Today was the last full day in Belize! If I had it my way, I would never leave Glover’s Reef. This place has been magical. This morning started with a trash cleanup project where we surveyed trash buildup as it had washed ashore from the ocean on various points of the island. We filled six large trash bags to the brim, and had we had more trash bags to store the trash in, we could’ve kept going.
This afternoon we dissected the invasive lionfish Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans had been catching this week. Sam and my lionfish had 7 fish inside its stomach! Then we ate the lionfish as ceviche (yummmm).
Before dinner, I went for one last snorkel. I saw a nurse shark right off the dock, so naturally I jumped in the water and tried to find it. We went a ways into the water where I found another large nurse shark resting next to the reef. The shark was about 6 ft long and just sleeping on the sand. Right as I turned to leave the nurse shark and swim somewhere else, a southern stingray swam right underneath me! It was a medium sized stingray, but it got super close to me! What a great 15 mins for observing my taxon!
After snorkeling a while longer, I found a trumpetfish, a porcupine fish, a tiny pufferfish, and some grunts doing a face off. The rest of the evening was spent swimming off the dock, packing, doing final presentations, and socializing on the dock one last time.
I am sad to be leaving tomorrow but am glad that everyone will be on campus together again in August!
Today was a chill but fun day. Our morning started by snorkeling 4 locations, 2 in the marine protected area and 2 outside of the marine protected area. It was interesting to see the change in biodiversity levels despite them being pretty similar ecosystems. After we got out from snorkeling the 4th site there was one solitary dolphin SO close to our boat. It was just casually eating fish from the seafloor and coming up to breathe.
After lunch we made a poster about our findings from the MPA and non MPA. I had a good time helping create the poster; we all worked together to display our findings in a semiformal but fun way.
After making the poster we had free time. I watched fish swim under the dock then I napped on the dock. Right before dinner, I saw the shadow of a southern stingray swimming away from the dock. I did not get a great at look at it however.
I am not looking forward to leaving this gorgeous place, but I am looking forward to more time on the ocean tomorrow!
Today was such a fun day despite it being more land based than the previous few have been. This morning we waded into the mangroves and sea grasses right I off the island. We were told we should collect anything that was not nailed down, and while most things swam far too fast for us to catch with small nets and buckets, we still found a cool assortment of animals. We found multiple hermit crabs of varying sizes, a large purple crab, some tiny fish, a tiny crab, and a box jellyfish amongst other things (no one got stung by the box jelly). After bringing them into the wet lab and observing them, we released them back into the sea grasses and mangroves.
I also saw a small lemon shark around us the whole time we were in the mangroves and seagrasses. It was trailing bonefish (of the same size as itself) but didn’t seem to be hunting very aggressively.
Right before lunch I saw a nurse shark (probably the same one we’ve been seeing) under the dock resting. It didn’t move very much.
After lunch we walked around the island where w got to see a coral graveyard. Since the island is on an atoll, half of the island is incredibly protected waters and half of the island has large wave break from the open ocean. We hadn’t spent much time on that side of the island before today, so it was interesting to see it. Since atolls are made of a ring of coral and this reef has been bashed by waves for thousands of years, the entire coast was made up of fossilized corals. It also created an interesting intertidal zone where I found some large conchs and a ton of brittle stars (in the picture below).
By night we were planning on doing a night snorkel but the wind was too strong so we just dropped a light below the dock to see what came by. There were some small fish and shrimps as well as glad seals (super cool and minimally studied translucent larval stages of certain fish and eels). After waiting a while, a squid came by! Claire D caught this squid in one attempt and we watched it ink in a bucket.
All in all, today was so interesting since we saw so many different animals across the shallow ecosystems surrounding Middle Kay.
Today was such a great day. Our project of the day was trying to determine what common parrotfish species eat on or outside of the reef. We first snorkeled off the dock where Sam and I (snorkel buddies) looked for stoplight parrotfish. We found a few small female parrotfish and one large male, but they were very hard to watch eating since they kept darting between coral. I did however see a large nurse shark though! It was on the outskirts of the reef hanging on the sea floor beneath some coral.
After lunch I was hanging around the dock when I saw another nurse shark! Like the first day at Glover’s Reef, this shark was swimming under and beside the dock. It was relatively large and very majestic. After watching for a few minutes I also saw a small lemon shark swim by! This shark was seeming just wandering around the sea grasses.
(lemon shark)
Our second snorkel of the day took us further into the lagoon. We snorkeled two sites in search of stoplight parrotfish and we got some great footage of them eating. Tomorrow we will compare our findings with people analyzing other parrotfish! On these reefs I also found multiple anemones, saw many wrasses, and found gorgeous conchs.
(Analyzing parrotfish data)
I’m looking forward to getting back on the water soon!
Today started with a gorgeous morning in the ocean. We jumped off the dock and swam straight to the reefs nearby. There I saw a southern stingray resting on the sand beside some coral. I saw many sea fans, large brain corals, and many wrasses too.
After about an hour of snorkeling we came back to the dock and were given an 1.5 hr of free time. Obviously I got back in the water. Elise and I snorkeled around the reef for another 30 minutes and then hung out beside the dock afterwords.
Right as I as about to step onto the ladder to get out however there was a LARGE animal swimming next to me. This water was about 4 ft deep and while we had been seeing a nurse shark around here, this clearly was not a nurse shark. It was a ray flapping its wings as if it were flying. The only other time I’ve seen an animal do this was when I have seen manta rays before. I was positive this ray was not a spotted eagle ray because it had no markings on its back, but what threw me off was the fact that the back was grey and not black. After trying and failing to ID this ray all afternoon, when I pulled up the video I got of it, I realized it was clearly a manta ray! Though it was small for its species, it was such a majestic creature and I loved watching it swim off into the distance.
Later today we snorkeled another nearby reef where I saw a medium sized nurse shark hiding in a crevice between to large coral structures. In all of the time Iwatched it, the shark never moved but it was still incredible to see.
All in all, today was a phenomenal day of snorkeling. Today has also given me my highlight of the trip thus far: seeing the manta ray.
I can’t wait to get back out in the water tomorrow!
This morning we slept in! (until 7:30 am). Then we left the ecolodge to drive to Belize city. We got to go to a fun lunch boardwalk/beachy area. After I had my delicious smoothie, we boarded the boat and drove to Glovers Reef.
The boat ride was about 2.5 hours mostly along the barrier reef. The water was a gorgeous shade of turquoise prior to crossing into open ocean, and when we crossed into the open ocean, the sea immediately got so choppy and dark blue. At one point we could not see any land around us in any direction.
When we got to Glover’s and got off the boat, the FIRST thing I saw was a nurse shark!!! Prepare to be blasted with shark/ray information as that is now my taxonomic group of interest. Loved the reptiles, but it’s time for some marine creatures! After dropping our stuff off on land and coming back to the dock, I also saw a small lemon shark!!!!
I can’t wait for the adventures w are about to have here. It’s going to be a movie
Today was our last day in Belize. We started off the day bright and early at 5 am where we prepared for our boat ride over to Belize city. We left at 6 am and spent about 3 hours boating over. Along the way we crossed the boundaries of the atoll and saw a sea turtle. The boat ride was mostly uneventful except for the occasional sea sickness.
When we docked the boat we took a bus directly to the airport. Here we checked into our flight and went through security. Once through we explored the airport a little. A few of us sat at a pizza restaurant and reminisced on our trip. From there it was just a 2 hour plane ride home!
Hello! Today was our last day in Glover’s Reef!Today we began the morning by picking up trash to give back to the island. I was amazed how much trash we found and picked up. We only had 6 garbage bags which unfortunately put just a dent in the amount of trash we found washed up. While we were doing a trash pick up, we came up with a research project. We were looking at the amount of trash and trash distribution around the island. We were curious how the type of beach (mangroves, sandy, or dead coral) would contribute to the amount and type of trash that was on the shore. We didn’t notice a significant difference in this, but we noticed that the unprotected side of the island facing open ocean had more trash then the atoll protected side.
We then dissected a lion-fish! Lion-fish are invasive to Belize so our professors had speared some that we had found snorkeling.We opened up the lion-fish and looked at the sex and stomach contents. Our fish had three digested fish and one whole shrimp!
We ended the day with free time where me and a few others went for a last swim at sunset! While I didn’t see any eels personally, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans saw a couple green moray eels over the duration of our stay!
Today was the last full day in Belize. It is surreal how fast time flew by during these two weeks. Every day was packed full with numerous engaging activities, and I truly learned so so much about the rainforest and coral reef ecosystems during this trip.
This morning started off with breakfast per usual, and then the class met up at 8 AM in the wet lab for the trash pickup around the island. Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon challenged us as TFBs to extend our scientific critical thinking skills even for trash picking. Therefore, our scientific question was “How does trash distribution differ between unprotected vs. protected areas at Glover’s Reef?” We predicted that the unprotected area would have higher trash density due to the ocean current pushing the trash directly onto the land.
We had 6 giant trash bags, and those bags were quickly filled up, which was astonishing. Also, we had a quadrant to sample 3 sites within each location (semi-protected, unprotected, protected) which we further analyze with our phones after data collection.
We first started off at the semi protected area in front of our dorms, and I noticed that the main type of trash found here was bottle caps. Then, we moved onto the unprotected area (coral graveyard). This area had the highest amount of plastic pollution, with the most prominent types of trash being plastic water bottles and stray sandals. Both of our designated trash bags for this area were all full when we had not even cleaned 1/3 of the area, which was quite unfortunate. I wished there had been more trash bag to fully clean up the pollution, or there to be less plastic pollution emitted in general, but nevertheless we had to stop and move on to our final area, which was the protected mangroves.
After the trash collection, the class promptly met up in the wet lab to start analyzing our data (pictures from the quadrats) and creating the poster. I also adored the title for this poster which was “Getting Waste(d): Trashy Day at Glover’s Reef.” Our results did indeed align with our prediction, with the unprotected areas having the highest proportion of trash. However, the error bars manually calculated and added on overlapped qutie significantly, indicating that no meaningful conclusion could be drawn. Since this is only a pilot study with many limitations, I hope to replicate this set up on a future study with more trash bags and more time duration granted. Although we filled up all six bags to the top, it seemed like we barely made a dent in the trash pile on the island, which was quite disappointing.
Working on poster! We got waste(d)!
In the afternoon though, we got to dissect the lionfish that Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans had been spearing and gathering for us to dissect (and eat). It was quite gruesome opening up the stomach lining and the organs, as well as decapitating it, but I feel like this really gave me a better sense of anatomy in fish. Once we cut open the stomach of our lionfish, there were four small fish inside it, one of which Sam suspected to be a juvenile yellowhead wrass. The rest of them were pretty digested though, we made it pretty difficult to tell, but they were all about 2 cm in length.
While dissecting the lionfish, I thought about how cool it would be to dissect a surgeonfish — my taxon group. However, I know it won’t be possible on this trip, since only lionfish are able to be speared due to them being an invasive species. Perhaps in the future, a surgeonfish dissection opportunity will come to me!
Lionfish dissection!
After dissection, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Evans made a filet with the lionfish mixed in with dip ingredients such as lime and onions and chips. It was pretty delicious, but I could barely taste and notice the lionfish, as most of the flavor was coming from the citrus itself. Also, as a further bonus, we discovered the staff cutting up coconuts, and they kindly sliced up many coconuts for each of us to try (+ the professors)! Although I don’t really like coconut, the coconut water was refreshing and the flesh was yummy.
(lion)fish & chips!
Before dinner, a lot of us went to the dock to enjoy the last sunset before we leave tomorrow, which was quite bittersweet. The view of the water and sky from the dock is truly surreal, and I know I will not be able to forget this view. These two weeks have been filled with so much memories, and I will miss Belize and being altogether as TFBs so much.
Today started with a class discussion at 8 AM to plan out our project for the day, which was to compare reef health (coral species richness, fish species richness, presence of algal overgrowth, coral bleaching) between MPAs (marine protected areas) and non-MPAs. In order to do this, our class split into seven groups, and each surveyed different sites at four locations (two non-MPAs, two MPAs) using quadrats. We laid down the quadrats and took pictures of them at three sites per location. Since I’m unable to duck dive, Lily took on the role of placing and retrieving the quadrats while I was in charge of documentation with the underwater digital camera.
Quadrat sampling!
I started to get nauseous again despite trying Dr. Solomon’s magic seasickness drops. Nevertheless, I persevered and finished collecting the data needed for our project. We surveyed in the ocean from 9 AM to 12 PM. No surgeonfish seen during this snorkel though, which was quite a bummer.
While we were returning, though, Noelle spotted a dolphin in the water! Although I wasn’t feeling the best, seeing the dolphin immediately brightened up my day — it was so close to the boat!!
Exciting dophin sighting!
After this, we had lunch, which was noodles and soy sauce. Then we met back at the wet lab to analyze our pictures from the survey and create/present a poster based on our findings. Our results suggested a trend toward higher species richness and fish abundance in MPAs, which aligned with our hypothesis that MPAs would have higher biodiversity and better reef health. I must say, I am quite proud of our poster title: MPAyyyee where my corals at? I think our creative freedom really shined through on this one.
As a bonus, one of the staff members caught a bonefish and kindly showed it to us — and even let us touch it! Instead of being scaly as I had expected, it was rather smooth and slimy, which was a surprising texture. We released it back into the water, but I have hope that one of us TFBs will be able to catch it with bare hands before we leave. Will it happen? Find out tomorrow!
