Hi everybody! My name is Rusty Ludwigsen, and I am truly excited for the unique experience to travel to Belize and explore, examine, and appreciate both Glover’s Reef Atoll and The Chiquibul Forest. I am excited to approach these environments from the perspective of scientific understanding and discovery, and not simply as a tourist. My past experience with the Caribbean has been through highly commercialized endeavors, and with BIOS319 I hope to appreciate not only the beauty and wonder of these two environments, but also the vast amount of information and knowledge tied to these complex ecosystems. Much like being immersed in a new country can dramatically assist in the mastery of a second language, I think traveling to the ecosystems I have admired from afar in textbooks and documentaries will provide me with a new understanding of their function.

Yet, I expect this trip to be incredible, but also at times difficult. As a desert native, the humid weather of Houston is not my favorite, and traveling to remote regions of Belize will be a different animal. The humidity, heat, bug bites, early mornings, and sheer stickiness of the air are things I expect to not really enjoy. However, to travel to these remote regions, which appreciate their distance from civilization, requires contending with these environmental factors. Two weeks of some physical discomfort are well worth a lifetime of memories and knowledge. My past experience snorkeling in the Caribbean consisted of rubble with a few scattered Gorgonians (which I now know were covered in purple spots due to Aspergillosis) and Porites colonies. I hope to see a more intact reef in Belize, although I know it is not removed from anthropogenic damage.

The time to leave is approaching very quickly, and I am finalizing my suitcase with only a few hours to spare. I am looking forward to the early morning wakeup to begin this incredible adventure!