The Reef

Here are some of my favorite creatures we were able to see.

This is a parrotfish. They were all over the place and beautiful.


This is a Great Barracuda. Swam with many of these guys. They are amazing when they are four to five feet away!


This is firecoral and it will do to you what the name implies...make you burn like fire. It looks like coral but I learned its more closely related to a jellyfish.


Saw a couple of these guys. It's a Nurse Shark. Once in my Kayak I was floating in some really shallow water when the back of my boat raised up and dropped down with massive force. Chad who was behind me in his kayak saw a huge Nurse shark shoot out from underneath my boat for deeper water. I must of coasted over him while he was taking a nap. It was awesome.


This is a hogfish. Supposed to be really good eating.


This is a Lemon Shark. When we were night snorkeling one night we had one of these guys following us around. He got really agitated when we shined our lights at him.


Saw many tiny permit fish in the shallows. I hear they are incredible fly fishing.

More Pictures

Here I am getting the dried out coconut shells ready for a fire. These make great hot coals. The problem is there are not near enough of them. That and it rained off and on the whole time we were there so all the wood was soaked.


Goofed and put the picture side ways. Oh well turn your head. This was right before the first dive. Again I must say, the reefs were amazing.



Each day we had off and on periods of really nasty weather. It would be bright and beautiful, then a wave of massive clouds would roll in from the North East and about blow you over with wind and rain. This was the start of one of those rain fronts coming our way. A couple of the nights camping we were exposed to winds and driving rain like I have never seen, and we are talking eight hours straight. I truly thought one night the tent and I were heading for the ocean. Camping on windy, exposed cliffs which I have done before ain't got nothing on this little island. TAKE GREAT care should you ever do this trip to secure your tent.

Silke Cayes

Here are some more photos. The first two are of the island that we lived on the whole time. The small building you see is actually a bathroom the marine conservation group built on the island which is nice. Although it did not work. As I said before its a small island. It was perfect. It truly is out in the middle of the ocean. This little island is surrounded by some of the most amazing reefs.

The last picture is me drinking a coconut. Each day we went to work getting the coconuts out of the trees and cutting through their husks all for a tasty drink and snack.

Un-Belize-able

Here are some pictures from an adventure Chad and I took. We went to Belize for six days for a little expedition time. Chad had free airline miles for us to use, so months ago we began planning our journey. We picked Belize because it is home to the second largest reef in the world. There are hundreds of Cayes (pronounced keys) dotted all up and down this reef. Those are little islands. We found a spot that had some Cayes grouped together that we could camp on called the Queen Cayes. The island we picked was maybe one acre in size. It had exactly 13 palm trees covered in coconuts which was awesome as we ate and drank a great deal of them. They are NOT easy to break into. Right now I am writing the short summary of our trip with some pictures, but over the next few days I will post more about the trip and what we did, saw, and learned.

We paid for a shuttle to boat us and all of our gear to these Cayes. They are 25 miles off the coast of Belize so once we got there we were out in the middle of the ocean. We did not see another soul until the very last day, it was awesome. We spent our time Kayaking from island to island and snorkeling the many incredible reefs that surround the islands. It was incredible!!! For five days we had the ocean and islands to explore. Enjoy the pics and I promise details soon.




This is the amount of gear that we had to figure out how to get into two back packs! We actually had more gear than this. Now that we have been there we know what gear we could have left behind, but since it was our first time we took heavier loads because we wanted to be sure we had all that we needed. We planned for almost every scenario we could think of. A wise teacher once told me, "failing to plan is planning to fail." So we took extra gear...and I am thankful we did. More info on that on another post.



Once we flew in to Belize we then had to take a bus ride south to Placencia. It took us six and a half hours to get there.


We had a boat shuttle from placencia to the islands. It was 25 miles out and took about an hour and twenty minutes just to get to the islands.


I had the pleasure of sitting next to the boats which kept shifting into me and pinching my legs like crazy, that and I was sitting in the middle of the boat in the worst spot imaginable so every time the boat crashed down on the waves my spine felt like it would shoot through my skull. That part was rough.

Here we are on an open water paddle.

The Shack

I urge you, I beg you, I plead with you...please, please, please read this book!

Ready to think???

"If Christ asked His Father to forgive those who crucified Him, aren't they all completely forgiven?"


"If the God of love is a loving Father, why do we never think of him as a loving Judge?"


"If souls were dropping into Hell all around Him, why did Christ wait till He was 30 to walk around and say things nobody could understand, heal a few guys and pick some corn on the Sabbath, without any display of urgency?"

"If Christ died for the sins of the world, isn't the rejection of Christ through unbelief one of them?"

All of the above are from "Mike Ogden" Check out his blog at

http://ifsofog.blogspot.com/

Now...let's reflect.

Fun Pic

I have not been on my blog in months...and got in trouble for that tonight by someone for not posting. I won't mention her name (April).

I promise I will try and do better.

Here is a sweet pic we took of my cousin Jerrod while he was in the hospital in Dallas. Make sure and check out jerrodshelton.com for his updates.

Check Out My Rack!!!

Okay...I am posting this blog primarily to show my Grandpa how I solved my canoe storage problem. It has been a long road folks. I had to figure out how to get the canoe stored above our camper so that our car could fit in the garage. Every kit made for this did not store the canoe high enough to clear the trailer or low enough to not get hit by the garage door when it goes up. I worked and worked on this problem all weekend long trying to find the right kit while I was organizing my garage. Then the age old wisdom of "do it yourself" kicked in. So my brother in law Jared and I designed our own system...which is ten times better. We went to Home Depot bought all that we needed then went home to put our carpentry skills to the test. After hours of measuring, drilling, un-drilling what we screwed up then drilling some more we had finished! It is a thing of pure beauty I tell you. I could put up to three boats on this rack now. It cost way less than any other system I found and I will finish adding all the gear hooks to it tomorrow for my paddles, life jackets and other boating toys.

This design enables me to put the canoe up or take it down without any help. Which is really nice. On these three side boards you see there will be paddles and life jackets plus many, many ropes after tomorrow evenings work is done.

What more could a man want in his garage I ask you? Mountain bikes to your right, camper, canoe, X-Terra. In the back ground trekking poles, back packing gear...what a sacred and holy place.

First Canoe Trip

Darby and I went out in the canoe this past Friday for the first time. It was awesome. We spent the night before at the store picking out her life jacket, paddle, and hat. I am feeling much better now and was able to treasure every second of this adventure. I can't wait until Sutton is older then we will have Marta, Darby, and Sutton in the boat!

Darby could not understand why the fish would not bite. I kept telling her the fish could hear her talking THE WHOLE TIME. She just looked at me and said, "dad I can't hear them...so they can't hear me." She is beyond funny. Needless to say we did not catch anything. It's very hard when you cast the line and your daughter yell's, "here fish...take this hook!" at the top of her lungs over and over. She is outstanding.

She did work up a sweat helping to paddle the boat.

Wild Child

Here is the hand drill I bought from the Maasai while in Africa. It will be Darby's when she is older. However we play with it all the time now. She can now get it very, very hot...time to practice outside. We are always building camps inside. Notice her tent, campfire, tripod for cooking, and incredible passion and skill? Getting her ready for her time alone in the wild at the age of seven. How I adore this little girl.

She now knows how to set up her tent poles and properly make a fire circle. She is also so excited because she can now cause sparks using the flint and steel. She's my little survivalist! I know I'm weird...don't care either.

Sutton's Gift

This is my new friend Andrew in Kenya. He is a Maasai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai warrior that I met while at Amboseli National Park on our Kenya Pilgrimage. They still live off the land and keep very closely to their tribal traditions as a way of life. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip because we were able to take a tour of their village, go inside their homes which are made of cow dung, and watch them show us how they make fire from using the hand drill method http://www.primitiveways.com/pt-fire.html . I was in my own little part of paradise. It gave me great joy to know there are still people in this world who live so close to the earth by their own choice. I wish I knew the wisdom they posses. At the end of the village tour they took us to an area behind their huts where they sell many crafts and items to make money…apparently they also understand marketing and business. I was not impressed with the tourist junk but asked Andrew to sell me his own knife, which I am holding in this picture. At first he said he could not…after some more talking and bonding though he agreed to sell it to me. When Sutton is older my boy will have his own Maasai knife that was hand made and used as a great tool for over 10 years by my friend Andrew. I also talked them into selling me the hand drill they use to make fires. They thought it was so funny that I wanted those things.