They say routine is a key to success, and in the past few days a new routine has been established. I woke up at 6:45AM, ate breakfast, and awaited our next adventure in the wetlab. We gathered the different species of urchins collected yesterday and tested for each one’s size and abundance. One particular species, E. viridus, was collected 131 times! Around 9AM, we hopped on a boat and went back to the protected back reef area to return the urchins to their habitat and then proceeded to the non-MPA (Marine Protected Area). There, my partner Isaac and I performed the same quadrat testing (from May 18, 2017) in the unprotected zone which will later be used to assess Belizean reef health. We were also asked to collect urchins in a 25 minute period in the unprotected zone, resulting in a mission which around 400 person-minutes was put into progress.

While snorkeling today, I managed to see a nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) and a southern sting ray (Dasyatis americana). My lovely instructor Scott (AKA SFS) pointed the nurse shark out to me which was laying down underneath a small coral colony. I was mainly able to see the nurse shark’s tail and lower body- the shark did not move around at all, suggesting it was probably resting or hiding.

The southern sting ray was spotted on the reef floor while performing quadrat testing. It too was completely motionless, darting away only seconds after the picture was snagged.

Southern Stingray on the ocean floor

Other than those two piscivores, I want to say I saw an unidentified Grouper of some sort- it was really colorful and had the head skeleton structure/ jaw structure which l believe resemble a Nassau Grouper. It kept swimming around on the outside of a coral colony probably searching for food.

We arrived back at Glover’s around 12:10PM, at lunch, and got started on the reef health project we are working on- Adrienne and Scott wanted us to compile all the data together and present our findings to them. One of the discussion topics that came up while creating the presentation was the fact that there are more urchins in marine protected areas (based on data collected in both MPAs and non-MPAs) because less disturbance (fishing) occurs in MPAs, allowing for diversity to persist. We compiled all of the species data together and presented to Scott and Adrienne around 4PM; they listened patiently and provided useful feedback which can be used for future projects.

We were supposed to go night snorkeling tonight, but the winds and waters were way too choppy to execute that plan. So, instead, a couple of friends and I played soccer (scraped up my leg from that), ate dinner, and listened to presentations about red, brown, and green algae from Tian-Tian and Sarah G., a cultural presentation of Belize by our water safety man Javier, and a presentation on the implications of overfishing and climate change on reefs by Ellie.

Hopefully, we hit the water at night tomorrow. Nonetheless, I am excited!!