Category Archives: 2016

Tough Love

Our last day here on the reef has been a little sad for me. I will absolutely be coming back here at some point in my life, but leaving tomorrow is gonna be difficult for me.

We started the day by wandering around in the back reef and collecting biodiversity in a bucket so we could identify it. I identified a species of chiton (the fuzzy chiton) and some genus of snails (cerithium and trochus snails). We also found a donkey dung sea cucumber, some box jellies, some huge hermit crabs that were using queen conch shells, and a few mantis shrimp.

As we were collecting stuff I got stung by something on my elbow and it was hurting for the next couple hours. Eventually it calmed down, but I’m still not sure what stung me. Possibly some kind of jelly.

In the afternoon we dissected lion fish to look at their size and the contents of their stomachs. Then we made lion fish ceviche which we will be eating any minute now.

After the lion fish dissection, we boated over to south-west caye and had a few drinks and watched the sun set. This place is so beautiful that it’s impossible to describe in pictures or words. I sat and watched the stars for awhile on the dock and thought about how amazing it would be to see this many stars every night. I’m gonna miss this when I got back to Houston. Despite the stings, bug bites, rashes, and layers of dirt and salt, I would love to spend huge quantities of my life here.

Day 14: All my favourite seafood

This morning we got to go back out to the back reef again. Except this time we came armed with ziplock bags and buckets to collect samples of our taxonomic groups. It was a pretty exciting time for me when we took our catches back to the wet lab to examine and ID because there were a lot of crustaceans. There were about 5 Mantis Shrimps, some were green and some were brown. One was almost 3 inches long. There were also a bunch of different crabs. There were loads of Reef Hermit Crabs, a couple of Stone Crabs and maybe a Mangrove Crab. We found two Blue Crabs, they didn’t like each very much. We couldn’t put them together in the same trough.

In the afternoon we got to dissect the 4 Lionfish that Scott caught. For a fish that is supposed to be able to eat a lot it didn’t have a lot of guts. Its organs were a lot smaller than I expected. We only found a tiny little fish under 2cm in its stomach. Everyone else’s fish stomaches only had mush in it. After we gutted the fish, the guys from the fisheries department took the meat to make ceviche for us. Still waiting to eat it.

Late in the afternoon, we took a boat to Southwest Caye. As the sun was setting and I was sipping pina colada, it dawned on me that today was the last full day we have. Time is, as always, paradoxically slow and fast. The past two weeks seemed to have disappeared. I’m not ready to go back to the real world. I’m not ready to leave this paradise. This experience is more than I could have asked for and more than I ever expected. So yes my vacation is going good, and yes you’ll be getting postcards from Randy.

-Randy

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(Nakian) May 30: Dissection x Lionfish x Pina Colada

Brown algae found today
Brown algae found today

Tonight is the last night in Belize. We went to the patch reef nearby our dorm and collected specimens in the morning. We found bunch of little crabs, a level 45 hermit crab (the biggest I have seen), bunch of algae, and played with conchs that tried to swath our hand away with their extended body. It was amazing to see so many different animals in such a shallow water. After that we returned to our coral colony project and concluded that colony coverage decreased.
In the afternoon we dissected lionfish, recording their weight, body length, gape size, body fat volume, and stomach content. Since we didn’t know the previous data we couldn’t make any conclusions but it was fun cutting up an invasive species. I am only waiting to taste the ceviche I heard they were making with the fish we dissected.
I collected the same 5 kinds of brown algae that I have seen while I was staying here: Sargassum, Dictyota, Turbinaria, Padina, and Lobophora. I couldn’t find any other and I concluded that these are the most common species in the region.
Before dinner we sailed to Southwest Caye, a resort island. We sat in a bar and drank pina colada by the dock under the sunset. After a amazing dinner, and watching the slideshow of our photo we have taken during this trip concluded our course very nicely.

Day 14?!

I can’t believe that this trip is already coming to an end. It seems like just yesterday we were 16 people crammed into a 14 passenger van, filled with excitement and ready to begin our adventure.

We spent today wrapping up a variety of projects from the week. In the morning, we went out onto the fore reef to collect samples to take back to the wet lab. We found many types of algae, crustaceans, mollusks, and other species. As far as red algae, I saw tubular thicket algae, Galaxura rugosa, and Amphiroa fragilissima. I also found crustose coralline algae growing on the back of a hermit crab. It looks like I’m not going to find a tunicate on this trip.

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In the afternoon we dissected the lionfish we caught earlier in the week. Ours was a male with a surprisingly large fish in its stomach. After the dissection, we made lionfish ceviche.

This evening we visited a resort on a nearby island. It was really interesting to hear the stories of other visitors on the island, and we got to watch a spectacular sunset from the dock.

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Day 14 Already??

I can’t believe that today is our last full day in Belize. While I am excited to take a warm shower and have clean clothes, I am also incredibly sad that this amazing experience is coming to an end.

Today’s activities began with a snorkel in the sea grass beds and back reef on the left side of the island. Even before the swim started, I saw two species of piscivorous fish at the dock: a small nurse shark swimming about, and a school of needlefish. Once on the back reef, I also saw French grunt, bluestriped grunt, squirrelfish, and a very cool houndfish that was about two feet long.

A larger nurse shark seen earlier in the trip on the fore reef
A larger nurse shark seen earlier in the trip on the fore reef

During this morning snorkel, we also collected a bunch of samples of different organisms in order to be able to look at certain species more closely. The only piscivorous fish collected was a poor French grunt that had accidentally been speared during an attempt to catch an invasive lionfish.

After analyzing some coral monitoring data from yesterday, we got to dissect lionfish! My group’s lionfish was quite small, but still cool to look at. The fish are being made into ceviche as I write this!

We ended the day with a visit to another island of Glover’s atoll, Southwest Caye. It’s amazing how little of this amazing environment we’ve been able to see, even with a whole week of exploring. Guess we have to come back!

Calm waters

We did a large variety of things today, although none of them was as physically draining as our boat day or really any of our snorkeling days.

In the morning we did a beach cleanup on the windward side of the island and assessed what kind of trash is most likely to make it onto the beach. Things I learned: Styrofoam is the worst, don’t give children toys, and the ocean is full of trash even in pristine environments like this one.

In the afternoon we went to the back reef that is through the mangroves of death on the other side of the island. The mangroves weren’t as buggy as they usually are so we got lucky. We measured live coral coverage of one coral colony on the back reef and then swum around and looked at things.

Adrienne showed us black band disease and some baby Acropora cervicornis. I also saw a few flamingo tongues and I picked one up and saw its mantle retract to reveal the white shell underneath.

At night we did a night snorkel. I sadly missed seeing the Caribbean reef squid, but I did get to see a bunch of very odd fish. Mostly it was just difficult to stay out of everyone’s way with all the flippers and wave energy.

Talking Trash

Today was really cool because we brought a clear conservation viewpoint into our projects. In the morning, we created a project about marine debris. We had a dual purpose in this: beach clean-up and exploring the composition of marine debris on the windward side of the island.

In total, we picked up 41.22 kg of debris in an hour, and we barely scratched the surface of the trash that was washed up on the shore. By mass, almost 50% of the trash was plastics, but styrofoam also made up a large proportion of the debris picked up. Overall, the sheer amount marine debris found is quite disturbing, especially knowing that much of it could come from landfills.

After lunch, we braved the mosquito mangroves to explore another part of the back reef. Here, each group of two used quadrats to measure a single coral colony that had also been measured the year before. Hopefully we will be able to use these measurements to determine whether or not the colonies have been growing over the past year.

Middle Caye
Middle Caye

In terms of piscivorous fish, I saw a few identifiable species today. Most of these were seen during our night snorkel, which was super fun! Some species included squirrelfish, a tarpon, a porgy, and an invasive lionfish (whose venomous spines I almost swam right into). Overall, the night swim was probably my favorite snorkeling activity so far!

Day 13: Lobster Fest

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Started out the day with some good old community service. We went to a rocky beach on the other side of the island outside the reef crest to pick up trash and debris that’s washed ashore. It was actually quite depressing how much of it there was. I could pick any spot and sit down and spend over 30 minutes picking up trash only in arms’ reach. All of us were out there for an hour and picked up over 30 kgs of trash, yet I don’t know if we made a significant impact.

In the afternoon, we measured some coral. To get to them we had to run through the “mangroves of death” on half of the island. Adrienne and Scott calls it that because in past years it’s been completely infested with mosquitoes. Even though this year wasn’t bad at all I still got bit quite a bit. Saw a reef hermit crab today. They are different from the land hermit crabs thats all over the island, bigger too.

At night we went out for a night snorkel. Saw a lot of lobsters. There were a bunch of spiny lobsters out, more than I’ve ever seen before. Some of them were in pairs. I couldn’t tell if they were mating or fighting. They can shoot themselves so far with one flick of their tail, it’s super impressive. We also saw the elusive slipper lobster. It looked really weird, almost like a really large bug. Everyone turn off their dive lights for a bit. The darkness revealed all the bioluminescent animals hiding in the sea grass. It almost looked like a greenish static on a black screen. Really awesome.

-Randy

(Nakian) May 29: Trash x Beach

The beach of the Middle Caye where waves hit seemed clean from the glance. Gray and white field of coral grave made calming splash as the wave slowly crashed. However, the seemingly pristine beach was bearing bits and pieces of human trash when we saw it with the agenda of cleaning the beach. Plastic bottles, nets, ropes, toothbrush, and deformed my little pony lingered around the crevasses and under the porous coral skeletons. But most alarming pieces were the brittle plastics that crumbled as we picked them carelessly. Our civilized world would not tolerate these plastic powders enter our body. However these crumbles will flow back into the ocean with the tide and latch onto any animals that might consume them unknowingly and eventually end up in our own as we eat them. Standing on that beach I pictured a futuristic one where there are more trash than water and the sky was thick with gas as we have dug up everything with value from the ground and thrown up in the air and waters after a day’s use.

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In the afternoon we went through the mangrove to dive in another patch reef. The water was hot like a bathtub. There were some healthy corals but many of the patches were covered in brown algae. Thinking of how algae compete with corals, seeing so many of my taxa wasn’t so joyful. I was able to find a species of brown algae I haven’t seen before. Otherwise I saw massive number of Turbinaria and Dictyota covering the structures underwater.

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Day 12: Open Ocean Adventures

I might finally appreciate the vastness of the ocean. This may sound obvious, and I’ve always known that the ocean was huge, but I don’t think I ever really understood what that meant. This morning we went to the fore reef, which was far deeper than anywhere I’ve swam before. Although the water was crystal clear, I couldn’t see the bottom in many places, and in most directions there was nothing but blue for as far as I could see. It hit me that although I was awestruck by the apparent limitlessness of this ocean, I could only see a tiny speck of the ocean on a globe. I know I’ll never fully understand how large the ocean is, but at least now I have some perspective on its immensity.

Eagle ray

We saw many incredible species today. On the fore reef, we saw many large rays, including a spotted eagle ray that was easily longer than I was. We also saw some large, highly endangered elk horn coral. After lunch we snorkeled out to the back reef and saw a large barracuda and caught several invasive lionfish. I didn’t see any tunicates, but I did find nearly all the calciferous red algae species I had researched. Tubular thicket algae and Amphiroa fragilissima were quite common on the sea floor, as they were in the unprotected patch reef yesterdat. I also found crustose coralline algae covering some patches on the reef framework, and a few Galaxura Rugosa plants as well.