Tag Archives: Glover’s

Day 9: snorkelers of the caribbean

Today was the official changeover from Turf to Surf. At a relatively late awakening of 6:45, we piled into the van with all of our things and drove for two hours or so to the pier. Immediately, we felt the change of scenery. Tall trees and yellow grasslands eroded into salt and sand, and I stepped off the van with a completely altered mindset. The sight of the boats, the swell of the sea, and the smell of foam hit me like an old memory, and I remembered my truest and most long-standing call-to-arms: piracy.

Me spending two hours staring at the sea. PC: Jessica

Yes, the boat trip reminded me of pirates, and I ended up with a decent amount of sunburn from spending the two-hour ride perched up on the side watching the waves crash against the side of the boat. I had a good period of self-reflection, and decided again to learn how to sail, something I keep meaning to do. But the view was spectacular, the clouds unreal, and the changing shades from the sea and the sky like nothing I’d seen anywhere else.

The view of the sunset from the pier.

Pulling up to Glover’s and to our little remote island, I genuinely felt like I was in a movie. This place may actually be paradise. The buildings form a self-sustaining picturesque neighborhood, the ground occupied by charming iguanas and hermit crabs, and the seas crystal clear. We practiced snorkeling in the water close to the pier, and I saw an Utodea green algae. I almost immediately recognized the distinctive fan-like texture of the thallus, and dove down to get a better look. It’s surprisingly difficult for me to distinguish green algae from other things, as I barely know what corals look like at this point. Hopefully tomorrow, and with more practice, I’ll be able to pinpoint my taxon better.

I must note this place is nothing like the rainforest. It almost feels like a completely different class. I must also admit that I am a little nervous about snorkeling and that the reefs slightly freak me out. I am much more terrestrial-y inclined, but I also very much want to learn to enjoy the ocean’s inside. Effectively, my current love of the ocean is superficial, based on outward appearance, and I’d like to get deeper in the relationship—more committed. I’m going to try and really get to know the ocean.

Day 2: First Time Snorkeler (05/17/2017)

I’m up at 5:00 am. My bags are packed. I eat a PB&J, and we are on the road. The drive from the Tropical Education Center to the pier in Belize City isn’t too long – around 45 minutes. Our team transitions to the boat, and we are off on the two-and-a-half hour boat ride to Glover’s Atoll, our home for the next seven days.

Glover’s Island

Soon after our arrival to Glover’s, we went snorkeling – my first time ever. The colors of the reef seemed like they were from a centuries-old oil painting. I was anticipating a full color pallet of hues, but the corals’ tones were warm-colored and muted.

Snorkeling in the water seemed out of body – like I was an avatar in a video game. Still not fully used to the controls of this unfamiliar type of movement, I felt awkward in the water, despite swimming competitively in high school. Every movement was calculated, taking into full consideration each dimension of my unfamiliar setting – Who is behind me? Will I bump into any coral nearby? Is my snorkel still vertical?

The reef was teeming with busy creatures. During my brief hour-long escapade, I encountered many types of fish, including baby barracuda (Genus Sphyraena), a baby nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum), and a large southern stingray (Dasyatis americana). The only echinoderm I found was the bleached skeleton of a large red heart urchin (Meoma ventricosa) on the seafloor. The skeleton was about 6 inches in diameter and partially covered in algae. I also held a conch shell with a fleshy body inside. His eyes stuck out of his head like the eyes of Mr. Krabs from Spongebob Squarepants. My superstar sighting was a porcupinefish (Family Diodontidae) hiding under a rocky ridge. The fish was difficult to photograph, but with its massive size and bright colors, it was easy to remember.

After the swim, we explored a coral graveyard, studying the skeletons of centuries-old corals. It was interesting to witness how corals vary in formational shape, as well as polyp size and arrangement pattern. After dinner, we closed the day with two taxon briefings (including my own on echinoderms).

My first time in the water was surreal. I am eager for the next wave of adventures tomorrow will bring.

Day 14

The day is done. I think that the entire group is in disbelief. It’s hard to imagine not living 24/7 with these thirteen people always around. I, really all of us, have become accustomed to our daily routine of rising early and exploring the different natural features of Belize. If it were up to me, we would explore the other major ecosystems of this country (the Maya Mountains and the savannah). I would also be interested to see how Belize City differs from Houston, Philadelphia, or other international cities.
Anyway, today was mostly spent quantifying biodiversity on the back reef near to the research station. This means that we spent the morning wading around the shallow area searching for any organism we could find. I was particularly proud of myself for finding a cute, small snail that crawled all of the way up my dive skin. I was less excited about the dead fish that Randy stuffed in my dive skin. We found a least five different types of green algae, a sea cucumber, a sponge, lots of brown algae, red algae, a French grunt, a yellowtail damselfish, a goby, a couple molluscs, and a couple of jellies.
On another note, I did not see that many examples of my taxonomic group. On the brief times that the water was deep enough for us to snorkel, I saw (shocker) a lot of sea fans (Gorgonia ventalina). In the end, I think that I have seen all of the soft coral on the Glover’s field guide. I wonder what the relatively high abundance of soft corals means for the hard corals, in terms of reef accretion. Anyway, this trip has opened up numerous future research topics. I hope to learn more about them in the upcoming semester at Rice.

Patch reef

This morning we all improved our skills clearing our mask and snorkel without surfacing while on a reef scavenger hunt. There were many annelids around but you have to be looking for them because of their small size, and sometimes they were under corals or in crevices. I saw the same star horseshoe worms, but also a light orange-ish christmas tree worm and a brown and white social feather duster. They are beautiful little creatures. I also spotted some fire coral around the patch reef. Aside from the annelids and hydrozoans I saw corals, sponges, sea fans, fish, urchins, barracuda, and a nurse shark today.

This afternoon we practiced using a transect and quadrants to survey things on the reef or ocean floor. It’s tricky but I’m getting the hang of it. We also got the chance to walk to a part of the island covered with thousands of fragments of old, fossilized corals. This was really helpful in practicing identifying them based on their corallites and overall shape. I am ready for what tomorrow has to bring!

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Sophia Streeter

5/26

Day 9

While some may not enjoy days in which we spend most the time in various forms of transportation, especially because they always seem to fail us, I find it to be very calming. After leaving The Education Center Lodge a bit late (classic), we drove across the country yet again to Belize City. I was very surprised as to how small it was, especially seeing as the two cities I live in are Houston and Philadelphia.
Anyway, the next challenge that we had to overcome was the boat ride to the actual marine sanctuary. I was a bit worried about the seasickness. I have previously experienced this on a ferry. In the end, it was not a big deal, a pleasant experience. I am now looking forward to being on the boat as we go on to explore the rest of the patch reefs.
The rest of the day was spent getting acquainted with the research station and the nearby sea grass beds. I immediately saw my taxonomic group (soft corals). My initial impression was that Gorgonia ventalina is extremely common the patch reefs. I also saw many other soft corals, including Briareum asbestinum and several species of sea rod.

Day 8

As per usual, something went wrong with the van. Our original plan for the day was to leave Las Cuevas early in the morning in order to make it to ATM cave for a swim and exploration. Then, we were going to drive across Belize to stay at the zoo. This is not how our day went at all.

Most of the morning was spent sitting on the porch, waiting for our van to show up. This went on for several hours. Rather than spend all our time waiting, we got the opportunity to tour other parts of the Las Cuevas research station and learn about their ongoing projects.

When our van finally arrived, we all climbed gratefully into its semi-air-conditioned space. Unfortunately, our massive time delay prevented us from being able to visit the ATM cave.

However, we did end up going on the night tour of the Belize zoo. Not only did we get to see two of the eighteen jaguars that they have, but we got to see margays, ocelots (so noisy), two types of owls (Rice!), a tapir, and three kinds of snakes.

Overall, I remain optimistic about the rest of the trip. Each thing that goes wrong does not faze our group at all. The new challenges that the reef will pose to us will be just new bonding experiences for us.

 

Day 7

On our last day at the Las Cuevas Research station, we spent most the morning and afternoon retracing our steps from the first day. All of this was in the effort to understand if species richness differed between natural and man-made clearings. I am proud to say that the hike was not nearly as exhausting as it was at the beginning. I also got the change to see an example of epiphytic Encyclia cochleata, the national flower of Belize. I think I have achieved my peak of epiphyte. It was one of the most satisfying moments of this trip to date.

After cleaning up and showering we went over to the classroom for taxonomic presentations, my presentation on NTDs/ethnobotany, and to look at what our camera traps caught. I really enjoyed my topic, especially because I had taken a research seminar in the previous semester on the topic. We then got into an interesting discussion on how Brazil should manage the threat of Zika and the upcoming influx of people for the Rio de Janiero Olympics.

Our pictures from the camera trapping experiment were a bit disappointing until we got the last one. On its memory card, we found both and ocelot and a WHAT WAS THIS. Overall, our data set was way to small to be able to really tell anything about the preferences of animals in the Chiquibul for man-made or natural clearings. All in all, these past experiment (while they don’t yield statistically significant data) are doing a great job of showing me how to trouble shoot ecological/evolutionary experiments.

On to Glovers Reef!