“Sam
loves to play with coconuts,” says Heather Sellors,
guest services manager for St. George’s Caye Resort, an exotic
getaway on St. George’s Caye, a sunny sandbar of an island eight
miles off the Caribbean coast of Belize. It was just over two years ago
that Sam, a four-year-old German Shepard, had never seen a coconut.
Instead he was doing Canadian dog things like playing with sticks and
chew toys at his home in Kelowna, B.C. Now, however, he’s a
canine expat living year-round on the island with his owners, Susan and
John Spencer, who brought Sam with them when they purchased the St.
George’s Caye Resort in the July 2007.
St. George’s
Caye Resort is the real deal for a dream vacation
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The dog appears to love the place equally
as much as his owners, who
never planned to own and operate a Belize resort until the fickle
finger of fate intervened. After vacationing on the island twice and
falling in love with the Central American country surrounded by
Guatemala and southern Mexico, the resort came up for sale and the rest
is history. They left behind work in B.C.’s oil and gas industry,
packed up their belongings (including Sam) and moved to the island
paradise where they now live most of the year as hands-on owners of the
resort that’s a mere 10 minute boat ride from Belize‘s
famous coral reef - second longest reef in the world after
Australia‘s Great Barrier Reef. The island is dotted with palm
trees hence Sam has a never-ending supply of fallen coconuts and the
Spencers are living the dream that materialized suddenly and came to
pass just as quickly.
I arrived on St. George’s Caye on an August day so hot it melted
my small pot of lip gloss. Sam was running around with a coconut in his
mouth seemingly oblivious to the Belize heat. “You get
acclimatized to it,” says Sellors. Maybe so, but in the meantime
I opted to hit the resort’s pool, followed by a second cooling
off in the ocean. I and the other guests who arrived from the mainland
via a shuttle boat from Belize City checked into 12 Polynesian-type
thatched roof cabanas. Each had its own air conditioner but I soon
learned the island’s tropical climate and perpetual sunshine
blazing down on thatched roofs makes it impossible for the cooling
systems to get anywhere near putting a chill in the air. Nevertheless,
the cabanas were comfortable with either lagoon or ocean view porches
each fitted out with an inviting hammock.
It
took little imagination to picture St. George’s Caye as a
duplicate of the tropical paradise once sought by French painter, Paul
Gauguin, who ultimately settled on life in Tahiti. This island, of
course, is nowhere near Polynesia but its appearance could easily be
mistaken for it.
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The offshore BBQ give
new meaning to dining Al Fresco
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Unlike
Gauguin who lived and died in the tropics, my
friends and I had a mere four days to cram in everything there was to
see and do.
Options
included kayaking, windsurfing and sailing, however, one of the
resort’s chief attractions is scuba diving. Blessed with one of
the world’s top reefs on its doorstep, the property’s
location is a diver’s dream. The resort has a fully equipped dive
shop and the staff personnel are qualified to teach both basic and
advanced skills including dive certification. Snorkelling was my
activity of choice even though two weeks before arriving on the island
I had watched a five-day series about global shark attacks. In spite of
a niggling fear, snorkelling at the reef was fantastic and in addition
to an awesome array of small colourful fish and amazing coral
formations, the highlights were sightings of two manatees, a barracuda
and a stingray. No sharks.
The resort that’s an all-inclusive property except for alcoholic
beverages and off-site tours offers a roster of excursions focusing on
history, culture and adventure. I opted for a trip to Altun Ha, an
ancient Maya ruins about 30 miles north of Belize City where among
several stone buildings, there are two central plazas surrounded by
towering temples.
One of them is the Temple of the Sun God
where
several years ago an archaeological dig produced a carved jade head,
largest jade artefact ever discovered in the Mayan empire. This is the
country’s most popular ruins and the Sun God Temple is even
depicted on the labels of Belikin beer, the local brew of Belize.
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A romantic beachfront
dinner for two
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There’s
everything from one-hour
sightseeing cruises to champagne
dinner cruises.
In all, the resort that has 800 feet of
private sand beach offers more
than a dozen off-site activities including everything from cave tubing
to zip lining, deep sea and reef fishing, a trip to the Belize Zoo and
a howler monkey nature walk. However,
the island that was once the
capital of the country is a peaceful place where some guests simply
prefer to stay put and soak up the solitude; although one not to be
missed activity is the resort’s offshore BBQ.
I pictured being taken to a tiny island with maybe a single palm tree
on it where staff would grill up a great lunch. Instead, our BBQ took
place on a submerged sand bar not far from Belize‘s reef.
That’s right. All of us, including cook and servers, were up to
our knees in water. Chef Danny Tillett and a couple of helpers preceded
us to our ocean dining spot with all necessary supplies loaded onto a
boat. They set up a grill in two feet of water, put a table and chairs
in place (in water) and this was our luncheon site. It was like having
a BBQ in a wading pool albeit with a white sand bottom and water the
colour of an aquamarine jewel. Following lunch, we simply swam away
from the table. The offshore BBQ is a nice touch that is available to
resort guests who wish to experience it.
For vacationers who like large all-inclusive properties with non-stop
music and swim-up bars, St. George’s Caye Resort is not the place
for them. But for those who relish the idea of a serene island where
there are no crowds and they can choose to be active or simply veg out,
this resort fills the bill. Service is top notch, meals are taken
communal-style in a central building and to get each day off to a good
start, coffee and fresh squeezed juice are delivered to each cabana
around 7:00 a.m. This whole scenario might have suited Gauguin to a tee.
| TRAVEL PLANNER |
Information:
Call 1-800-813-8498, email office@gooddiving.com
or go online at www.gooddiving.com.
Climate:
July and August are among the hottest months with maximum highs
reaching 31 degrees Celsius. Some Belize resorts shut down for this
period but St. George’s Caye Resort does not. |
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