This morning we bid farewell to Glover’s reef. We then took the boat to Carrie Bow, a nearby Smithsonian research station. There was a couple living at the station for the month as managers, and apparently it’s relatively easy to land a volunteer station manager position at the station. That sounds like an awesome way to spend a month.

Next, we went to an island completely covered in mangroves. We walked a little ways through the island and saw lots of young fish using the mangrove roots for protection. We then snorkeled around the island. The water was pretty murky, but I did find some sort of branching, calciferous red algae covered in sediment. I didn’t want to dive down to look at it because the seafloor was also covered in upside-down jellyfishes that flip over and bob around when you kick too close to them.

I am on the plane, flying back to Houston. It’s hard to believe that in just a few hours I will be in an air-conditioned home, take my first warm shower in 2 weeks, and change into clothes that were washed in a machine instead of a sink. This will definitely be nice, but I can’t say I’m super excited to return to the city. Belize is such an amazing country and I can’t wait to return some day.

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.

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.

Today was our first full day on the reef! This morning, we swam to a nearby patch reef to see what we could find. The reef is home to such a wide variety of species, from large flounder nearly invisible against the sand to tiny, brightly colored damselfish aggressively defending their algae gardens. It’s a little tricky to distinguish red and brown algae, but I identified Spyridia filamentosa, Laurencia papillosa, and Galaxura rugosa.

In the afternoon, we worked in the sea grass beds to practice using transects and quadrats underwater. We set up a 100-foot transect in the sea grass, and then counted the number of green algae plants that we found in our quadrat every 20 feet. We didn’t find any green macro algae on our transect, but it was still good practice for a more complicated project tomorrow.

Before dinner, we hiked a little ways to a different beach that was covered in well-preserved stony coral skeletons. We used these structures to practice identifying the stony corals we’ll see on the reef. As we were walking back in the sunset, it really struck me how incredible this place is, and how lucky we are to be allowed to use it. Aside from a small team of staff, we are the only people on the entire island. Glover’s may not have AC or a fancy swimming pool, but it’s far more beautiful than any resort I’ve ever seen.