Today after breakfast we talked about Andressa’s presentation on marine debris, and we decided that we wanted to find out how much and what types of trash washed up on the island. We decided to look at two areas on opposite sides of the island: the windward side, which is the direction facing the wind, and the leeward face, which doesn’t face the wind. So we went over to both spots and pick up as much trash as we could within a time frame, noting how much of each types we picked up (i.e. hard plastics, glass, wood, etc.…). Unsurprisingly, we found that found plastics made up a large percentage of what we found on both sides. It’s pretty upsetting to know that despite the fact that this island is cleaned up regularly, we were still able to fill up three large bags full of washed up trash, and there was still so much that we weren’t able to get.

We later went snorkeling at three different sites, the first and last being pretty shallow (around 4-7 ft deep at most), and the second being the deepest (around 20-25 ft). I noticed several patterns concerning the distribution of the fish I was able to recognize. For example, all the stoplight parrotfish like to hang out, usually alone, closer to the benthos, at the bottom of the coral structures that they feed off of. Side note: I also saw the initial phase of parrotfish (pretty much a young adult parrot fish) that was silver and red, which is surprising since the adult from is blue and purple. I also noticed that most of the smaller fish, such as the blue chromis and four-eyed butterfly fish like to hang out, usually with each other, towards the top of the coral and rock formations.

I learned in my research that a type of fish called the Sargent Major was a curious lil fella who would swim up to divers instead of swimming away for cover like most other fish. These little guys like to hang out at the top of coral structures, are a little smaller than the palm of your hand, have a white body with yellow and black stripes, and have a face that can only be described as cute. However, this was WRONG. I saw many, many Sargent majors in all three sites and they all swam away from me. Utterly disappointing.

In the deeper site, we saw a HUGE nurse shark (around 7-8 ft) that was just laying on the benthos, partially covered by a rock/coral structure. Once everybody came to see it and were diving down to see it, it moved a little more under the rocks. I would have probably been annoyed too if a bunch of undergrads came to disturb my nap. We left after we realized that it wasn’t on planning to move anytime soon.

Today rather than going on a boat out to a further part of the reef, we went snorkeling right off the shore off the island. The water was very shallow, waist deep at most. At first, it was mostly a “lawn” of sea grass, and we found many conch shells (some with live conch inside!) with anemones growing on top of them. We also found a large sea cucumber that is called the donkey dung cucumber. It is appropriately named. Elena found me an urchin, since I missed our urchin collecting expedition yesterday because I wasn’t feeling well. It was a very interesting experience to have something that looks sessile moving across the palm of your hand.

I found an aggregation (aka school) of four eyed butterflyfish, which were a little smaller than the palm of my hand. They have an eye-looking spot on their tail fin called a ocellated spot. I think that these fish have this feature in order to distract potential predators from attacking the fishes’ actual face, or might think it’s a larger, scarier fish. I was told later by Claire that this tactic actually worked because she actually fell for it. I don’t know if she was actually trying to attack it, but that’s besides the point. Nature is amazing.

We then collected many creatures and organisms and took them back to the wet lab at the research station, which is basically a long sink with taps full of sea water, so it could keep the organisms alive while we studied them. We accidentally collected a cocoa damselfish that was living inside one of the sea anemone-covered conch shells, as well a tiny octopus, who inked after we poked it too much. After identifying all our respective taxa, we released them back into the water.

After dinner, our marine safety officer Xavier gave us a presentation on the History and Culture of Belize. We learned a lot about all the different types of people who have lived here, including Mennonites and the Amish. We also learned that the common thread that keeps people of all the different backgrounds and cultures together is the language Creole, which everyone speaks. Also, I found it amazing that Belize never fought in a war, and didn’t need to fight for their independence. Not only is this country’s landscape beautiful, but the ideals of peace and unity in diversity make this country so much more.