told us it was spreading through the country. Happens every year when the tourists start to arrive around Christmas. He warned us to be diligent about hand washing.

Anyway 2 days later about midnight I knew my stomach wasn’t happy. It took about an hour before I took my first of 3 trips to the bathroom. Fortunately I made it every time. At one point in the night there were 3 of us at the bathroom! By morning I learned there were 4 of 11 that got sick that night. By morning my stomach had settled but I was exhausted. We were quarantined to our tents…mostly because that’s where you want to be anyway. I slept most of the morning.

The poor bathroom crew started bright and early sanitizing the entire bathroom…multiple times!

By afternoon I was feeling much better but not very hungry. I ate a little plain rice and drank a pedialite (electrolyte) drink they had at camp. They usually say the BRAT diet is best post stomach illness. (Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast) By the next morning the 4 of us were better (in various degrees) but now Jim and Steve were suffering. Neither of them had it as violently as the four of us did thank goodness.

We did hear that some of the kitchen staff at the Bocawina Resort went home sick the day we arrived. So we probably contracted it there and brought it to Glover’s and maybe beyond!