Tag Archives: 2018

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Day 14: Symbolic Sunsets

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Things are winding down here in Belize. It’s our last full day here and I can’t comprehend how quickly the time has passed.

This morning, we started out by dissecting lionfish that Scott has been finding and spearing these past few days at the reef. Lionfish are invasive species, meaning that they were unnaturally reduced to the area around here. Because this ecosystem didn’t evolve with lionfish in it, these guys don’t have any natural predators here, and the native fish don’t recognize lionfish as a threat. This means that lionfish can gorge themselves on helpless native species without fear of predation.

Because of all this, killing and eating lionfish is actually encouraged here! Even all the vegetarians on this trip tried the lionfish – they are detrimental to the environment, after all! We first took measurements of each specimen to contribute to a database about lionfish. In the individual that Claire and I dissected, we found a mostly undigested fish still in its stomach!

Scott made us some delicious ceviche using the lionfish after we finished the dissections. Made for a nice (and eco-friendly) snack!

After lunch, a few of us headed out for one last snorkel on these incredible patch reefs. Today was a great day for lobster sighting, as I spotted 5 large Caribbean spiny lobster hiding in caves in the reef. We also got the chance to watch the colorful ecosystem of the reef one last time before we head out tomorrow. And we finally spotted a starfish, a type of Echinoderm, in the sea grass. I hadn’t seen one yet out in the field, so I was super excited when Jessica spotted it on the way back! It was a cushion star, quite plump and with spiny orange skin. Its tube feet suctioned to my skin.

This afternoon was purely an afternoon of fun and relaxation, which was a strange but welcome change of pace. Apparently it’s an old tradition of TFBs past to travel to a nearby island, Southwest Caye, to hang out at the bar and enjoy the island. We spent a happy afternoon sitting on the dock, dancing to Belizean music with one of our marine safety officers, Rose, and exploring the island.

I was pretty skeptical at the beginning of this course about becoming comfortable with my classmates on the trip. But by now we’ve been the grossest and smelliest of our lives together, experienced nature at its best with each other, and picked ticks off of each other’s backs like gorillas. And later tonight, after we returned to Middle Caye, we had a short group meditation session led by Scott.

I guess it’s impossible to experience these things together without becoming good friends.

Today has been a bittersweet day, for sure. I can’t believe we’re leaving this place.

Last sunset in Belize.

 

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Day 13: Contrasts

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My emotions were a rollercoaster today. I woke up to a dreary, rainy sky. The weather suited our morning activity: a project about marine debris. You can imagine how that went. We decided to study the differences in composition and amounts of marine trash that we’d find on the windward and leeward sides of our island, Middle Caye.

I’ve seen few things as saddening as a shoreline of a place even as relatively pristine as Glovers Reef covered in human detritus. This area is in the center of a Marine Protected area, is designated as a world heritage site, and is regularly cleaned by the crew who lives here.

And yet the fossilized corals were still littered with old shoes, plastic bottles, rope, nets… we only collected trash for 15 minutes at the windward side of the island, the coral fossil graveyard, but already filled two huge garbage bags. We barely made a dent in the amount of trash.

We moved to the leeward side of the island, the mangrove forest. This section of the island fared no better. Here, we found smaller fragments of trash, but more individual pieces of trash. We also found a larger variety of types of trash on the leeward side than the windward side. This was probably because pieces of debris can escape the windward side, but then wind up getting trapped on the leeward side.

As we collected trash, the only thought in my mind was that everything I’ve ever lost – a plastic bottle here, a candy wrapper there – is probably in the ocean now. Large chunks of debris slam against already fragile coral ecosystems. Sharks and sea turtles accidentally ingest plastic, thinking that it’s food. In a particularly poignant example of the consequences of human irresponsibility, we spotted a huge nurse shark at a patch reef later this afternoon.

It had a plastic bottle tied around its fin with a fishing line. Here’s a photo.

 

Instead of using plastic or paper, use reusable utensils. Don’t use plastic straws – your drink tastes the same whether it reaches you via straw or not. Make sure that your trash actually ends up in the trash can. Reduce waste, recycle your stuff. It’s not that hard and only requires small adjustments to make a world of difference for our marine ecosystems. I, for one, know I can do better.

We as a species must do better. If we don’t, it’s unlikely that many marine ecosystems, especially coral reefs, will last another 50 years. I don’t want to have to tell my grandchildren about the fabled coral reefs because they’ll never get to see them for themselves.

My mood in the afternoon was a stark contrast to my mood in the morning. We went out snorkeling with the boat for one last time and hit three different areas near our island.

Hopping into this water never gets old. We visited an area known as The Aquarium, which is known for having many beautiful fish. It sure lived up to its name; I felt like I was swimming in one of the exhibits at my local aquarium.

I spent some time peeking in crevices for urchins, and found many clusters of small long-spined sea urchins hidden between the rocks. They really do look like the hedgehogs of the sea! I also found some tiny juveniles on the undersides of reef rock that I turned over – one baby slate pencil urchin and one long-spined urchin. I find it fun that while adult long-spined urchins are purely dark purple to black, the juveniles are banded white and black.

Juvenile long-spined sea urchin.

We also swam at a deeper patch reef.

Beautiful elkhorn coral specimen (scientific name Acropora palmata) that I found at the deeper patch reef.

The best part of today, and maybe part of the whole trip so far, was swimming at the reef crest. Usually, this area is too turbulent and murky for swimming, but we got lucky. The water was so still and clear. I floated over the shallows, marveling over the blueness and the richness of life. I kind of feel like this place should be dubbed the aquarium because everywhere I looked, fish swam near enough to touch. They weren’t timid either! Groupers hid in rock holes and blue tangs darted between anemones.

This picture is here just because I think it’s so cool – this is a mollusk commonly known as flamingo’s tongue! I found it at the reef crest.

This place was teeming with long-spined sea urchins, too. They were everywhere in between coral cracks. These guys are grazers, so I bet they were having a great time munching away at the algae encrusting exposed coral rock.

Also, I can’t believe that tomorrow is our last full day! NooOOOooooO I don’t wanna go back to Houston 🙁

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I don’t want to leave Belize

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Today I woke up early to finish some last minute packing and get ready to leave Glover’s. We said bye to the staff and the cooks even gave us some cinnamon bread for later. Then we headed out on the boat to visit the Smithsonian research center and mangroves.

At the Smithsonian, we met Clyde, the station manager, and one of the researchers staying at the station as well. She was studying hybrid elkhorn and staghorn corals and how they can withstand high temperatures. Then, Clyde gave us a tour of the station and showed us some the things the experiments the researchers had set up.

Then, we went to the Mangroves and got to snorkel around the roots of the trees and see all the algae and sponges that were growing in that environment. We didn’t see any seahorses or manatees but it was still a fun last snorkel.

We boarded the boat and finally got back the Belize city, where we had a fun last lunch at Calypso restaurant. Then we had to say goodbye to Rose and Jahvier, and head to the airport. Leaving Belize was so hard, and saying goodbye to everyone at the airport was even harder, but I’m so glad that so many people will be in Houston over the summer.

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Lionfish Don’t Count as Meat

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Today I woke up later but had amazing french in the morning which was great. Then we had time to pack and clean and get ready for lionfish dissections. Me and Kristen got the second biggest fish and were able to look inside at its stomach contents, but we weren’t able to identify anything specific.

Afterward, I finally got a hammock and was able to get caught up on my journal, then Scott came down with lionfish ceviche that he made, and all the vegetarians tried it including me because lionfish are an invasive species and shouldn’t count.

Around 2:00 Elena, Jessica, Veronica and Same went out to snorkel one last time just for fun. It had been so hot so getting in the cool water was really nice, and we got to explore some patch reefs near the island. I once again saw a lot of corky sea fingers and sea fans, as well as some swollen-knob candelabrum, that I had to swim pretty close to identify.  We also saw some huge lobsters as well.

I quickly rinsed off once we got back to the island, and then we left for the Southwest Caye for a fun, secret TFB tradition. We took cute pictures, Rose taught us some dance moves, and we all signed a Rice shirt to hang up in the bar.

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Underwater Aquarium

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Today I woke up to the sound of a rainstorm. We had breakfast and then gathered in the classroom to do our last lectures and wait for the rain to die down. After lectures, the rain had let up enough so we could work on our marine debris project.

 

We went to the coral graveyard on the windward side for 15 minutes and all picked up and identified trash, and then did the same thing in the mangrove forest on the leeward side. It was upsetting to see how little of a dent we made and how the trash will just continue to accumulate. I definitely want to start to live with less waste back home.

A 2:00 we went out on the boat for our last snorkel in the atoll. We first went to a site called the Aquarium, and it really did look like we were snorkeling in an aquarium tank. There was so many beautiful fish and I was able to get some really good pictures since it was easy to dive down. I also saw a Southern Sting Ray swimming over the reef, which was really cool and it looked really pretty.

The second patch reef we went to was deeper, and it was really fun to dive down and swim close to the ocean floor. We also saw a large nurse shark on the sea floor, but there was a string with a can on it attached to the shark, and there was nothing we could do to take it off. Then, we went to a different reef and I saw a black tipped reef shark, which was also really amazing.

 

Today there was a lot of sea fans that were packed very close to each other, and some of them were bright purple while some had a very dull grey color with just a purple tint. Most of them were on the top of the rocks, but some small ones were on the seafloor. I also saw some really pretty sea plumes, whose colonies were large and had long branchlets.

 

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PSA: The water burns

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Today we woke up to banana and pineapple pancakes, which were so good! Then we spent the next couple hours working on our poster, MP-Yay for Coral Reefs, where we analyzed our data from the hard coral coverage experiment and the sea urchin coverage experiment to see how the MPA affects marine health.

 

We presented our poster to Scott around 11:00 and then did one of the taxon lectured before lunch. After lunch, we did the last 2 lectures of the day, which was nice because we were all less tired and didn’t have to worry about them at night. Then we got ready to wade into the back reef, behind the island.

 

The second we started to wade through the marshy beginning, closest to the island, there was a resounding groan. The water was extremely hot and was burning everyone’s cuts and scrapes, as well as pretty gross to walk through. Once we got to the seagrass, it was a bit cooler and I saw a bunch of conch shells and some anemones. We swam further to the actual reef part and the amount of fish, anemones, and coral we saw made it totally worth it. There was an opening through the coral where there were schools of 30-40 fish eating the algae off coral.

We put a bunch of our finds into a bucket, and once back on shore the people who had taxons that we could collect separated them out. We even found things we weren’t expecting to, including a tiny octopus named Herman. It was so cute and kept changing colors when disturbed, so it finally made himself very compact and tucked all his tentacles under his body. After the mini taxon presentations, we released everything back into the ocean, including Herman and some Donkey Sea Dung cucumbers that I got to throw back to the sea.

In the back reef, I once again saw a large number of sea fans, but most of them weren’t as big as yesterday, as well as corky sea fingers, which were usually clustered together in a colony of 3 or 4. I also saw some black sea rods and porous sea rods that varied in color from greyish to purple tinted. Some of the porous sea rods I saw could have been slit pore, but I was having trouble distinguishing some of them.

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Day 14: There’s So Much to Do (Make Way!)   

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Blog Post #14

Day 14: There’s So Much to Do (Make Way!)

Written at 5:37 am on May 29th

 

Yesterday (May 28th) was our last full day in Belize, so we had to celebrate and soak it all in.

We started by dissecting then eating the lionfish we’d caught over the course of the week. The monstrous lionfish ended up being over 0.5 kg!! He (determined by looking at the gonads) had a swim bladder that took up most of the body cavity. I was particularly fascinated with the gill structure as well as the mouth parts used to capture prey.

Class with the giant lion fish

Scott then made his famous lionfish ceviche which I had never tried before. (Both the lionfish and a ceviche.) It tasted very fishy and chewy—not my favorite, but not bad either.

In the afternoon, we had some free time, so of course, I went snorkeling. Veronica, Sam, Chloe, and Elena came as well. I saw lots of sponges, particularly the tube and rope sponges. I also saw my first Touch-me-not sponge, a stinging, painful one when rubbed the wrong way. We also saw a brain coral that was three times my arm span in diameter, which is so impressive and wonderful. There were lots of lobster out of all shapes and sizes too.

Me with the massive brain coral

When we returned, we did our special TFB tradition. There will be future TFBs reading this blog, so I won’t say it here because I don’t want to spoil it for them! If you’re curious though, ask me—it’s pretty fun.  🙂

In the evening, we did group meditation on the dock, looked for tarpon in the water, and just enjoyed our last night in Belize.

I now sit here watching the sunrise over the horizon, the last one we’ll see here. I am so grateful for this planet, this trip, and everything in between. There is still so much to do and see, I’m not ready to leave yet!!

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Day 15: My mom made beans for dinner

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Today was the one day at Glover’s that I woke up before sunrise, to finish packing my bags and to take a shower before our journey back to Houston. After the last delicious breakfast prepared by the kitchen staff, we left the atoll with all our luggage and headed to Belize City.

Last breakfast at Glovers

On the way there, we stopped at Carrie Bow Island, which is a research institution run by the Smithsonian. A researcher on the island told us a little bit about her work, and how she is raising hybrid corals in tanks. These hybrid corals occur naturally in the waters surrounding the island, but they are of particular interest to her because this hybrid is particularly hardy and is somewhat resistant the the higher temperatures that usually cause most corals to bleach. Perhaps this research may help us find ways to preserve and even repopulate the rapidly declining coral population in the wild.

But before we could arrive at our final destination, we had one more stop to make. We went to Twin Caye (which I thought was spelled like Twinkie, but anyways, life is full of disappointments) to snorkel around the mangroves. Mangroves are trees that are able to live in salt water, and have aerial roots called prop roots that help them get oxygen. These mangrove prop root communities serve as homes for animals and even as nurseries for some young. We saw fire sponges growing off the roots of some of the trees, and I am fairly certain i saw a Sergeant major fish (Abudefduf saxatilis) no bigger than three inches swimming around somewhere in there. I believe I also saw an aggregation of brown chromis fish (Chromis multilineata), but I wasn’t 100% sure because the water wasn’t very clear, and also because they swam away after I started looking at them for too long.

Mangrove trees from above the water
Sponge growing on prop roots (underwater)

Back in Houston, after we said our overly dramatic goodbyes to one another (fine, after MY overly dramatic goodbyes), my mom asked me what food we ate while on the research stations. I told her that we ate tons of beans and that I didn’t want to eat anymore beans for at least a month, if not more. She then proceeded to laugh hysterically, because she had a Colombian beans and rice dish waiting for me at home. Regardless, I was just grateful to be home with my family, in an air conditioned house and in clean clothing.

I really appreciate the fact that our last blog is due on June 1st, because I would like to take these next few days to reflect upon our trip and everything we learned from it, tropical field biology-wise and other things as well.

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Day 14: Miss me with those venomous spines

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Today after breakfast, we took out all of the seven lionfish we (read: Scott, he didn’t let us wield the Trident of Glory) speared and let them defrost for a while. Scott cut off the spines after we weighed them, since there’s probably some rule against letting students handle venom. Then, we took some basic measurements such as the length with and without counting the tail, and the mouth gape height and width. After that, we sliced those babies open to determine their sex, reproductive status and the contents of their stomach. Andressa and I found a partially digested fish in ours. Yum.

Lionfish dissection

After we finished dissecting the lionfish, Scott cut them up into tiny pieces, marinated them in lemon juice to kill all the bacteria and other stuff. Then he added chopped tomatoes and onions, and we ate it just like that. I was a little hesitant to try it at first, but then I remembered that I ate a termite in the Chiquibul Forest while we were staying at Las Cuevas Research Station.

While half the class went out for a voluntary snorkel session after lunch, some of us engaged in other pastimes. Me, Kristen, Andressa, Claire and Sami (don’t ask her about it, she’ll deny it) dug a 6 in*12 in hole in the ground and filled it with about 25 hermit crabs. We watched them interact with each other (read: walk over) and finally decided to let them out of the hole after a while; the great Hermit Crab Exodus. No, this was not for science and yes we are all really college students.

In the afternoon, we took the boat to the resort located on the island of Southwest Caye. We just walked and talked around the island until sunset. Then we hopped back on the boat under perfect pastel skies, with both the sun and the full moon present at the same time. After dinner (there was chocolate cheesecake!) we all went out on to the dock and Scott led us all in group meditation under the stars. It was so peaceful and beautiful, and the perfect ending to such an amazing trip.

The sky at sunset from our last evening at Glover’s
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Benthos

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Today was a day dedicated to the use of a systematic sampling method, utlilizing measuring tapes and a large physical grid. We answered questions like: What proportion of the patch reef contains some portion of live hard coral and what proportion of the seaweed benthos contains some portion of worm sand mounds?

To remind us of the importance of our work, and mostly to educate us on the overarching context of coral reefs, Ceyda Sidd ’19 explained that the percent cover of corals in Belizean waters is 13 – 15% and declining. Tomorrow we will be analyzing the data we collected today on percent cover of live hard corals to estimate the degree of decline in coral cover. One of the things that we have learned about working with corals is that it is in our best interest to not touch them. We saw fire corals, that upon contact can sting, and all corals are sensitive to human touch, such that it can destroy or stop the growth corals. The difficulty is real, though, as many of the patch corals exist in waters less than 3 ft deep, and some areas are too shallow to even swim across without touching some corals. Even conservation workers sometimes will cause harm to the things they wish to conserve; the act of quantifying and observing is sometimes inevitably an act of slight destruction. In snorkeling lingo, we all aim to be horizontal (floating) and not vertical (standing).

In the evening, we laid in hammocks with the company of incroaching lightning storms, which provided us with fantastic views and some rain. If we did end up stranded, which we are 80-95% likely to (someone jokingly said),I think none of us would be too distraught. The days here sucks out your energy, but in the best way possible: in the sun, under the water, above the benthos, and next to marine creatures.

This is from our last day in Belize, but is our best hammock group photo.  We’re serious about biology.