A little break from snorkeling! After the classic eggs, beans, and bread, we went out to the seagrass patch by the doc, adding things into buckets that we could potentially observe under a microscope. Dyllan and I got a pair of tongs each, while Elise and Claire D. got some small fish nets, and other people got buckets or an assortment of the tools. It was so so fun! I clipped up so many different types of seagrass to put in the buckets. I also caught a few hermit crabs and some random insects on the surface of the water. Others were able to catch some really fast larval fish, a lot more hermit crabs, some sea snails, and even some shrimp. Best of all though, Dr. Evans caught this yellow-purple land crab in the mangroves, and Elise caught a box jelly! It was even cooler watching them all under the microscope. I saw black spots on the clear coverings of the larval fish, epiphytes on the various sea grass, and cool miniature structures on some of the algae.
After that, it was time for the temple of lunch, which was this really yummy fried egg sandwich with lettuce and tomato. Also the softest bread I have ever eaten, it must’ve been homemade. Soon after, it was time for the temple of the dock. Tanning on the pristine dock, listening to folk music and ocean waves, it was such a divine experience.
It was then time for a walk on the coral graveyard, which makes up the perimeter of the GRRS Island, Middle Caye. Walking across these fossilized coral, it was astounding to see just how dust settled atop the dead coral. It was a sea of grey and white, representative of debris and sun bleaching respectively. We identified at least 6-8 different forms of hard coral settled in the area. We also saw some soft coral like the purple sea fan slowly fossilizing, which was interesting because it would consistently retain its structure and color, just drying out to eventually turn into dust. In millions of years, this area will likely become a cave, or something else that may karstify. But if it does, it might have a layer of thin, colorful rock interspersed, composed of the plastic litter within the area. Among the dozens of bottles, slippers, and bags, it was a stark reminder that no matter how isolated the islands seem, the ocean connects all.
In the rocky sea nearby, we got to see and pick up a bunch of purple and red sea urchins! They moved all across my hand, it was crazy. Claire C. also picked up a brittle sea star. Walking down across the rest of the beach, I also noticed the various trees and logs across this area.
Mangroves grew along the coastline, with coconut trees and decomposing logs everywhere. Something interesting about the coconut trees–the coconuts themselves are shallowly attached to the sand, splitting open for tendrils and roots to emerge. I had never realized this before, but makes sense given the poor nutrition and loose texture of the soil. It could be the reason why the coconut is so big and nourishing. Also, the trees grow really really slanted because of the strong sea winds, which I thought was really cool. It’s common across all trees, but the extent is unlike anything I’ve noticed. Another fun fact, there were some really cool bright red shelf fungi on the logs which I’d never seen before. Not my beach taxon, but still really cool.
After a yummy dinner and the classic taxon and topic presentations, it was time for a night fish! This was so so cool. We put some lights into the ocean and watched the jumpy larval fish team around. I was even able to catch a couple! We also caught some shrimp, and Claire D. caught a squid. Eventually, we did try feeding the squid some shrimp. It squirted a bunch of its black ink, changing colors to match the ink, the white bucket, and the speckled nets. Didn’t catch any of the shrimp though, which was kinda lame. But I was a big fan of the night fishing catch otherwise. That’s my first fish ever caught, which is kinda crazy. I did lose a slipper though, so sorry to contribute to that big pile of slippers on the coral graveyard.
Taxon Spotting: Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any parrotfish today. But we saw so much sand across the trails, and 70% of Caribbean sands come from parrotfish excrement. So putting two and two together, we saw a lot of evidence of all of the prominent species across the beach.
