Day 6 - A Little Bit of This - A Little Bit of That

Early morning venture out to the reef.

We have been going strong and fast at doing absolutely nothing for the last several days, so we decided to make today more of a rest day. 

Fruit of the Palm tree.

After breakfast Thomas and I headed on a kayak out to the reef to see if we could catch some local wild life. Unfortunately we were not too successful. We were really hoping to catch some large snappers or maybe even a small bluefin tuna. Known to be hanging out by the reef we both figured we would at least catch one, maybe even a trigger fish or two.....Absolutely nothing...Oh well. We'll try again another day.

The rest of the early afternoon we swam, fished and generally mac'd out!!

Anna cutting some jokes and rum with Anthony.

Towards the end of the day at around 3pm I had Roberto, owner of Active Divers, take us out by the reef and drop bait. It was only Thomas and I that went out. It wasn't too choppy, but we still had around 4-6 foot swells on the back side of the reef. We dropped some sardines in the first stop hoping to snag a Queen Trigger, but instead I was able to wrangle in a couple of Yellowtail Snappers. Next, I had a Slippery Dick on the line. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the fish. Not one you want to eat, plus it has some pretty pointy spines that you do not want to mess with. We unhooked it and quickly threw it back so we could go for more snappers. 

As we like to call it in Belize .... Dinner!!

Clinton cleaning the fish.

Thomas hooked two small Cherry Groupers and then caught a "Big Daddy Cherry Grouper". The young the Cherry Groupers have a vibrant red coloration and spotted with the most beautiful design. As they age the redness turns brownish. An amazing creature to see both in and out of the water. The "Big Daddy" one Thomas caught was to be had for dinner along with all the Yellowtail Snappers we caught.

Thomas with one of his prize catches.

We made it back to the dock about 6:30pm and had the chef prepare the fish into three meals and one appetizer. He prepared the dinners in two different ways. Maybe it was because it was caught by us, but this was one of the best dinners we had since the night prior (haha..)

Coming in at sunset back to Portofino's.

For the remainder of the evening we just lounged and everyone pretty much turned in to bed early.

Day 5 – Caye (Key) Caulker

Yellow Stingray..Olivia shot this picture.. Amazing!

Everyone was still in the villa in the morning, so I figured I would throw in some bait to see if I could catch anything. Fun…fun…fun! 

As long as you have some pretty good bait or realistic bait, you can snag at least some sort of fish. The prize for me would be to catch a fresh barracuda for breakfast. One big enough we can have to feed the whole familia!! No luck.

On Father's Day with his two favorite kids!

We managed to get with the dive shop here and arranged a private boat ride, rather than the shuttle rides we would have needed to take at to San Pedro and then to Caye Caulker. We left at about 11am and trolled, fished and snorkeled our way to Caye Caulker at our own leisure.

As we got to Caye Caulker there was an inlet that Clinton, our boat Captain of the day or as we were liked to call

him – “El Presidente”, stopped near a sunken barge and let the kids get out and snorkel a bit. They managed to see quite a bit of sea life. Upon returning to the boat, Olivia showed all of us a picture of a ray she saw on the bottom. Clinton recognized it and said it was a Yellow Ray, capable of delivering a 12 volt shock. Glad she decided not to pet the thing.

Next stop, we hit an area near some mangroves to feed the Tarpon. There was a school of about 50-60 trapons ranging from sizes of 3.5 -5 feet long. These guys had been feed well!!! We waded in with the fish for about 10 minutes. Olivia and Thomas would throw out Sardines to feed the fish and tried to hand feed several of them. Not so easy it seems.

After the Tarpons, headed out to “The Split”, a channel through Caye Caulker which was caused by a hurricane back in 1961. It split the island in two and now is the end point for the main congregation area for the locals and tourists. It has a restaurant, bar and big dock. People swim to the other side of the channel to climb and jump off of a tree. It’s probably the highest point on the island…ha.ha! Caye Caulker is a very laid back small island about 4 miles long and maybe 400  yards wide at its widest spot. People come here to do shelling, kit surfing (big time), fishing and all around lolly gagging!!!

We docked the boat and had lunch at Rainbow Bar & Grill. Awesome lunch. All of us had some sort of Lobster dish, except for young Thomas. Clinton ended up having lunch with us. We made haste with the lunch so we could get out and explore. Knowing we still had a boat ride back in which we wanted to do some more snorkeling and fishing, we meandered through the main street and had a couple of beers. We watched the kids tree jump several times and then we were back off heading back towards Portofinos.

The first stop on the way back we stopped near a spot where the manatees go to play. We were fortunate to run across three. They seemed to be a family unit. Very large creatures. The photo does not give the realization of how large these sea cows really are. It is amazing to see how graceful they move about the water even with their massive size.

We hopped back in the boat and started to make our way back towards the resort. We trolled for a bit and dropped bait, but never had any real luck catching anything of worth. Once we got back to the dock, Thomas and I fished some more and I managed to rustled in a huge Mutten Snapper. Dinner for Mama..oh yeah!

At about 9pm, the lights went out suddenly. When I say it was pitch dark - it was pitch DARK! The whole island ended up having a power outage. The locals said it happens about once a month. Luckily I had several petzels to give us some simple lighting. Portofinos had some generators that kick on basic lights after a couple of minutes and the bar was back in business. We ended up finishing the night with several more drinks and finally called it a night not a moment to soon....

By the way... No A/C ... what a rough life we were leading today.. The A/C did eventually come back on around 2:30am. I slept like a baby...manatee.

Day 4 – Lobsterfest – Ambergris Key 2015

Around 8am before heading out to San Pedro.

Woke up a little later than usual this morning. I think all that Caribbean sun helps you sleep better. I got up out of bed around 5:50am and strolled down to the Green Bar for some coffee. I prepared two cups, one for the matriarch and the other for me, the joker of the family. Got back to the room and woke the kids to up to get ready to head out this morning to the big city. We headed out to San Pedro this morning at 8am for the last day of Lobsterfest.

Estrel's - Where we had a delicious breakfast.

Mo shuttled us this morning and we got to the big city right in time for rush hour. San Pedro is small town of around 67k inhabitants. It is located on the southern point of Ambergris Caye (pronounced “Key”) and is a melting pot of nationalities. It is where everything happens and where most of any type business, restaurant or bar are going to operate out of.

The view is in the town center Catholic
Church with Olivia looking at the ocean.

Main goal of today was to hit Captain Sharky’s, the city’s bait and tackle shop. I wanted to get Thomas a cast net. With no stores on our side of the island, there is basically nowhere to purchase bait unless you catch it yourself. We grabbed some additional weights, hooks, leaders and jigs.

One of the many billboards in town. Artwork is everywhere.

We quickly learned that even though today was Lobsterfest, it wouldn’t start until around 6pm. Neither of us had any desire to hang out for the next 10 hours in the center of San Pedro waiting to chomp down on some spiny crustaceans only to say we were there. We did the next best thing – Breakfast at Estel’s. The restaurant was ocean front and had some amazing dishes. Olivia had a coconut lobster soup and I believe her exact words were – “Oh my gosh, this is the best soup EVER!!” Anna had phenomenal lobster sandwich with fries. Thomas had a cheese & chicken quesadilla and lobster tacos. During our meal we were greeted by Scrappy, a local four legged greeter. Scrappy was unique because he ate nothing with carbs. You would think that an average dog would love to give their mouths a taste of bread, potatoes or quesadilla shell. Nope – this guy was only interested in lobster or chicken. Talk about a diva dog!!!

We stopped here for some appetizers. 

Local Vegetable Store

After breakfast, we walked the city, which only has three roads (south to north). Even though the streets have official names, most everyone refers to the three main roads as Front (ocean facing), Middle and Back (bay side). We popped our heads in and out of several shops throughout the morning. Olivia found a beautiful bracelet at Belizian Art, a store with goods from a compilation of over 100 local artisans.

Since we would not make it until later this evening, we planned to catch a ride back with Mo at 1pm. So we only had several hours left to shop, eat, drink and wander around. We hit Elvi’s Kitchen for some more appetizers and tried some of their specialities. We had a drink at Lola’s, a bar owned by a man from Chicago. Grabbed some groceries and before we knew it, it was time to head to the boat.

Waiting to take the shuttle back to Portofino at 1pm.

Upon arrival back at the resort, Thomas and I headed out to see if he could catch us some bait fish. First cast – 6 sardines. Oh yeah … this was the ticket. We fished and caught numerous snappers, grunts and a medium size barracuda and one of the other docks near the resort. After a few hours we head with the rest of the bait back over to our dock and continued fishing. Somehow, I managed to reel in a Moray Eel --- Wow --- not what I wanted to catch but it put up one heck of a fight. Right before getting it onto the dock, it broke free. Yeah… I was very glad I did not have to cut the line or attempt to pull the hook. Thomas and I threw out multiple more times and ended up keeping two Grey Snappers for dinner. 

Tyler and Olivia chatting up the early evening.

Local thief!

The night ended up with fireworks being set off about one mile out over the ocean. We thought it would simply be a couple of poppers, but quickly realized this was to be a show. How cool was that. Out in the middle of nowhere, totally away from the City, by the second largest barrier reef in the world, at low season, with the family, drinking beer and all of a sudden to see that. Turns out the resort two down is owned by a CEO of a small company some of you may know - Cisco. He apparently likes to come down several times a year and have a little fun. If I were a smart man I would head down and see if I could mange to sit and have a couple of cold one with him

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Huge stingray I saw off of one of the local docks we fished today. The picture does not due its true size justice.

Day 3 – Back to the Resort After Fishing

Left-Anthony - Right-D (Captian)

Today’s fishing guide was “D”, his deck hand was Anthony (17). We headed out a little after 9am and stopped first in San Pedro on one of the channels at a local gas station to get some ice, beer and drinks for the day. Next stop was to be the island next to Leonardo Caprio’s island. I believe it was called Isle Blaco. There we were to stop for barracuda. They were to be plentiful and a common hang out for the old cudas. There must have been a cuda convention up the Yucatan Pennisula near Mexico, because the cudas were few and far between. No big deal. Simply off to the next honey hole.

On one of the channels on the back side of San Pedro

 We headed back towards the mainland and stopped to troll with some sardines. We switched lures on the casting rods and attempted to reel in the days catch again. Suddenly a strike on one of the trolling lines. Young Schiffers popped the boat cherry today and wrangled in a barracuda. A good start for lunch!

D kept moving all over the seashore line and we fished and casted for the next several hours until I spotted some permits. Permits are seasonal, very elusive and consider a trophy catch even to the locals. It seemed like I was in slow motion. I got off the front of the boat and grabbed one of my fly rods. The school passed us and I worked to get the fly rod up, out and ready for casting. Back on the front of the boat now. Permits? Where did they go? GONE! Just as fast as they came, they went. The shine that allowed me to spot them was no more. We putted around the area for about 15-20 minutes to see if any of us could spot them again. No luck.

D made way to one of the beaches and prepared lunch from the fresh catch of the morning. The kids got in the water and snorkeled with Anna. I walked up the beach to one of the flats to make an attempt at some bonefish. The flats there were mainly sand with no weeds so for me it was more of fly practice than fly attempt. I managed to spot one bonefish, but he did not seem to like what I was offering him. Since he ignored me, I headed back to the kids and we all had a fabulous lunch. The guys did a superb job.

Lunch - Barracuda

After lunch we started to may our way back towards the resorts fished several other places. The last stop we anchored out near the reef and just dropped bait. As you can imagine the reef is plentiful, so we were getting strikes continuously. Thomas and I caught five different species of Snapper – Lane, Mutten, Yellowtail, Gray and School Teacher. Not sure how the one got the name School Teacher, but will definitely research that one and get back everyone.

Finally at about 4:45pm we arrived back to Portofino Beach Resort. Everyone pitched in and helped empty and clean the boat. Anna and the kids gave our afternoon catch to one of the local groundskeeper. He was very appreciative. I pack muled everything back to the room and then headed back to the dock to settle up with D and toast to a successful day.

What looks to be a shameless Cheetos Promotion

Thomas and I stayed on the dock to fish a little more with the remainder sardines we had. Second drop and BAM – Thomas snagged a gorgeous Mutten Snapper! This one was to be his dinner. Yummy! D was still there at the dock so he was kind enough to cut, gut and prepare the fish. Anna took it up to the kitchen and had them hold it until dinner. 

Grey Mutten - Thomas' soon to be dinner

I fished with Thomas for about another hour on the dock. We were pulling them out of the water repeatedly. During the reelings, we managed to see a leopard ray, a moray eel and a 3-3.5ft nurse shark come up under the dock. How cool is that we told each other.

Just seconds away from hitting the guy. I couldn't wait to taste!

Eventually it turned dark and I called it a day. I went up to the Green Bar where Anna was sitting with Sandra and Jans, the owners of the Portofino. We would spend the rest of the evening talking and laughing with both of them. All of us managed to grab a bite of something, but the prize was to be Thomas’ snapper. And, yes, it was delicious!

Day 3 – The Quiet Before the Storm

I woke up a little later this morning, 5:23am and quickly hopped up to take advantage of the quiet before the storm. Even though there are not a lot of guests bustling around at 5:30 in the morning, the staff is already hard at work. Yesterday morning we watched two older gentlemen shovel away sea oats/ seaweed from the shore line all day. And I mean all day! We spoke with the general manager of the resort yesterday and he told us that since September it has been none stop. They believe it to be from the nitrates dumped in the waters. Either from fertilizer or some claim the sudden appearance is due to the chemicals used during the BP spill. Regardless, this clean-up is EVERY day and they hope it goes just as quick as it came.

We will be heading out at 9am this morning with “D”, our fishing guide, where he will be taking us into the channel side of the island. Snapper and Bonefish will be the targets of this venture. We are all excited to get the day started.

Day 2 - Just starting to get settled in!

Cherry Snapper ~ 2 lbs.

The bright sun light was piercing through the window this morning as I opened my eyes. It seemed as if it was about 8:30am based on the strength of the sunlight. That and we did lose two hours due to the time change. Add in the traveling and tiredness ….yeah it seemed like 8:30-9am. WRONG… It was 5:12am. I had to do a double take on my watch. Yup…5:12am. Apparently the sun starts to come up around 4:30am this time of year here. My kind a place!!! Unfortunately, that means the sun goes down pretty early. Like … 6:30pm early!

The Queen taking in some shut-eye!.

Everyone was still deep asleep, so I grabbed a pole and wandered down to the pier. I threw out a hook and landed a grunt within a couple of seconds. Awesome, I thought. Threw the fish back and casted again. BAM! Another grunt within a couple of seconds. Grunts put up a great little fight, but they are not really what I was interested in catching today. I pitched the grunt back in the water and re-thought the hook to lure dilemma. 

Thomas & Alexander with a recent catch.

Yo Zuri lure was the choice. The Yo-Zuri shiny minnow I chose was about three inches long, so the grunts wanedt nothing to do with it. However, it is quite an appealing sight to the local Cherry Snapper population (along with the rest of the snapper types). Within a couple of minutes I landed a nice one. Wish I would have kept it for breakfast, but he managed to talk me off the ledge of hunger.

Smaller Marble Grouper.

Thomas ended up coming down to the beach about 8:30am. He was smiling from ear to ear ready to see what world records could potentially be shattered today. I couldn't wait to see them get demolished!!! I fished with Thomas for about an hour until Anna came down to the main lodge where we sat and had breakfast. During breakfast, a young boy, Alexander introduced himself to Thomas and they quickly tooled around together. Alexander was the son of the owner. Needless to say, he knew where everything was. 

The girls catching some downtime on the loungers.

The boys spent the morning simply fishing around the resort. Olivia slept in and came down to the pool area around 9:45am. I sat and had breakfast (#2) with her and afterwards she ended up laying in the hammock with Mama for a bit. 

While the ladies took on the difficulty of napping and relaxation, Young Master Schiffers managed to rustle in a couple of marble groupers, barracuda, countless grunts (30+), baby tarpon, skip jack and several other fish species. 

Lobster for Dinner with Potato.

We all took it easy for the remainder of the day and met several nice couples. We meandered down the beach a bit, both ways. Just seeing what might lie beyond the boundaries of the resort. With that said...we did not make it that far. We opted to stay on/near the grounds today. 

As like all vacations, the day went by fast.  Before we knew it, the sun was starting to set. It seemed we did quite a bit for doing a whole bunch of nothing. I guess that is what your suppose to be doing on vacation. 

We head to the room to drop off a few things and freshen up. Thomas and I went back down to the dock for a bit and then met the girls at the restaurant. Dinner was wonderful...again! This place does a fabulous job with their food! Anna and Olivia had a Angel Hair Pasta dish with shrimp. Thomas had a lobster bisque and I had the Lobster. 

We all called it quits after dinner and started the wind down process pretty quickly. Olivia and Thomas were both out at 8:30pm. Anna wasn't too far behind. Snoring began around 9:40pm. 

Tomorrow we head out at 9am for a full day of flats fishing, snorkeling and shelling!!

Embarkation - Charlotte

Just landed in Belize City

Yesterday we awoke at 5:30am bright-eyed and bushy tailed ready to start our summer vacation. We had already packed most everything several days prior, so all we had to worry about were some showers, teeth cleansings and oh yeah….almost forgot the passports. Luckily Anna remembered. We left the house around 6:30am as scheduled and arrived at the airport to see a flurry of holiday travelers embarking on their own journey.

To the boys back home!

Flight was a little delayed due to some flooding of the runways at Dallas/Ft. Worth, but nothing that would make us miss the flight to Belize from Dallas. We arrived at Dallas at 11:30am local time and boarded the plane to Belize City about 45 minutes later. The flight to Belize was a little over 3 hours and we arrived safely with an hour to get off the plane, go through passport and immigration, grab a cab and take the 20 minute cab ride to get to our water taxi. I did not think we would make our 4pm scheduled/reserved water taxi ride in time due to the delays incurred in Dallas.

Our shuttle from San Pedro to Portofino's. 

As Schiffers luck would have it, we had an amazing 15 minutes to spare. Perfect time to partake in a local favorite, Belikin, the island beer of choice (and only beer of choice – well… light or dark beer). Anna and I both had our first bottle and checked in with the water taxi service. The ride from Belize City to San Pedro was to take 1.5 hours. Straight along the shore line and across the island chains through blue tourquise water. After arriving we took a simply 20 minute water shuttle ride left to the resort to  reach our final destination in Ambergris Caye/San Pedro – Portofino Beach Resort (http://portofinobelize.com/ ).

We hit the dock at Portofino at 6pm local time – CST, where were greeted by Jennifer the hotel concierge, along with two others who helps unload the baggage. A big smile and warm welcome along with four damp clothes were presented upon leaving the boat. --- Big smiles were had by all. Needless to say we were very happy to be at our final destination. Hungry too. Very Hungry!!!

Not sure if you can see, but the comment on the side of the buidling says
"NO PEE PLEASE"

Immediately after check-in we were presented our room and quickly hit the restaurant. Wow!! The food was amazing. Olivia had a Lobster Bisque that we have all determined to be the best any of us ever had. When I say the put a half lobster tail in the soup, they literally put a half lobster tail in the bisque. I was so tender like eating big chunks are divine steak cuts. Anna and I both had snapper, although I like hers better. She had one prepared in a chardonnay sauce and mine was an almond crusted version.

After dinner, Thomas and I both got out the fishing rods and went out onto the pier. It was very odd, but here it is dark at 7pm so we were somewhat outta whack with time not only from the time change, but also the sunset timing. As if that would make a difference in our determination to cast a line.

All of the decoration on the bed are individual flower petals! How crazy is that?

First Catch (SR) – Red Snapper, Next (SR) – Mangrove Snapper, Then (LT) – Grunts (several of them). About 1.5 hours into fishing, Young master Schiffers managed to catch a Lionfish. I am glad to report he had the good sense to cut the line and not attempt to remove the fish/hook. After a few more catch and releases we called it a night. I think we are off to a great start. Both Thomas and I can’t wait to cast the fly rods in the morning in hopes of catching our first Bonefish!!! 

When we got in the room we found the ladies fast asleep and heavy into the competitive nightly sport of snoring.  Olivia is looking forward to Mac’in out on the hammock and tanning by the pool. We are all ready for our first full day of adventure tomorrow!!!! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!