This series will be a travelogue. I did it last year, and it was well received. Our first workshop of 2011 is People & Culture of Belize, and we like to fly in a couple of days early in case there are weather delays with the airlines. We flew through Houston. Remember what is was like just a few days before the Super Bowl? Fortunately, the snow was gone, at least along our route, and there were no delays.

The Gulf of Mexico was fairly calm with the occasional boat and wake showing up a pristine white against the blue-green of the water.

That color was nothing, however, compared to what we flew over in the Caribbean on our way from Belize City to Caye (pronounced “key”) Caulker. It was quite windy, and the whipped-up lines of translucent white made interesting counterpoint lines to the ones on the sea floor.

You can’t put two photographers anywhere without their taking their cameras out to go exploring. Sure, we were here last year, but we always find new things. Or, we approach the same subject in a different way. Think of all our Same Place — Different View blogs.

We are doing a series on tropical plants for a large solo exhibit we’re having this coming summer. Forty BIG prints for “Tropical Impressions from Belize.”

I’ve always loved the leaves of Seagrapes, and the way these patterns folded over one another caught my eye.

One of our pleasures here is walking down to The Split. Caye Caulker is one of those funky, laid-back, little islands where there are hardly any cars. Flip-flops and bare feet are the norm. And while some people and all the taxi services have golf carts, many of them electrical, most people just walk or bike. When I say bike, I’m talking the old-fashioned ones where you pedal backwards to brake.

Shrimpy (Shrimpy Jack) was not at his usual place grilling shrimp with all the wonderful marinades he puts together, so we continued down to the Lazy Lizard for a late lunch at The Split. Some good fare and local beverage, and we were good to go.

After relaxing in the shade and taking in “the scene,” we looked at all the tropical fish darting in and out of an old cement pier that one of any number of hurricanes had turned into a reef for the fish. Hurricanes also move things about, including this piece of machinery. It made an interesting and eerie design in the water.

We puttered about, checking out favorite haunts from last year to see if they were still here. Most of them were, but it was quiet, being a week before one of the big vacation weeks on island. Behind our hotel is one of the best places to watch the sunset. While it was lovely, it wasn’t particularly interesting to photograph this time. Cameras in our laps, we sat in our chairs and just vegged out. We had gotten up really early that morning to catch our first flight and were feeling a bit sleepy and lazy.

Eventually, we headed to our favorite restaurant, Rose’s, where they grill everything out on the street in a large barrel. Not only is the lobster, fish, and shrimp grilled, but it gets smoked at the same time. We each had a shrimp skewer and shared a veggie one. Forget the potato and other stuff; we didn’t want or need that.

Rose’s is one of those family-style, picnic-table places. New this year were table cloths of colorful, Guatemalan fabrics. A Dutch couple with their three-month-old baby joined us, and while the baby quietly slept, we chatted about travels, adventure, and Belize. One of the things we like about Caye Caulker is the interesting people one meets.

Before we returned to our room, we walked along the beach road, listening to the slight lapping of the waves from the Gulf. What a lovely way to end the day.

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