Searching for Sharks on a Stormy Island

I’ll be honest, travelling to Belize during low season started as an unhappy accident. I didn’t do any research before going to the country, so when I hopped the land border from Mexico, I was surprised to find it raining so heavily the roads were flooded and the bus roof was leaking. It was November, the shoulder season where tourists thin and the weather tries to transition from wet to dry, but I didn’t know that. Before going to Belize, all I knew was that I wanted to snorkel with nurse sharks. I didn’t want to fly over the Blue Hole. I didn’t care about the Mayan ruins (call me uncultured). There was one item on my agenda, and it was sharks.

From Belize City, I caught the ferry straight to Caye Caulker, a Caribbean island known for “going slow,” and if by that they mean spending all day, every day lying in bed, then slow I went. It rained in the morning and the evening. It rained when the forecast said it would and when the forecast said it wouldn’t. Then the thirty-two-mile-per-hour winds picked up. The palm trees were blowing, coconuts were falling, and one girl was becoming increasingly concerned that she wouldn’t get to see her sharks.

So, I waited. I stuck around in limbo, extending my stay and monitoring the sky situation like I was studying for a PhDin weather theory. The rain never stopped. The island became a slippery swamp of sand and tyre tracks. A five-minute walk was a serious mission, dodging rain-filled potholes and trying not to skid on the paste-like floor. Even indoors became damp as the humidity increased; my bedsheets started to smell like a cave and my clothes refused to dry. There was no escaping the wet. (I’m aware that I’m not really selling this, but hang in there with me.)

The most frustrating thing was I could see the potential the island had. The sea colour alternated between crystal ice and glistening sapphire blues, empty piers cutting through the shades with an offer of wet loungers at the end. Wooden huts were painted pink, blue and yellow, unused bicycles propped along the beach front. Locals continued to smile, barbecues continued to sizzle. Reggae music still jammed from beachfront bars and coconut cocktails were still served to those determined not to let the rain spoil their holiday – I was not one of them.

With my days spent rotting in bed, window open, watching the outside world like I was on house arrest, I noticed one thing: the island smelled of food. Different smells kept drifting in, brought to my nose by the strong gales that tried to tempt me outside. BBQ smoke was constant. Somewhere, someone was always cooking meat and fish. I could smell fry-ups and fry jacks, taste phantom sausages and seafood. If one thing could tempt me outside, it was this. I began to dedicate my time to researching restaurants, reading reviews and revising where I wanted to eat each evening like a below-average meal would be the final straw to this poorly timed trip.

On my fourth night, I ventured outside for food but only made it as far as the corner before the rain was unleashed. I sped-walked back to the hostel, knowing I didn’t have the stamina (or raincoat) to do the fifteen-minute trek in these conditions. When the rain paused one hour later, I made a second dash. This time, I got as far as the juice shop before the apocalyptic downpour fell once more. Officially entering stage hangry, I stomped back to the hostel, flip-flops sloshing wet sand up my calves.

On my third attempt to fulfil my basic human need, I was side-stepping the big floods in the path when a man stopped his golf buggy to offer me a ride. I was sitting up front before he’d properly braked. “Why are you wearing sunglasses?” he asked. I replied, “I’m wearing them like goggles.” He snorted. “That makes more sense. Ain’t no sun around here, my friend.”

The man’s name was George, born and raised in Belize City before moving to Caye Caulker sixteen years ago when offered a job as a chef. George asked where I was from and I told him England. “Oh, yeah? My granddaddy was from England,” he said, “a place called Liverpool.” I did a double-take. “That’s where I’m from!” I was far too excited given that Liverpool isn’t exactly a tiny hamlet with five residents, but that this dreadlocked Belizean man who happened to offer me a ride had roots in the place I was born was enough to brighten my rainy day.

George dropped me off at the beach, pointing me down the side street towards Meldy’s Restaurant. The sun was setting as I walked down the residential path, bordered on either side by locals’ colourful huts on stilts. It didn’t seem like a path where a highly rated restaurant would be located: tourists were absent and when a stray dog barked at me, I almost turned back. At the end of the path was a wooden sign hung outside a house, ‘Meldy’s’ scratched into the face. Three empty tables stood in the sheltered porch and a whiteboard menu was propped against a beam. I ordered the shrimp curry and when it arrived thirty minutes later, made from scratch by the little old lady whom I assumed was Meldy, it was steaming in a bowl as big as my head, served with seasoned rice and fresh coleslaw. It was sweet and savoury, creamy and coconuty; the shrimps were fat and juicy and accompanied by soft chunks of carrot and potato. It was a healthy tropical curry so good it suddenly felt like that was my island purpose. My days of house arrest, my damp bedsheets, my sharks, for a moment, they were all forgotten.

After six days of waiting for the sky to stop sobbing, I left the island. I boarded the ferry back to the mainland, cursing the day I had decided to venture to Caye Caulker in the middle of its shoulder season. On that ferry, I mourned many things: my tan-less skin, my soaking backpack, but most of all, the sharks I never saw.

It wasn’t until a few days after I left the island – triggered by a sudden craving for banana bread – that I would look back on my Caye Caulker experience with fresh eyes. On the island, there was a lady stationed outside the supermarket who sold the freshest, softest banana bread from a cooler box, and every day I would buy a slab and huddle it back to my hostel to devour it. On my last morning, she gave me a free slice of bread pudding and said she hoped to see me back here one day. Then there was the man who worked in the barber shop next to the hostel. Each time I stepped outside, he was sitting on his porch smoking weed, and we’d roll our eyes and smile at each other, gesturing to the sky in a shared annoyance for the weather that never stopped ruining the sand. Of course, there was George. Then there was the hostel’s cleaning lady who gave me a sweet each time she saw me lying in bed. The teenage girl who told me she loved the colour of my nail varnish – a tiny compliment that felt outsized during a week where everything else felt like it was going wrong. And not to forget all the delicious Belizean food I sought out because I had nothing better to do.

If I’d travelled to Belize during high season, chances are, I would have seen my sharks. I would have felt satisfied; my island time would have been a success. But if I’d travelled to Belize during high season, chances are, I wouldn’t have had so many interactions with locals, or stayed so long on Caye Caulker, or (trauma) bonded so well with my dormmates at the hostel. At the end of the day, what is the reason that I travel? To see sharks, or to find small joys in unexpected experiences?

I thought travelling to Belize during the low season was going to be a write-off. Turns out, it fulfilled me more than I realised. Without the buzz of boat tours and day trips, Caye Caulker was stripped back to its bones. Friendly locals. Delicious food. Slower days. An island not trying to give tourists what they came searching for. Low season travel highlighted a Caye Caulker without the hype, and I can confirm, the island has a lot more going for it than just sharks.