Go Feedback: Fidelma Rossiterlearned to go slow on a Caribbean cruise
BLUE IS THE colour of sorrow, for those who have never seen the Caribbean.
It is best viewed in your bare feet from a rocking reggae boat with rum punch in hand. Seventeen of us set off on the Ragga Queen for a sailing adventure and ended up as friends and dancing partners.
To understand "go slow", the motto of Caye Caulker, you have to leave the island and cruise the seas surrounding it. Try as I might to write or read, I could only daydream in the unending blue.
Slowness seeped into my bones as I snoozed on the wooden deck. I smiled, remembering advice given in Belize three days earlier: "Slow down, mon, or you get a speed-eng tick-et!"
I grew up by the sea but had never learned to sail. Cruising the alluring barrier reef of Belize, it was worth the wait. I was on a standby list for the popular Raggamuffin Overnight Tours.
On my last day on the island, traveller's tummy claimed another victim and I became crew. There were three sailors on the boat - natives Dice, Adrian and Murray - a backpacking Belgian honeymoon couple, two Australian couples en route home, five Irish girls, one German student and two Dutch interns. Our itinerary was to sail from Caye Caulker to Placencia, a small fishing village in south Belize, near the Honduras border.
We could learn how to sail and fish or just snorkel, swim, sunbathe and swap stories for three whole days and camp on islands for two nights.
We swam ashore to our first stop, on Rendezvous Caye, and were met by seven bowed palm trees and two surprised pelicans. Karin declared the island to be 17 Dutch steps long as we splashed and snapped photos.
There was a shortage of tents but not of rum, marshmallows or fireside songs. The launch of the love boat began that night for Dice and Sally.
The next day we learned some sailing, although weak winds meant that we relied more on our motor for progress. Beautiful Girlsby Sean Kingston and anything by Bob Marley or Bon Jovi kept us rocking on. On my bus trip back through Belize to Mexico I discovered that any song, even one by Cher or Kylie, can be reggaefied.
Sunburn kept some in the shade, but the marine life came out to play instead. A dolphin swam alongside us, and I landed a barracuda for dinner that night. Each day we had two stops for snorkelling and swimming, with gear provided by the boat, which revealed a rainbow underwater world. A nurse shark glided by, a stingray flapped past and a turtle drifted along with us. The fan and brain coral lit up indigo water in pinks, oranges and yellows.
Azure blue wrapped around us, and the horizon melted into sea and sky. Bright blue became a smoky eye rim to the nightly tropical storm which lit up our dancing on the pier of Tobacco Caye, our last campsite. Irish and Lebanese dancing was fused along with some Aboriginal moves as we enjoyed our barracuda and rum punch.
Later we swam with phosphorescent shrimp and swayed to sleep in hammocks looking out at the navy, star-splashed sky.
The adventure into the seas of the Great Blue Hole ended in Placencia. Most then headed to Sun Jam, an island music festival in Honduras, with new friends and many memories.
My bus trip north involved a missing bridge and furious canoeing to catch a plane home from Mexico.
I got the blues in Belize this summer - and I would go back for more.