Daily Blog 13

After waking up in the morning to thunder, rain and winds, we finished the lectures instead of going into the water. I was relieved to give the last lecture on mangroves, seagrass, and coral. Afterwards we went to the coral graveyard to pick up trash for our experiment, Talk Dirty To Me, where we wanted to figure out trash composition and amount on the windward and leeward side of Middle Caye. We also went to the mangroves where my face was butchered by mosquitos. I got a bite above my eyelid which later swelled up, so I had a little difficulty opening my right eye in the afternoon. I also got two bites on my forehead. Those mangrove mosquitos are absolutely awful.

We then finally went out to the reef at 2:05, only 5 minutes later than the time we were supposed to leave. Yay! I had an absolute blast swimming in the “aquarium”, the deeper reef off North-west Caye and a channel off Long Caye this afternoon. I was able to find so many different types of piscivorous fish, and I was so happy. I got to swim right next to a trumpet fish off Long Caye, along with a school of Yellow tail snappers. I also saw two sting rays, which was probably a yellow stingray and a southern stingray. I dived to look for lionfish in the crevices of the rocks and at the bottom of the corals, but I just ended up finding dozens of Squirrel fish. I think the squirrel fish I saw were Holocentrus. We also saw two nurse sharks. Unfortunately, one of the nurse sharks we saw had a fishing line and a plastic bottle around its fin, and we couldn’t remove it because we couldn’t risk being attacked.

When I got on the boat from the last snorkel, I heard Scott saying that he saw a black tipped reef shark and a spotted eagle ray. I WAS SO SAD AND MAD I DIDN’T GET TO SEE THEM. I love sharks, so I was really sad that I didn’t get to see the black tipped reef shark. The spotted eagle ray is also such an iconic fish, so I was also sad that I missed out. I hope I get to see it before I leave here!