The breeze was blowing hard from the East, and the waves on the seaward side of the island were higher than a paddler’s head, so a small group of us went out to challenge and play in the waves.

The route around the island takes us along the shallow, sheltered side of the island first. Exposure to the open sea is a gradual process, as we emerge from the shelter of the island, and then from the protection of the reef crest. Once we pass the rock-pile known as Mitch island, we gradually enter the unprotected waters of the wild Caribbean Sea. The waves grow ever higher and farther apart as we edge out and away from the reef. Riding abreast of each other, we can see each other’s kayak disappear behind the crests of waves and emerge on top again. It was not too wild, as the waves were not breaking over us, much. But it is often a first experience for our travelling companions, and leaves a lasting impression.

We had another lasting impression that day. As we approached the end of our circumnavigation, I passed over a sleeping nurse shark. Nurse sharks are quite common at Lighthouse Reef; we see them nearly every snorkel. And the sharks often patrol around the lagoon, hoping someone will be cleaning fish and will leave the offal in the water. When we are cleaning fish, we can have as many as seven sharks pushing right into the shallows, until their dorsal fins and backs are out of the water.

Nurse sharks are not generally aggressive. They have fine teeth, not the large, triangular daggers one associates with the requiem sharks, like blacktip, reef and bull sharks. Or Jaws, for that matter. By the way, great white sharks are not generally found in tropical waters. That’s why Jaws took place on the New England coast. But I digress.

As I passed over the shark, I called out to my paddling companions who were right behind me in a double kayak. The shark started swimming, and turned to cross my bow. The water was about 2m deep, so there was no need for the shark to move, nor any need to expect what happened next.

As soon as the shark crossed my bow I forget about it until, a few seconds later, my kayak was suddenly pulled to a halt, and I heard a noise of something very large, rolling on the surface. I looked back to see my nurse shark rolling over, its tail and pectoral fin coming right out of the water before it released my boat and dove beneath the surface.

I was so glad to have witnesses to this event as I doubted anyone would believe me. A nurse shark attack a kayak rudder? Unheard of as far as I knew.

When we go to the beach I inspected the rudder. I expected to find that it was missing paint. The silvery glint of the aluminum rudder might be enough to fool a fish into thinking a wounded fish was closely following my boat. But in this case, the rudder was fairly new, and except for a long scratch in the black paint, it appeared unlike any wounded fish I have ever seen. I still don’t know why that shark decided to bite my rudder, but it hasn’t made me afraid to swim with these mysterious and beautiful creatures. I’ll be ready next time I pass over one though, with a camera in one hand. This time I want evidence I can share.

So far my season in Belize has been anything but uneventful. Let’s start with my arrival. Without boring you with the details of all my flights, buses and taxi rides, I will take you to the last stage of my journey to Dangriga: a flight from Belize City.

The Municipal Airport is located at the water’s edge: in fact the airstrip was built on the water. The Airport Authority is upgrading the airstrip, roughly doubling its length. When I was there, the 18^th of November, they hadn’t done any construction yet. But they did leave a pile of rocks at the west end, which turned out to be a lifesaver of sorts.

The strip runs east-west, presumably to take advantage of the easterly trade winds that predominate here. Taking off into the wind gives an advantage of lift, especially on a rather short runway. This day, however, the wind was from the NNW. The plane was full: I only got on because a passenger failed to show on time. Lucky me. So we taxied to the E end of the runway and spun around. This is a Cessna Caravan, a single-engine plane with seats for about twelve passengers, and a big belly for luggage and cargo. Turns out it holds a lot of cargo.

As we started down the runway, the pilot had to dodge a couple of potholes before letting the throttle fly. We bounced down the runway, gathering speed, but I remember there seemed to be precious little runway remaining and we still hadn’t lifted off the ground. Finally, just as we ran out of road, the plane lifted steeply, so steeply that it seemed more like we were intending to head into space, rather than merely fly away. At that moment there was a loud crash as the tail of the plane collided with a pile of rocks, left at the end of the runway. The impact levelled us out and we just cleared the mangroves and began to gain altitude at a less alarming angle.

Instead of flying on to Dangriga, we went straight to the International Airport, just outside of town and made an emergency landing. The tail was not sufficiently damaged to affect the plane’s ability to fly, but I presume they needed to land it somewhere they could have it checked and repaired before taking off again. I say presume, because no one said a word to us about the whole affair. We were taken off the plane, along with all of our luggage and a lot of cardboard boxes, and made to wait outside, in the shade while they got another plane and another pilot. Once that was arranged, they loaded our luggage aboard and left all the boxes behind. A wise move, I thought. Other than that, my trip to Belize was uneventful.