In 6 minutes we’re going to make lionfish ceviche. I have always wanted to eat a lionfish since I started working at the New England Aquarium and learned about them as an invasive species, I knew I had to do my part to help. Unfortunately (? maybe fortunate) they’re not found in New England, and I haven’t been desperate enough to go to Florida just to eat a lionfish. We caught our first lionfish a few days ago and it was huge, since then we caught about 2 more. I have no idea if I’ll like lionfish ceviche, since I’ve never had ceviche before.
In other things we did today, we went to a non-protected reef to finish our coral data collection, and then another reef just for fun. Did not encounter many crustaceans today other than the normal hermit crab population here.
I can’t believe it’s our last night here, I don’t think I’m ready to go, there’s still so much to learn and explore here on the reef and the island. I think it’ll be hard to adjust to the new environment but hopefully it’ll be just as much fun!
Our day started our with our first journey to the Fore Reef (outer reef)! The stony corals there are much bigger and seem for the most part healthier (although there is still some disease). We swam through a bunch of harmless ctenophores (similar to jelly fish) that Phoenix identified as Comb Jellies. They have a distinctive jelly feel and appearance with a translucent color which made it difficult to capture on camera! It was super cute! Michael also spotted a loggerhead sea turtle! The Fore Reed was a little rough so we headed back to Middle Caye.
There we started our data collection of all sorts of trash that has been collecting on the atoll. From Nate’s presentation, we learned that there is a gyre in the Gulf between Belize and Honduras that collects a lot of trash that will wash up on the shore and harm the environment and wildlife. After some hard thinking, we decided to research the percentage of trash that could be properly disposed of and destroyed on island. We predicted that > 50% of the trash we collected could be disposable and split into groups. My group went to the coral cemetery and there was so much trash here. The heart breaking part of picking up trash is when the trash was so brittle that it would break and make more microplastics. Nate found a perfectly preserved- mummified box fish skeleton which was so incredible! I’ve never seen something so well preserved! The fish even had teeth! SO FLIPPING COOL!
Once all the groups were back from collecting our trash we discovered that Middle Caye did not have the resources to take recycle plastics or take them to the mainland regularly, and that they burn all plastics so our hypothesis was sadly off in the fact that more than half of the trash we collected could be recycled and destroyed in a more ecofriendly manner. We can only bring a bag of glass and metal with us compared with the 6. In the future we decided to bring sacs instead of trash bags to collect the trash and it made us all much more aware of the trash we were generating on island.
Post trash sorting photo taken by McKenna!
I had my presentation on annelids and hydroids today. Michael and Sophia asked two important questions that I did not know the answers too so I did some research today to answer them.
What eats these annelids on the reef?
Many worms are eaten by mostly many reef fishes such as wrasses or angelfish species.
Why are Christmas tree worms so many different colors?
One article said that Christmas tree worms will often be in colors that match the reef around them, but I have seen worms that are colors that don’t match the reef around them. Another article says that the host coral can influence the color of worms and that the color of Christmas tree worms can be used to determine coral health.
Tonight at dinner, one of our wonderful guides, Ruth, taught us all about the history of Belize, the demography and mix of cultures present, and the many attractions of Belize! I am getting so excited to see more of Belize!
Contrary to this blog’s title, today was an exciting day! We went out this morning to the fore reef, which is the area of open ocean that’s right outside of the atoll. There, since the waves are stronger and the water is deeper, the organisms are typically much bigger, as they need to be stronger to withstand the greater wave energy, and they have more room to grow upwards. We saw some really cool organisms from a distance because the bottom was maybe 70 feet below the surface and none of us (except the water safety officers) could hold our breath long enough to get to the bottom. Some of the cool organisms we saw included comb jellies, which were floating near the surface, and if you looked really closely, you could see that their combs were lit up with electricity. We also saw a school of medium blue fish that we weren’t able to identify, a sea turtle, most likely a green sea turtle, that was just sitting on the bottom, and a huge barrel sponge. Unfortunately, I did not see any brown algae, as it is too small to see from 70 feet above the reef. surprisingly, I saw minimal sargassum, which I think was due to the fact that the waves were so choppy.
a comb jelly! (picture courtesy of Phoenix)
possible green sea turtle!
Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t really cooperating with us, so we had to head out pretty quickly. Lucky for us, that meant we could get the nightly presentations done in the morning in anticipation of a possible night snorkel.
The afternoon was a whole other ball game. Last night, we heard from the Belize Fisheries Department manager, and he spoke a bit about starting beach cleaning efforts on Middle Caye. Today, we did a beach clean up, but being TFBs, we had to incorporate science somehow! You can read about our research below 🙂
our poster
I was doing clean up in the mangrove area behind the kitchen, and there was a lot of trash! It was sort of sad because even though we had two giant trash bags overflowing with trash, we had hardly made a dent. We spent the whole afternoon doing the beach clean up, sorting the trash, and weighing it, before putting the trash back into the bags so they could be properly disposed of. The people at the Coral Graveyard also found a box fish skeleton!
box fish skeletontrash party! -unfortunately I did not get any pictures during the actual trash sorting, since I didn’t want to touch my phone
After the trash shindig we finished the last presentation, and then, courtesy of Nate, we got to watch a hermit crab change shells! I had seen videos of it yesterday in Lilliana’s crustacean presentation, but it was cool to see in real life. We then went to dinner, and since the weather wasn’t looking good enough for a night snorkel, we hung out and talked to Ruth, the water safety officer, about her experiences as a native Belizean, as well as the natural history of the country.
While most Mondays may be trash, today was certainly a good day! Tomorrow is the last full day on the reef, and we have a lot to do, so I will keep you all posted!
the boat in the open ocean above the fore reefSophia diving
Even though the weather has been kind of windy and almost stormy recently, we decided to explore the fore-reef this morning! The water outside the atoll was choppier than usual but that’s what made it fun. I swear my gear hates me as my fin buckle broke (but Dr. Correa fixed it in true marine biologist fashion with some capo ties), and then as I was jumping in, my snorkel became detached from my mask and I had to dive down to grab it… As we were in the water, the swells were soothing and it was amazing to look at the drop-off of the slope. Here, there was so much coral growth and even a Green Sea Turtle! We also saw lots of Comb Jellies and some unidentified blue fish (possibly parrotfish?). No specific red algae sightings as we were too far up to exactly see anything but I am sure there was plenty on the sea floor below. Because of the weather and character of the waves, we sadly were only in the fore-reef for about 30 or so minutes. However, I am now super motivated to try to get scuba certified so I could explore more cool places like it for deeper depths and longer periods of time!!
After lunch we then began our next experiment, taking a break from our reef experiment, we began a new one that was about picking up trash and cleaning the shore line of the Middle Caye. We were trying to figure out how much of the trash would have to be transported to shore and how much could be burned. Before we began, Nate gave a presentation about marine debris and all of the different sources of trash (80% of which is from land based sources) and learned about the Gulf of Honduras Gyre that is a current that circulates the trash around and pushes it towards Glover’s Cayes. As Elena and I were cleaning up a small ~ 30 square foot area in only 30 minutes, we were able to pick up 28.7kg of trash… and it didn’t even look like we made a dent in it. With everyone’s combined efforts in three different areas, we were able to collect a total of 64.54kg of trash within an hour. Absolutely insane. Also, because of transportation issues, Grover’s has to burn all of the trash (except for glass and metal) because there is simply too much trash for them to transfer to landfills with the amount of boats that they have/logistics. As we were sorting the trash, we went through so many everyday items that it really made you start thinking about what products you consume/use and how they are packaged. I now am super interested in beach clean up as it is a direct way to help our ocean and maybe even join Rice’s Beach Cleanup group. (Also someone found a super cool mummified box fish !!!)
After some music to pick up our energy while sorting trash, making a poster and presenting it, we had some free time before and after dinner. After dinner, one of our marine safety officers, Ruth, explained some of Belize’s history which is so interesting. There are only 400,000 people in Belize and it’s about the size of Massachusetts but it has such a diverse population. There are foods and languages from all different cultures: Indian, Chinese, Kriol, British, Mestizo, etc, it sounds amazing. I think she has convinced all of us that Belize has a lot to offer and that we all need to visit more 😉
After checking the weather report, this morning was the best chance we had to go and see the forereef. The forereef is the region of the barrier of coral around the atoll that is facing the open ocean. Outside of the protection of the wall, the ocean waves are far more intense. The boat ride over was a tad more nauseating than others, and the swells were quite an intimidating sight to see before jumping in. However, once in the water, the waves were far less burdensome than I expected. The water was significantly deeper than any other region we have been before. The reef was ~70’ down, but it boarded a significant drop far deeper than I could see. There was a beautiful school of blue fish that we were able to swim through, and the water was littered with small translucent and barely glowing ctenophore. There were massive colonies of stony corals just below us. I would imagine they’re many of the same species I encountered in the lagoon, but were able to grow to larger scales because of the deeper conditions. In the shallow patch reefs, the corals have to contend with very bright light, harsh UV, and warmer temperatures. Yet although these colonies were larger, there were still obvious signs of disease. The distance was too far to see any detail, but the lesions were quite evident from above. I truly love how throughout this trip we continue to explore new places each time.
After returning back to land, we worked to clean up debris from some of the beaches of the island. Although messy, we collected, sorted, and analyzed the trash which accumulates on the shores. The debris either has to be disposed of on-site or shipped back to land, and it was quite interesting to learn that they burn everything possible (including plastic). Between this activity and Nate’s excellent talk describing marine debris, it left me questioning my participation in convenience consumerism. Every toothbrush, bottle cap, plastic container, bag, and more will continue to persist in the environment for hundreds of years. In this afternoon’s lecture, a chart showing the largest marine plastic polluting countries in the world were not the largest plastic consumers. The west appears to have superior management of waste, yet western countries continue to ship single-use plastic waste to other regions of the world for “recycling.” Yet in many of these cases, it’s this plastic that is ending up in the oceans. So who is truly to blame? The countries where the trash is released into waterways due to relatively poor management, or the western countries which ship their waste out of sight with the facade of recycling to lessen the social shame of convenience consumerism.
Just before dinner, we saw the rare sight of a hermit crab changing shells. Watching it shift its squirmy shrimp-like body from one shell to another was fascinating yet a bit unnerving. During dinner, one of our Marine Safety Officers Ruth gave us an in-depth information session about Belizean history and her career path to being here helping us. It was super fun, and I hope to find a career I am in love with like she is with hers. But on that note, I am now questioning what aspect of biology I want to pursue. I have always planned on going into medicine, but my experience during college has pushed me towards a love of research. I understand that most research is not like this, out on a gorgeous island, yet I wonder if research overall is something I would rather do than dermatology. Studying papers and information about coral diseases was a great time, and I think fulfilled much of the same curiosity I am hoping to satisfy with a career in medicine. But understandably no one wants a truly creative doctor, as medicine has some pretty ridged defined boundaries for most disciplines. Yet the goal of research itself is to push our current boundary of knowledge and make the unknown known. Depending on how the rest of my time at Rice goes, I could see what I thought as my career path shift in the direction of scientific and/or pre-clinical research. Overall, this class continues to be an incredible and influential experience.
Today I feel very accomplished. We did a coastal trash survey and cleanup to find the most efficient cleanup location and figure out what portion of the trash could and couldn’t be burned on the island, and I found this!
We think it was a box fish or cow fish. Either way the skeletal structure exoskeleton thing is amazingly cool.
Also, on that trip I picked up some shells I thought some hermit crabs might enjoy, and when we got back I got one to move in! We were all standing there with our breath held as it inspected the whole shell inside and out, and we let out a cheer when it pulled itself out of its old shell and into mine!
The other major even for the day was that we went to the edge of the atoll, known as the reef crest to snorkel. The waves were massive and rather scary, but it was also really cool to see such deep water with massive coral structures on the bottom. There was also a massive drop-off at the edge of the reef crest that felt like looking down a cliff to nothingness. Some highlights included seeing walnut comb jellies and a sea turtle sitting on the bottom! There was also a large school of what looked like possibly parrotfish swirling around us! Unfortunately it was too deep for me to be able to decipher the green algae on the bottom, but tomorrow we should snorkel in shallow water so hopefully I will see some there!
Much like other days today was great! Early in the morning we got to go to the fore reef which was a little intimidating at first but also super cool! There we got to see a green turtle at the bottom and many, many sea walnuts (which were beyond adorable.) I am so glad we visited although we were only able to stay for a short while due to the weather conditions of the atoll at this time of the year. Even though I loved the experience I will say one thing: I am so grateful I decided to take Dramamine during breakfast. I think I would have felt seasick if I had decided to tough it out!
After we got back to Glover’s we all did a group clean-up of the beach. Together we picked up around 65kg of trash; I’m pretty proud of us! In the process, we also collected data on how much of the trash could be disposed of here at Glover’s and how much would have to be shipped to the mainland to be disposed of. Yet, perhaps the coolest part of our findings is that different areas of the island allow for different efficiency in collecting said trash, therefore if there is limited man power, we found that there are certain areas were effort should be a priority! While cleaning the coast, one member of our team found something that kind of shocked us all:
We are still unsure of how this level of preservation happened but it is so pristine that we were able to identify it as a type of box fish. During this trip I had heard about box fish, yet I didn’t know too much about them as they are omnivores and therefore not part of my taxa, piscivorous fish. Yet, seeing this little guy prompted me to learn a lot more about these fish, and honestly they are really cool!
Making today even better, before dinner we saw a hermit crab switch shells; I thought I would never get to see this, but this trip truly is full of surprises at every turn!
Reef day #5 was definitely the most packed (and exhausting) day yet! There was a storm last night, so there was leftover cloudiness and winds this morning. However, conditions still looked good enough to go out onto the fore reef! I took dramamine at breakfast, and thank goodness I did. We hopped on the boat, and as soon as we exited the lagoon through a channel, we could feel the intensity of the waves. Even in the water, we were being forcefully sloshed around. Looking up, people were at all different heights among the waves.
Even with the rough conditions, I had a great time on the reef slope! The depth was incredible, especially at the drop off. I saw so many schools of fish, and I could clearly see the spur and groove structure of the corals down below! We also took a video of all of us diving down and making owl hands. Hopefully we make Rice’s Instagram 🙂
I felt a little sick coming off the boat, but the dramamine helped to keep the nausea at bay.
Later in the day, we conducted a trash clean-up (as an experiment in true TFB fashion). We collected so much trash and sorted it into burnables and non-burnables. Our experiment hoped to characterize the trash at different sites along the shore of Middle Caye as well as the general efficiency of collection at each site. We spent the entire afternoon planning out our experiment, conducting our experiment, measuring and sorting to collect data, and then making a poster and presenting it. We are hopeful that this data will help to inform future trash clean-up efforts! I also managed to get a really cute, homecoming-style picture of TFBs lined up on the stairs to wash our hands.
I gave my first presentation today! I presented my reef taxa (anemones, corallimorphs, and zoanthids), and I feel like it went really well. Everyone asked really great questions too!
Before dinner, Nate (a fellow TFB) placed a shell in front of a hermit crab for giggles. Not only did we have some giggles, but we also witnessed something incredible: the hermit crab switch shells! I was able to get it on video and am thrilled to have seen something so rare to catch.
I didn’t have any taxa sightings today, but my other sightings and experiences were more than captivating! Ruth also taught us so much about Belize at dinner! Best off-the-cuff topic lecture ever!
The fact that my eye has been twitching since around 2:00 pm is a clear sign that I am more than ready to get some rest. I’m ready to sleep as soundly as I can to appreciate my last full day on the reef tomorrow!
Another early and eventful morning. After breakfast we went out on the boat to the fore reef, just outside the coral circle of the atoll. Once we got outside the reef the waters got choppy and I got seasick a little bit, I thought once I got in the water I would feel better but I still felt sick whenever I looked up out of the water. I was perfectly happy to just lie in the water and stare down below and get pushed around by the waves. Wherever we were was at least 60 feet deep I think, but it felt way deeper. One of our water safety officers free dove all the way almost to the bottom! I had no idea that was even possible for someone to do, but we looked down and he was just swimming along the bottom below us. We saw lots of fish, but a little too deep to get a good look, and even a sea turtle way below us. We swam over to the drop off, like in finding nemo, you suddenly can’t see the bottom of the water anymore and it just drops into deep blue and then black, maybe it only goes a little bit deeper, maybe it goes miles deep, you just can’t tell or see anything past the darkness. Weirdly instead of being scared I was just more curious then anything. My first lab research experience was with hydrothermal vents and those extremophilic organisms around them, so most of my first marine knowledge was of the deep sea instead of coral reefs. I would love to someday get SCUBA certified and dive right down to the bottom to just see what’s there past what I can see from the top. And someday I’m going to go in a submarine to the bottom of the ocean if I can, I want to see everything down there, it’ll be like stepping into a completely new world.
I got pretty seasick on the way back, luckily I kept my breakfast because it’s a shame to lose a good meal, and took a short nap on the dock to get my bearings. After lunch we put together a beach cleanup activity! We managed to collect about 64 kg of trash across the island and sort it out for disposal. Highlights include:
a complete fish skeleton (not trash, just cool).
A full tube of mascara
A tiny plastic sheep
A bottle of bright blue dye that turned everything else blue
A bottle of yellow smelly liquid (pee? I really hope not)
Several baby flip-flops (why do they need shoes, they can’t even walk)
A single Balenciaga slide
and lots and lots of plastic bottles.
There was plenty more trash but our bags were overflowing and we can only carry so much. It’s really sad how much there is on what’s supposed to be a conservation site, just washing up from other islands and everywhere else in the world the currents take it.
Before dinner Nate handed out some of the shells he collected to the local hermit crabs. One of them actually accepted it, and began to examine it closely, preparing for a move. We stood in a circle around it, completely frozen so we wouldn’t scare it and watched and cheered when it moved shells into a nice new shell that was a better shape and size.
The crab was treated to some coconut, because moving is stressful.
And the coconut was quickly swarmed by the other crabs, hopefully our friend got plenty to eat before it got crowded!
We started of today with a trip to the forereef, the area right outside the reef crest where the reef slopes off to deeper waters with stronger waves! Even though I took a Dramamine, I was thoroughly nauseous by the end of our trip. The ship was rocking on large waves, and even after we got out and started snorkeling we were being carried up and down on the large swells. (Here is a pic of us trying to get off the boat!)
Me on the forereef!
Although I was nauseous, it was still a really cool experience to see the deep reef areas. At one point we were swimming in a cloud of comb jellies (don’t worry, they don’t sting!). I also got some good pictures of people diving down, although none of us could go as deep as our guide Adrian (he free dived about 100 feet while we were there!). Deep below, I was able to see the bipinnate sea plume definitively for the first time! This soft coral lives 12-50 meters deep, so this was the first time I was able to see it. I couldn’t snap a good picture, as the water was too cloudy and it was pretty far away.
I was happy to be back on solid ground this afternoon, even though we spent it picking up trash! There was a ton of shoes, plastic water bottles, and other unknown or random debris. We picked up a total of 65 kg of trash, but we barley made a dent in everything that washes up here. Because of the currents from the Gulf of Honduras Gyre, trash is regularly washed from Honduras and other areas onto the Middle Caye of Glovers Reef. We were able to see firsthand all of the single use plastics in the ocean, and it certainly made me want to do a better job not using these!
We also got to see a hermit crab change shells today! We had watched a video of this yesterday, so it was especially cool to witness it in person!
After dinner, we had a great conversation with one of our guides, Ruth. She told us all about the history, climate, culture and geography of the different areas of Belize. She also told us about Belize’s relationship to the neighboring countries of Mexico and Guatemala. From this conversation alone, it is clear that Belize is a very unique place with a ton of different cultures and peoples, in a very small place (about the size of Massachusetts!).
