Keegan Hare- Home.

After a long day of traveling, we made it back to Columbus.  My mother picked me up at the airport, and we are home.

Keegan Hare- Through Security

We made it to Belize City, ate breakfast, and are through security at the airport.

Keegan Hare- Getting Ready to Leave

Having spent two full days on the island, we are up and moving getting ready to leave.  Our time here was fun and relaxing while it lasted, but I am ready to be home.  We are taking the 6:30 (Central Time) ferry back to Belize City, where we will repack our bags and eat breakfast.  Our flight to Houston does not leave till 12:30 ish, so we should have plenty of time to spare. Once in Houston, we have a five hour layover until our flight for Columbus leaves. 

Sea Creatures

Snorkeling, and being burnt

So today we went snorkeling all day, we saw turtles, sharks, rays, and plenty of fish. However, one thing that i didn't expect, was getting burnt. I am not one to usually get burnt while being exposed to the sun, but i guess being out all day exposing your back to the sun will do that to you. It was amazing to see all these creatures up close and take pictures of them, I will be posting some on here as soon as I am done with this post! I hope you guys will enjoy it!

Shark attack!

So this was the state of affairs just before I hopped in for snorkeling. We had a lot of fun out on the Caribbean. We saw some great marine wildlife including these sharks and some turtles. Only one of us was able to escape sunburn though... Oh well, it was worth it.

Water, water everywhere

Today we arrived at Caye Caulker. Everything's going into full tourist mode now. Tomorrow we are going to go snorkeling, and we will spend the rest of our trip relaxing until we go back home on Tuesday. Wish it were a little sunnier today, but that should come in due time. The island is smaller than one would think, but there is a lot here. Very unexpected.

Keegan Hare- On Caye Caulker.

We have arrived on Caye Caulker, checked into our hotel, and have made a short tour of the Island. We picked up some things at the grocery store, and are now in are room settling in and playing cards.

Keegan Hare- Heading to Caye Caulker

We are up and moving this morning, finishing up last minute packing and getting ready to head out to Caye Caulker.  As I understand it, we are driving to Belize City, dropping off our checked luggage with a friend there, and then taking a ferry out to the island.

Big Rock vs. Cameron

Keegan Hare- Tying up Loose Ends and Big Rock

Since Monday we have spent most of the time finishing up small things and getting ready to depart.
On Tuesday we did more analyzing of the energy consumption here at the inn and looking at voltage drops in various buildings of the inn.
Wednesday we went to another school. It wasn't too far away, but you have to park your car and walk over a small bridge to get to the school. It was a small school, and it apparently floods occasionally. One of the smaller buildings that is one classroom is wood and doesn't have a foundation, and we were told that the last time it flooded, it got picked up and moved by the water. Because it is a relatively small building, they just got a group of people together, picked it up and moved it back.
Thursday we went to a place called Big Rock. It is up near Thousand Foot Falls, so we took the same bumpy road to get there. Big Rock is about a fifty foot waterfall with several large pools. We went swimming there for several hours.
Today we have been packing up the tools and our stuff, getting ready to head out to Caye Caulker tomorrow morning.

Big Rock

Had an awesome time at Big Rock yesterday. Used swimming muscles that I haven't used for years, came back sore, but had much fun. We swam right up to the falls and sat under them and to the side. It was a great time.

Work 100% done

So it's day 16 of our trip and we are official done with all the work we were scheduled to do. That included all the solar systems we put up, as well as distributing all the Dell laptops we brought down as well. With less then a week left on this trip I can say that it absolutely went to fast for me i 'm sure i'll be saying that again next Tuesday when we are boarding our plane to come back. I can not wait to finally get to see the beautiful coastline of Belize, as well as the barrier reef that stretches down its entire shores.I'll be sure to post a bunch of pictures of me snorkeling in the reef!

Belize Sunrises

Some pictures from my morning runs though the hills of Belize.

Nathan H. - Tubing on the Mopan River

On Sunday, we got to go tubing on the Mopan River after church and lunch. It was pretty fun, Dr. Skon had a friend that owned a small little resort type place in Bullet Tree Falls and he took us. There was even a small water fall that we got to go over which was fun.

 

Nice view of the river. 

 

Close up of one the dogs that went along with us. They were good swimmers!

Nathan H. - 10.8mi Hike to 1,000 Foot Falls

On Saturday, we got up early and headed to Mountain Pine Ridge Natural Reserve and decided to hike 10.8 miles to see 1,000 Foot Falls which is a huge waterfall that drops over 1,600 feet. We had to hike part of the way because the roads were too bad and we wouldn't be able drive without getting stuck. There are some pictures of our journey below.

 

Panorama of the falls and the surrounding mountain range. 

 

They call speed bumps Sleeping Policemen, also some mud we had to track through.

 

Pretty cool shot of the falls. You can't see the bottom.

Sight seeing at its finest

On a roof: Stuck, and no fiddle to play

Doing our last installation today. Doug had just used the ladder to get onto the other building, leaving Cameron and I stuck on the roof of the adjacent building for a while. I contemplated trying to jump off and roll, but the nearest hospital is miles away down a bumpy dirt road... So I waited.

Keegan Hare- Tubing Down the Mopan and Arenal

Yesterday morning we went to the Nazarene Church in San Ignacio. In the afternoon, we went tubing down the Mopan river. Tubing was a very relaxing way to sooth our sore muscles after the ten mile hike Saturday.  For dinner we went out for some incredibly fantastic pizza.

This morning we went back to work and headed out to Arenal which is the town on the Guatemalan border. We prepped the school for solar panels, and when done, we again went across the soccer field into Guatamala and across the bridge. We were in Arenal until two, and not having brought food with us, we stopped for some snacks on the way back.

Still a bit sore from Saturday. Amazing what ten miles can do to you.

Thousand Foot Falls - Cameron

The hike up to 1,600 ft falls may have been long but it was definitely worth it! Here is a time lapse of part of our hike and a panorama from the eastern side. I found that there is so much this country has to offer, however some of the natural sites may be to remote for people to get to. We only saw 2 other vehicles on our 10 mile hike to the falls and I think more people should try to experience this.

Keegan Hare- End of the Second Week

The end of the second week was exceedingly productive.

Thursday morning we installed the other two panels here at the inn, and in the afternoon visited a Nazarene school.

Friday morning we set up the system at St. Andrews, the Anglican school in San Ignacio. It went exceedingly quickly, and we were back at the inn by lunch. Because it had gone so fast, in the afternoon we went to the Nazarene school and set up the that system.

Saturday we decided to go to 1600 foot falls. We left the inn around 10 and started the drive up into the mountains. 1600 foot falls is part of a park, but it isn't directly connected to the park. We went through the parks entrance, then continued on this rugged road for several miles. The road got to be so bad, we could not drive any farther, so we hiked the last five miles. The view was totally worth it.













We stayed at the view point for just over an hour, then started the 5 mile hike back to our car.

Third installation

Woo-hoo. We were feeling really productive today and got the third solar installation done (Victorious Nazarene School in Succotz) right after the second one. When the panels come in, this will be one more school with solar assistance. We have one more installation planed for this trip. It feels really good to have so much progress today.

Second installation.

Second installation, St. Andrew's Anglican School, is up. When Dr. Skon and Doug return with solar panels in March, the solar system will be up and running.

Arenal and the hanging bridge

While visiting the school Arenal a couple of days ago we took a slight detour to see this awesome hanging bridge. The bridge spans across the Mopan River, which floods fairly often. Apparently every time the river floods the bridge is washed away.

Nathan H. - Trip to Arenal and Guatemala

On Monday Jan 12, we went to scope out a school (Arenal) for a possible solar panel installation. Other MVNU Computer Science teams had been to this school before to implement computers into the classroom so it was pretty awesome to see everything still running pretty smooth. What was also pretty neat was that the school was right on the Belize/Guatemalan border and the school actually got their internet from a cellphone tower in Guatemala. With it being so close to Guatemala, we actually got to cross over the border (with permission from the police station). There is a soccer field that is literally divided diagonally by the border. We also got to cross a suspension footbridge that went over the Mopan river in Guatemala. One thing I noticed was an older gentleman and two 7-9 year old boys who were carrying concrete blocks across the bridge by hand and they said it was for a new church which I thought was amazing. They would carry 3 at a time and you could tell they were dedicated.

 

Students in the school using laptops and the internet. 

 

The suspension footbridge and a young boy carrying 3 blocks.

 

Neat house made out of mud which keeps it cool inside and the police station in Arenal. 

Keegan Hare- Two Panels Up and Running!

This week so far has been a bit of a blur. Monday we went to a tiny village on the Guatemalan border. We checked out the possibilities of putting a solar system in for a small school there. The school has a good southerly facing roof, so we will be installing all of the pieces except for the panels next week.



Afterwards we walked across a soccer field into Guatamala.




On the other side of the village, there is a bridge made out of cable and boards with no side hand holds to speak of. This is a photo from the opposite side, looking back towards the village.



Yesterday, we went to a much larger school in the middle of San Ignacio. We will be setting up a system on the opposite side of the second story roof.



This morning, Dr. Skon and Collin went to Spanish Lookout to buy some solar panels so we could start the installation here at the place where we are staying, and this afternoon we installed the first two panels, and verified that the system is working.



This picture of the Grid Tie Inverter display was taken when the sun was already mostly set and behind a tree, so it wasn't putting out much power.




Tomorrow, the current plan is in the morning we will go work at the school in San Ignacio, and at some point hopefully also before midday install the other two panels on the roof here so we can see how much power they are going to put out.

Very excited to have finally made visible forward progress!

Nathan H. - Starting Installation

Today was a pretty successful day. We got some Solar Panels and installed two of them just to see if we were going to get some watts out of them and after a few minutes of trouble shooting our connections, it was a success! The issue was one of the connectors wasn't pushed in all of the way so we weren't getting any power. Anyways, it's working now and Doug also set up a small unix device that connects to the internet and we can check it at any time and see the specs of the power output of the solar panels which is pretty helpful for when we get back to the states. Here are some pictures below of the start of the setup.

 

2 Grid Tie Inverters for an 8 panel system. 

 

First 2 panels installed and ready for testing.

Panels

We got some panels today! Preparing them for the roof was a little bit of a pain but the important thing is they work! All of our electrical wiring and mounting on the roof hopefully will turn out to be a sturdy and profitable system.

Two down

Picked up four Solar Panels today. We have begun assembling the array on top of the resort we are staying at. Only two are mounted right now, we wanted to take it slow as this is a learning experience for a lot of us. Those two Solar Panels are plugged in and we are getting power from them. Victory!!!