Day 14 - Last full day before departing

Thomas returning with Clinton from a
sardine run

Thomas holding a Remora fish - typically found catching a
ride on a shark

This was the last full day in Belize and we all wanted to make sure we got the most out of it. I got up at 5:20am and got ready to take the boat at 6am to San Pedro to hit the ATM one last time. Mo, Portofino’s boat captain, was heading into town to hire some temp workers and to pick-up some staff members. He was planning on departing San Pedro at 7am to return to Portofino’s. This was perfect as I had desire to waste any time in town.

Once back at the villa, I awoke Thomas and we headed down the restaurant for some breakfast. Anna was on her iPad having some coffee and Olivia was catching the last few grains of sand from the Sandman. While Thomas was eating, I made arrangements with Clinton of Action Divers to go out fishing at 11:30am.

Check out the fish - now you see the shirt?

Thomas diving for Conchs

Young master Schiffers quickly devour his breakfast and made his way down to the docks. He was to take fully advantage of every last fishing opportunity. He hung around with the Action Diver crew and was gone out on the water at around 10am. Sardines and Conchs were to be cast netted and gathered for our outing.

Anna came down to the Green Parrot, along with Olivia and we ended up having some breakfast and liquid pork chops while we waited for time to pass. Gena and Jason, a young couple from NY, joined us at the bar and we chitty chatted most of the morning away.

"A Boat Captain in the Making" along with Clinton from
Action Divers, Belize

Thomas and Clinton arrived at the docks at around 11:20am, so I walked down to them. I jumped into the boat and we were off for the afternoon. Clinton took us to several different fishing sites and our hooks were cleaned quite often. However we did manage to catch quite a bit of unique fish. The most interesting would be the Remora fish that young Thomas caught. It is a sucker/cleaner fish and is typically found catching a free ride in Belize on nurse sharks. It has a round, almost oval, sucker patch on the top of its head positioned right behind the eyes. The intriguing part here is that it usually attached to a host, so to catch it in open water was special.

Triggerfish

We fished with several different baits, each one hoping to land a specific species. I managed to wrangle in a Triggerfish with some conch. Our goal was to catch quite of few of these today, but for some reason they didn’t want to participate in our plans. We also managed to catch a Mangrove Snapper, Lane Snapper, School Master Snapper, several larger Grunt and a whole host of other fish which we didn’t keep. We did try for some Bonefish today, but the seaweed hampered those attempts. Before we knew it 4:30pm and we needed to head back.

The day ended quickly. I came back to find Anna snoozing. She had an adventure of her own at the Rojo Bar earlier in the afternoon with Gena and Jason. Olivia was lounging and listening to music in the bedroom. Anna and I had dinner later in the evening, did some packing and threw a hook in one last time.