Oh, what a BLAST we had on our 3 day field trip to Tobacco Caye and Hopkins!  We left on last Mon @ 8:30 AM with (of course) our boat captain, Charlie, and his 2 mates, his brother Titi, and his cousin, Davies...our upstairs neighbor, Dave, and another friend, Vicky.  We got all loaded up and headed out, and our 1st stop was 1 of the smallest cayes, Sargeants Caye-basically a sand bar! Then we went snorkeling at Geoff Caye (not much bigger than Sargeants!).
 Just before we got to our destination, we went snorkeling on the other side of the reef, at the drop off!
 When we got back in the boat, the boys decided to troll for bigger fish...lol...Josh had not done that before (he loves the quickness of cast and catch), in between complaining about the slowness of it, he was singing the"fishy-fishy" commercial and said he couldn't wait to say "fish on-fish on!"...just being his 9 yr old self!, then all of the sudden he drops his pole in the boat and yells "HELP!"...lol...he caught a 10lb barracuda!!   The girls in the kitchen on Tobacco Caye cooked it p for us, and it was all good!
The next day we went out snorkeling and trolling again (didn't catch any really big fish,
 but did get some yellow tail snapper), and chilled out on Tobacco...that is an awesome place!!!  I wouldn't want to stay more than a week, but boy, what a week!
On Wed we got up and packed to go to Hopkins, a little town on the mainland.  Charlie and his boys' families are from there and stop off there when they can...The town is mostly Garifuna, very small, but really neat...a lot of history!
 On the way there, we passed a really neat, small caye called Laughing Bird Caye, that is an endangered bird sanctuary...the birds picked this caye to hang out on!  Awesome!
We went to the boys fav hangout on Hopkins, the drumming center.  This couple started it many years ago.  They have a few rooms for rent, places for tents, and a covered area for people to learn to play the drums, drink, socialize, and spritualize together!  It was really neat to watch Titi play with a group!  The Garifuna, like the Hawaiians, sing their stories and history in their native tongue...
And then the ride home...we stopped to fuel up, then it took us over 3 1/2 hrs to go straight back to Caye Caulker...and it was choppy and windy!  Charlie is an awesome captain and did what he could to get us home safely and not too beat up! Lol!  David and Vicky were in the front, they got bounced around but not wet...Josh, Daniel, and I were in the middle and got a little of both...Charlie could duck and not get too wet...Titi and Davies were just soaked sitting in the back!!!
Whew...made it, had a blast, and fell out as soon as we made it thru the door!