Tag Archives: Groupers

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Day 15: Home Bound…

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As I’m on my plane flying back to North Carolina, I’m truly just registering how surreal of an experience these past two weeks have been.

We hopped on our boat back to Belize City this morning at 6:15 AM, marking the end of our stay at Glover’s Reef Research Station and subsequently Belize as well.

I caught one final picture of the view right before I left, in hopes of letting it become ingrained in my memory.

Last night, I returned to the dock to enjoy the sunset one last time. This dock has been one of my favorite places this entire trip, even though it’s not as extravagant nor as exotic as the coral reefs.

The boat ride back was not as fun, and the choppier waters were a lot worse than I remembered. However, it was just as surreal as the way out. We managed to spot a sea turtle, the first and only of our trip, as well!

It felt a little different when we returned to Belize City. Though I had so desperately missed AC and flushing toilets, I did suddenly start to miss the complete isolation of both Las Cuevas and Glover’s Reef.

The flight back was bittersweet, at least when we were awake. I was sad to leave Belize, but the early morning exhaustion fell over our entire crew and everyone was out cold through the flight.

Claire C and I, both from NC, had a flight that was supposed to depart at 6:10 PM, with boarding beginning at 5:30 PM. However, our flight from Belize got delayed heavily, and we ended up landing at 4:50 PM. Fortunately, our flight out of IAH ended up getting delayed, so we made it with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, our flight got delayed by almost 3 hours. We ended up departing around the same time we were expected to land, but at least this is better than us missing our flight completely.

That brings me to where I am now, finally on our flight back home, wrapping up our two week stay in Belize.

I’m already missing that dock.

Ian C

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Day 14: The Lion, the Fish, and the (War)Dock

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Though today was our last day at GRRS, it was still nonetheless an eventful one. We started the day by picking up trash around the island, to try to help out wherever we can. Though we filled up six huge trash bags, we felt like we didn’t make much of a dent, which was a pretty depressing.

A little good news though, was that I found my missing left airpod! On the second night here, I had dropped my airpods in our room in the middle of the night and couldn’t find my left one. However, I wasn’t sure if the left airpod had even made it to our room, and the last findmy location made it seem like some crab picked it up and took it to their burrow. However, it actually just landed in Sam’s shoe, so the pair is now fully back together again!

Anyways, back to the trash pickup. We also turned it into a small research project, observing how trash distribution would differ between the sides of the island that were facing in the atoll (towards the lagoon) vs. facing the open ocean. We ended up using our quadrats again!

In the afternoon, we dissected a lionfish! Well, “dissected.” I fear I’m using this quite loosely here. We tried to, and ended up just demolishing it. We found the stomach and half of a small fish, likely a cryptobenthic fish, in its stomach at least! However we did not get much further, and failed spectacularly when trying to find the otolith (sorry Elise…).

At some point we gave up and just went for it’s eyes!

After we dissected them, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Cory prepared a dip with the longish for us to try. It felt pretty exotic but also the lionfish itself didn’t have that much flavor. I don’t think I got an actual taste of it at all.

We also had a bunch of coconut and drank straight from the fruits along with eating the flesh fresh. Though I’m not the biggest coconut fan, I really enjoyed these!

We ended the day by enjoying our last sunset here on Middle Caye. The dock has been a perfect place for the sunset, and I’m truly going to miss having such a beautiful sight present daily. I know I said the same about LCRS, but I’m also truly going to miss this place.

Hope to see you again Middle Caye,

Ian C

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Day 13: Coral-ling the Blues

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We went right back to the reef today, this time with another research project on coral health and reef biodiversity in mind.

We used small 2×2 foot square quadrats and placed them over coral before counting the coral and organisms inside.

Though they were mainly for research experiment, these quadrants were also really fun to pose with!

While on the boat waiting for our last pair to finished we spotted a singular dolphin swimming and jumping by! I was hoping all along to spot a marine mammal, either a whale or a dolphin, so I was super stoked when that became reality.

Specifically, we were looking at coral health between Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and unprotected waters.

In between reefs, we found the molt of a large lobster!

In the afternoon, we compiled all our data and created our fourth poster of the class!

After we presented, we went back out to the dock to relax a bit and enjoy the view. While we were there, someone caught a bonefish! It was super cool and we all got to touch it. Surprisingly, it didn’t feel scaly at all but rather really smooth and mucusy.


While we were on the dock, the brown pelican that’s been diving around us perched on the dock, which was super cool.

Anyways, that’s all for today! See you tomorrow for our last full day at Glover’s Reef!

Ian C

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Day 12: Docks Full of Sunshine

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Today was our first entirely land bound day, which though at first was disappointing ended up being a really nice change in pace.

We went out to the dock to pass a bit of time and spotted a young lemon shark swimming by. It was the first of many appearances for this little guy.

We then began our day by compiling our parrotfish data from the previous day and creating our third poster of the class discussing our findings.

Once we finished, we waded out by the dock and tried to see what we could find, catch, and collect from the surrounding areas. There were tons of small schools of fish, and the lemon shark kept circling by to try to catch them. We ended up catching three large hermit crabs and a red land crab, along with a baby crab, two snails, and five small fish.

In the afternoon we finally explored the rest of the island. Though it’s only a 20 minute slow stroll around, each part proved to be super interesting and unique.

First up was the coral graveyard, which was a beach made up of almost entirely fossilized corals. There were a ton of different species, including Montastraea cavernosa, or the great star coral, which has huge polyps, brain corals, and purple sea fans!

The waters were also filled with sea urchins and starfish, which felt really weird when they moved.

Further along the trail is a really nice sandy beach, where we spotted a small dead pufferfish.

We also saw tons and tons of sprouting coconuts!

After our hike we went back to the dock to yap and nap before presentations…

…and then again before dinner.

We ended the night back out on the dock, dangling a couple flashlights to attract fish. Initially we only attracted plankton, but soon we spotted and caught a ton of small fish, shrimp, glass eels, and even a squid!

Though we never made it to any reefs, today was a much needed and eventful rest day. Excited to get back out on the reefs though!

Ian C

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Day 11: Big Toadfish, Bigger Reef

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We finally began our first research project here on the reef! This one focuses on parrotfish behavior, particularly their feeding habits. We decided to focus on four species of parrotfish, stoplight, redband, redtail, and striped parrotfish.

We returned back to the two patch reefs off the dock of Middle Caye. I paired up with Elise and we began our search for striped parrotfish! We found four groups that kept darting around between the reefs and seagrass, constantly being chased way by damselfish.

While roaming around the closer of the two patch reefs, we spotted a white spotted toadfish hiding in the reef, which was super cool.

I think I saw the tail of a red hind hiding in a small cave, but the cave was too dark to tell. However, we did stumble across a huge trumpetfish hiding in some branch corals!

We returned to two further patch reefs after lunch to look for more striped parrotfish. During that process we saw a cave with huge French and queen angelfish and a couple of blue tangs. We also saw this weirdly shaped fish with a huge body and a tiny caudal fin rush by. We tried to chase it but it was a bit too fast 😔.

As we continued to swim along the edge of the reef, we kept seeing more and more huge angelfish and blue tangs. Apparently two barracudas were spotted in the area but we never saw them. Our underwater camera also broke almost as soon as we got into the water in the afternoon, so we were unable to take any pictures of these fish.

Right before dinner, Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon went back to the close patch reefs to spear a couple lionfish. They were successful and managed to catch two!

We ended our day with a couple of extra presentations from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the organization that owns Middle Caye, the Belizean Fisheries Department, and the Coast Guard, which were all super interesting and insightful. I never realized the full reach of WCS, and the same organization that owns the Bronx Zoo also does work out in Glover’s Reef/Atoll.

All in all, today was a really fun and eventful day. Hoping to see more of what these reefs and this atoll has to offer!

Ian C

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Day 10: First Snorkle!

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Today marks our first day on Middle Caye! Breakfast is back at 7:00 AM, which surprisingly doesn’t feel that early anymore. We started the day with a morning practice dive, trying out our snorkel gear in the ocean for the first time. Whatever happened in between the first time snorkeling in the Rec pool and now must’ve been a miracle, because I felt so much more comfortable snorkeling in the ocean this time.

We swam out to the nearest two patch reefs, both to get comfortable traversing through the ocean and to get the opportunity to start looking for wildlife. We saw a queen conch, some bonefish, parrotfish, and some purple fan corals!

After lunch we went for our first real snorkel, to a patch reef called the Aquarium. There were so many cool fish, including a resting nurse shark, a stingray, schools of various parrotfish, damselfish, and a ton of blue tangs.

As for groupers, there were a couple of red hinds, and although not true groupers, we saw a couple harlequin basslets too.

It was a super cool experience as I’ve never seen a coral reef with my own two eyes, and the amount of fish hiding throughout the reef was insane. Everywhere I looked there would be something cool to see, and I’m really excited to find more!

Ian C

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Pre-Departure Blog!

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Hey y’all, my name is Ian Chen and I’m a rising sophomore at McMurtry! I plan on double majoring in Biosciences, with a concentration in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM). I’m currently writing this entry sitting at my gate, about to depart for Houston. T-15 hours!!

I’m super excited for this trip, and literally every part about it too. I will say, I am most excited for our second week, staying out by Glover’s Reef. Beyond all the wildlife we’ll see there and all the snorkeling opportunities, I’m really curious about how being so isolated is going to feel, both being so far from civilization and being completely surrounded by vast ocean. I’m also really excited to explore the cave system! I’ve visited a couple caves in Patagonia when I went backpacking there a couple years ago, and they ended up being one of my favorite parts of that trip. From what Dr. Solomon’s said, these caves sound even cooler, especially the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave!

To prepare for this trip, I studied my assigned taxa (Orthoptera and Groupers), prepared presentations on them and angelfish, and caught up on assigned reading and their quizzes.

Additionally, I’ve gone on a couple hikes in the state parks near me, Umstead and Jordan Lake.

I used to go backpacking quite often, but haven’t gone on a trip in a year, so I found myself a bit more worn out than I had hoped. I’m excited to embrace the challenge nonetheless!

I hope to learn a lot about this trip. I’ve always been fascinated by birds and ornithology, and have gone on numerous birding trips within North Carolina. My bird knowledge is a bit limited to NC and the continental US, so I’m hoping to learn a lot about the birds of Central America!

However, there are a couple things I’m nervous about. Like I mentioned earlier, I feel a bit out of shape and I’m a little bit worried about the physical aspects of this trip, both hiking in the jungle and swimming on the reefs. Additionally, I’ve never been snorkeling before so I’m a bit nervous about that, but I’m also really excited about all the new opportunities it unlocks.

This trip will also be my first time in the tropics and first time doing any real fieldwork (beyond BIOS 213)—both reasons to be a bit more nervous and a lot more excited about this trip. I’m hoping to gain tons of valuable field experiences, along with memories that will last a lifetime!

Ian C