This morning we loaded up the boat really early and travelled a short distance to the reef crest and fore reef near Middle Caye. I took Dramamine an hour before we left and I will spare you the wait and just tell you that I in fact felt queasy out on the ocean. Once we got to the first site, we all got off and it was quite deep, around 50 feet. I was able to dive all the way down and stay long enough to get some really cool photos. After that we moved to the reef crest, where we saw a few stingrays and an eagle ray (which was humongous!) I saw a new coral, Agaricia tenufolia and also spotted quite a bit of the Orbicella faveolata and O. annularis, as well as Montastrea cavernosa.

I tried to be the last person on the boat, but even then I still felt crappy due to the swells. We headed to the second site and jumped in. All of a sudden I hear people exclaiming that there was an Acropora palmata! This coral has been nearly wiped out in the Caribbean due to White Band disease and so I had really wanted to see one. I think I saw about six different colonies during this snorkeling adventure. I can only imagine how magnificent the reefs must have looked over one hundred years ago when A. palmata was a dominant reef builder that loomed over the reef like trees in a rainforest.

I was happy to get back to shore and immediately collapsed into my bed with peanut M&M’s, plantain chips, and oreos all by my side. That afternoon we went over our results from the reef health assessment experiment (coral cover and urchin data). Then we explored the backreef and that was really awesome. I saw so many interesting things, such as a coral with a tumor, a recently dead skeleton of a Siderastrea siderea that was of mysterious origin, and another giant lobster. Scott and our water safety officers were also simultaneously catching lionfish. We caught four and at the end of the week we are going to measure them and then prepare and eat them.

I feel very tired at the moment, most likely from all the swimming from today. Au revoir.