Today we left the Tropical Research Center and took a 3 hour boat ride to Middle Caye on Glover’s Reef. As soon as we got here, after an orientation and lunch, we got in the water (around 2pm). The problem: The water was a bit choppy. We could tell on the boat ride over. One of the crew said he’d seen worse, but it got pretty rough after we passed the barrier reefs (a good demonstration of the sheltering effect of reefs!). The boat ride was actually kind of fun in this weather, but snorkeling, not so much. I ended up breathing in some seawater in an area where I couldn’t stand because we just jumped right in.  Fortunately we dove from the dock, so we weren’t far and one of the safety officers helped me and a few others get back to shore. In case you were wondering, and without too many details, breathing seawater is a bad idea. I was fine after recovering on shore for at least an hour.

Instead, we went to the shallow wade-able reef at the other side of the caye. We finally saw coral! Mustard Hill Coral (Porites astreoides) was on several of the clumps of coral we tried to avoid stepping on. We also saw several brain coral, which I think were all symmetrical brain coral (Pseudodiploria strigosa). There were several sea fans, though I’m not sure yet what kind. The most likely options are Venus sea fan (Gorgonia flabellum) or purple sea fan (Gorgonia ventalina). Most of these corals looked healthy. We tried not to kick sediment on top of the reef formation.

We started a scavenger hunt which will be ongoing. Here, we found Christmas Tree Worms, Scleractinian (stony) corals, Gorgonian (soft corals), endosymbionts (corals) and several other items on the list.