Underwater Fun With My Crazies :)

These first few pics don't really have anything to do with these other photos... but they were in the batch, so I couldn't resist :) 

 These guys have so much energy it just blows me away at times... I really can't keep up with them. I try my hardest, but it is never enough. 

Most of these are from the day I just posted about where we went to search for the sand dollars. These were the photos I took with my water camera. 

 This big sting ray came really close, and was a pretty big dude. Joss, of course, gave his adorable little squeal of delight through his snorkel when he spotted it under the surface :) 

 I'm amazed at how far Emit has come in the water just since these photos. With the summer camp and us trying to teach a lot of the local kids how to swim, he seems to be wanting to show them all that he can keep up too. He's swimming about 10 feet on his own right now! He wears his mask a lot more and even knows how to use his snorkel too. A M A Z I N G little dudes!!! 

 Side story for Emit :) 

They both love the book, Three Billy Goats Gruff, that came to our collection of from Dallas' childhood books. We did a little puppet show with it a few weeks back and they just really get in to it for some reason. Well, anytime we see a bridge or mention a bridge Emit will say, "Is the kuh-troll unner dare?" (Is the troll under there?) Not sure why he calls it a kuh-troll, but he does and I think it's adorable :) 

 Today I was reading him a story of Baby Moses from an old Bible Story book my folks used to read to me as a kid with lots of pictures. As Miriam was placing the basket with Baby Moses in the river, Emit's biggest concern was where the kuh-troll was and if the kuh-troll was going to gobble him up. Took a while for me to reassure him that the mean old kuh-troll wasn't going to get sweet Baby Moses. :) At least I know they can listen and retain stories...now we just have to work on keeping them all straight. 

 One of the nicest reefs in the harbor is between Foul Cay & Guana Cay. We try to take our friends, family and guests here any chance we can. There's always lots to see :) 

 Mom and I were snorkeling here with Dallas while Poppy hung out in the boat with some sleepy boys that were resting. At one point, we turned around and this entire school of fish just swarmed all around us. They surprised us for sure because it's not like you can hear them sneaking up on you under water. And then our thoughts were, what are they running from? Never a dull moment when you're peeking into the underwater world and trying to figure out what may be watching you. 

 I cam across this conch (pronounced KONK) that appeared to be stunk on this branch. We helped it down, but who knows maybe he's been trying to get up there for days and we just set him back. 

 We're going to use this on our work blog to show people the proper sizes of conch that you can and can't harvest. The left one is too young, the right is just right. These are safe inside the harbor, so unless people go snatch them up illegally, they should remain safe. 

 Side story for Joss :)

The other night after watching an episode of Clifford Joss was telling me he wanted to be a doctor. I told him doctors got to go to school for a long time and that there were all kinds of doctors and then tried to describe some of the different doctors to him. For instance, some of the doctors work on the whole body or people's hearts or brains or legs and some doctors work on animals. I asked him if he still wanted to be a doctor and he said yes, and then I asked him what kind he would like to be. His response was, "I want to take care of everyone all the way!" Meaning he wants to take care of their whole body. He also loves to help heal people in a little video game he plays with Dallas. He runs around saying, "I'll help you, I'll help you!" and presses the buttons to give them health. Maybe I have a little doctor-to-be on my hands. :) 

 Dallas and I went searching for these shells at the reef, Flamingo Tongue Snails. They are really tiny, but really pretty. You can tell they are still alive by the pretty spots on them. I have a couple in my collection that Dallas has found over the years. They are his favorite shells. Once we started looking for them, we found them all over the place. Dallas would help hold me down nice and close so I could get a clear picture :) 

 It can be quite a challenge to capture some photos underwater. If you're not battling with good clarity, it could be the lighting, or the sand getting stirred up and in the water. For me, the hardest thing is usually keeping a good focus on things when the water is constantly moving you and your target around. It's a fun challenge though, trying to get a good shot :) 

 I think CC enjoyed the snorkeling. We forgot to grab some fins for her, so it was a little tricky at times. I 'towed' her a couple times a long the way to help fight a little bit of the current, but hopefully it just added to the fun of it for her :) 

 Ah, I had so much fun with this fish below... can you see it? It's toward the middle, and you can see little circles on the body, but he's pretty well camouflaged. 

 He was playing a little game of hide-n-seek with me :) You can see his yellow eyes right in the middle below. 

 We finally took my mom and dad to feed the turtles down at our beach. It's not a hard thing to do, just have to take them some squid and they are happy to come and play. 

 Joss is ready with his squid!

Emit & Poppy are ready....

 with their ssssqqqquuuuuuuuiiiiiidddd! :) 

 The turtles are ready and waiting for the squid. 

 It is such a cool experience feeding and petting these wild turtles.  

 Yum, Yum, Yum!

 Joss had fun watching them from underwater this time, and petting them as you can see :) 

 Until next time our green turtle friends...