We were up nice and early this morning, eating our breakfast out on the balcony.  Julie was looking forward to her bacon butty but when I fried the butt bacon it had an odd smell. So it ended up in the bin.

Meanwhile I hadn't given breakfast much thought and didn't have many ingredients. So I had to improvise and came up with cream cheese with the tomato salsa on toasted bread.  It literally was all we had in the fridge and it was surprisingly enjoyable.

We spent the morning at the end of Colindas Cabanas pier. It was so peaceful. 

At 10:30am we returned to our cabin so I could listen to the Manchester derby on the BBC Radio 5 live (on the BBC Sounds app).  It was already half-time. I missed the first half. I thought I might of got the time difference wrong but I hadn't. I actually got the kick-off times wrong!

It didn't matter because United were 1-0 up to a Marcus Rashford goal. I was shocked they were doing so well. I then settled down on the balcony and listened to the second half as City scored three goals to win 3-1.  

Quite depressing really, the story of this season.

After the game had finished I just had enough time for a cheeky beer and knock up a quick banana sandwich for lunch before I had to leave for the airport.

We weren't packing our bags and leaving, I had booked a flight over the Great Blue Hole, the perfect antidote for being on a football downer.

I was doing this experience on my own.

It was a going to be in a small plane with propellers so Julie had decided not to take part. It wasn't just her fear of flying that stopped her but she also explained that I could experience it completely without worrying about her. 

So I set off on foot as Julie settled down in the shade of a palm tree to do some knitting.

Caye Caulker's airport wasn't far, only a 5 minute walk away down the coast which in this part of the island was left to its natural state.  The path wasn't very clear and I was concerned I had wandered off and got lost.

Thankfully I popped out from behind the bushes and to my relief saw the security fences of the airport.

I had arrived early. The instruction when booking asked you to be there half an hour before the scheduled departure but I had 50 minutes to wait!

Anyway, I checked in and was given a reusable laminated boarding pass. 

Time soon passed. It was a surprisingly busy little airport. In the short time I was there three small planes came and went. They were all either Tropic Air or Mayan Air. They both have routes to and from Belize City or San Pedro.

Then shortly before 1pm our Tropic Air plane arrived. All of us waiting in the terminal building walked across the tarmac, handed over our laminated boarding pass.

It was a 16 seater with four rows of seats, split into a single and a double seat and then a further 2 seats at the back. I sat in the first single seat I came to, on the left. There were already two passengers onboard, arriving from San Pedro. In total there were eleven passengers plus the pilot. 

I was so incredibly excited. I booked my filght to see the Great Blue Hole the moment we decided to come to Belize.

Now that moment had arrived. 

We taxied to the end  of the short runway, turned around, and then the pilot floored it. We went hurtling down the tarmac, speeding past the terminal building but we still hadn't lifted from the ground.

At the very last second we took off, rising above the security fence and out over the sea. Julie captured the moment from beneath her palm tree.

I could see her as I looked back down towards Colinda Cabanas, sat between two palm trees and some shrubbery.

A minute or two later we came to the edge of the Belize barrier reef, a barrier that stretched North from here to Mexico and South to Honduras as part of the Mesoamerican Reef, which made it the second largest reef system in the world.

The contrast between the turquoise shallow waters of the reef and the darker deep blue sea was such a breathtaking sight. This alone was worth getting in the plane. 

Further out into the Caribbean we flew over another reef system, seperate from the barrier reef. It was called the Turneffe Atoll. A simple atoll is essentially coral system forming an island encircling a lagoon but in the case of Turneffe it was on a much larger scale.

It covered an area 30 miles long and 10 miles wide with many individual Cayes creating three lagoons.  They all had fabulous names like Shag Cay, Dog Flea Cay, Cockroach Cay, Deadman's Cay, Snake Point, Harry Jones Point.

I wondered who Harry Jones was? He sounded like a proper pirate!

A few minutes later we flew over a shipwreck, not of a pirates galleon, but a container ship known as the Witconcrete. It wasn't even a shipwreck but it was deliberately sunk in this location to create an artificial reef and an interesting dive spot.

It was strangely beautiful, on it's side, submerged only a few metres below the surface.

We then continued further East, reaching another atoll called the Lighthouse Reef.   Instead of having distinct cayes it was mostly made up of thousands of small coral islets barely rising above the water.

Then out of the blue, the pilot drew our attention to the Great Blue Hole, appearing to our right. I was sat on the opposite side, stretching out my neck, trying to get my first glimpse, through someone else's window.

The pilot flew clockwise around it, with the blue hole constantly to our right. We circled it twice. So I had to sit back and be patient. I knew my time would come.

Once we completed two orbits, we broke off at a tangent before looping back around, returning towards this stunning marine phenomenen.

This time we flew anti-clockwise, with the Great Blue Hole to my left, clearly visible from my window. It was such an adrenalin rush.

It was spectacular. A perfect circle of dark blue deep water surrounded by a ring of coral reef. It was essentially a sinkhole, an underwater cave where the roof has collapsed, like a cenote common on the Yucatan peninsula. 

It came to the world's attention when Jacques Cousteau, a French filmaker, marine explorer and many other things, filmed a dive into the blue hole, and aired it on his TV programme "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" in 1971.

He described it as an "undersea cathedral"

As incredible as all that sounded it had no relevance to the glorious sight of the blue hole from a thousand feet up.

I didn't have long. The plane took less than five minutes to circle around twice. Trying to be more "in the moment" I stopped taking photos. My eyes were fixed on the sinkhole.

After the second loop, we broke away. I sighed, disappointed it had come to an end. However I quickly recovered. I felt so priviliged to have seen the Great Blue Hole with my very own eyes. An incredible experience that I wish I could have shared with Julie.

We headed North, continuing to fly over the Lighthouse Reef where I saw this boat anchored in the middle of nowhere. "Now that's the life!" I thought. 

The return leg was mostly over open deep sea and uninteresting which gave me time to scroll through the photos I had taken, reliving the moment over and over again.

Some fifteen minutes from leaving the Great Blue Hole Caye Caulker came into view. I could see its crescent shape. It made me realise how small the Southern island was. 

My eyes were drawn to the shallow water of the Split where the sea looked an illuminous turquoise.

We flew over the island and continued some distance before turning back to make our approach to the runway. With a gentle bump and some serious slamming  of the brakes we came to a stop at the terminal building.

I returned to Julie who was still knitting beneath her palm tree. Despite having sat in the shade her shoulders had caught the sun so we relocated to our balcony, where we spent the remainder of the afternoon.

Our thoughts turned to supper and we had a look at our options, deciding to try Italian resturant Il Pelicano.

So after the sun set we arranged for a taxi to pick us up from Colinda Cabanas. Whilst we waited we got talking to at reception. She mentioned that the owners were called Colin and Linda, which is why the resort was called Colinda!

 Il Pelicano restaurant was a bit further than last night's. It was on the corner of Alux Street and Passero Street, where Errol's Fryjacks and our first hotel was. 

It had a pretty garden with plenty of outdoor seating. We hoped to have one of them but they were all reserved. The waitress showed us to a table inside but it was fine. There may have been a roof over our heads but it was open on two sides so it still had that all important al fresco vibe.

The menu had all the classic Ialian dishes. I went for my favourite, Parmigiana de Melanzane. It was nicely presented on the plate as an individual portion. Top marks for effort.

It tasted good without being amazing.

Julie went for the Bistecca alla Griglia, a rib-eye cooked on the grill. Julie's face was a picture when she read the menu suggested it came topped with a fried egg!  She put them straight and ordered it without the offending sunny-side up.

The steak looked decent, but similar to my experience, it tasted good without being amazing.

The reason why we were more critical of these dishes was because we felt it was very expensive. The total bill came to BD$220. We had been used to good value for money on this trip. Even that exceptional meal in Mexico City, whilst more expensive, we felt was good value.

In hindsight perhaps we were too critical. £88 wasn't that bad, with four glasses of wine and a tiramisu dessert thrown in.

The restaurant called a taxi for us and we scooted back to Colinda Cabanas.

We then spent an hour packing our rucksacks. We were heading home tomorrow.