Tag Archives: Isaac

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Anemone Heaven

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Another day in paradise. I tried waking up early to see the sunset, but a small cloud somehow managed to obscure the sun for most of it. I sat in the hammocks for a bit after, and then went to breakfast. Our first snorkel of the day took us out to a patch reef on the other side of Middle Caye, where we collected as many organisms as we could. This snorkel was special for me because I saw an innumerable amount of Caribbean Giant Anemones (Condylactis gigantea) and Sun Anemones (Stichodactyla helianthus), and even one Corkscrew Anemone (Bartholomea annulatus). I did not, however, see any zoanthids or corallimorphs today.

Condylactis gigantea, Giant Caribbean Anemone
Bartholomea annulatus, Corkscrew Anemone
Stichodactyla helianthus, Sun Anemone

On our snorkel, we collected lots of different organisms, including a tiny baby octopus that our group nicknamed Squishy. We enjoyed playing with it for a few hours as we identified all the organisms we collected. Unfortunately, we had also found that a tiny hermit crab we found living with a piece of trash yesterday, aptly named Trash Crab, had died today, so we plan to give it a funeral at sea tomorrow.

After sorting through our organisms and eating, we wrote up the data for our marine debris collection from yesterday, before taking a quick snorkel in the patch reef near the Middle Caye dock. I saw one Sun Anemone here, but no more of my taxon group. After snorkeling, we had a delicious dinner followed up with another night of free time. It is hard to believe we are leaving in two days, but I will just have to soak up tomorrow as much as possible.

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I’m Trash at Volleyball

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This morning we were hoping to take the boat out and snorkel on the atoll’s forereef, but the sea was a bit too rough for that, so we went to a small patch reef on the other side of Middle Caye. The water was shallow enough for us to leave our fins on shore and walk in the water with our masks on. We looked to see if Christmas Tree worms on the reef preferred to burrow into certain corals. After lunch, we analyzed the data and found inconclusive results.

On the reef I spotted, with Jordan’s help, one Condylactis gigantea, a Giant Caribbean Anemone, burrowed in a rock. I did not see any more of my marine taxa in our brief jaunt in the water today.

After our worm examination, I gave the class my lecture on marine debris, which doesn’t get any less sad the more I look at it. After the lecture, we followed up with a cleanup of the beaches and mangroves of the island. We only spent thirty minutes as a group cleaning, but we collected over 2000 pieces of plastic and almost 40 kilograms of trash. Nobody litters on this island, so all of this trash washed up here from ocean currents, which is crazy to think of considering we only scratched the surface of the island’s trash today.

After our trash experiment, we got to have free time for the rest of the day. We went out to the dock at night, where we spotted an American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) in the water near the shore. Although there was no soccer today, we did play beach volleyball, which was fun despite how bad I was at it. I have thoroughly enjoyed the free time that we’ve gotten over the past two days. It is really nice to enjoy all this island has to offer outside of biology and to spend time relaxing in paradise.

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Sea Urchins and Soccer

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Another day, another adventure. Right after breakfast, we counted our sea urchins from yesterday and then hit the water once again. We released our urchins from yesterday and then motored over to another patch reef, this time one in an unprotected marine area. We performed more transect surveys here in the same fashion as yesterday, collected more urchins, and came back to analyze all of our data from the past two days after lunch. This took us three hours, but we received good reviews on our work. We found a lot more urchins in the protected reef.

On the reef, I only spotted more Parazoanthus parasiticus zoanthids on the same vase sponge species, but didn’t manage to spot any other members of my taxon group in the water today. I did, however, see tons of flamingo tongues, which provide a stark color contrast with their environments and have beautiful colors (pictures to come later when we return to strong wifi). Our group also saw a nurse shark lounging under a rock. To cap off a nice day in the water, I handled a Diadema sea urchin a bit recklessly and currently have two tiny spine fragments in my right hand to show for it. The joys of the sea are endless.

Flamingo tongue
Before it poked me

After wrapping up our research for the day, we had an hour of free time. Damian, Deepu, Alessi, Therese and I got a game of beach soccer going with a couple of the guys working on Middle Caye right now, which was a ton of fun and left me so sweaty that I probably looked like I had just come out of the ocean. There’s nothing like a small-sided pickup soccer game to get me going, though. I also spoke a bit of creole with some of the people here, as the Belizean dialect is very similar to the Jamaican dialect that I speak. All in all, today was a great day for research and personal enjoyment.

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The Water Deepens

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Today started a little later, around 6:30 am. After a serene half-hour, we went for breakfast before starting our day. Today was all about quadrats; we got some practice using them on land before jumping back into the patch reef. We used our quadrats and transect tape to measure how many organisms of different phyla we could find, and Deepu and I finally got to take our trusty quadrat, nicknamed “Larval”, into the water. On this snorkel I saw three Caribbean Anemones (Condylactis gigantea) in the sea grass, was brought what I believe to be a Sun Anemone (Stichodactyla helianthus) that was attached to a piece of sea grass, and almost laid the transect tape on top of a baby nurse shark.

After lunch, all of our quadrat practice from the morning became useful as we took a boat out to a patch reef near another caye. We used our quadrats and transect tape to measure live coral, dead coral, sponges, and other features of the reefs. Deepu and I accidentally set our transect tape into deep water, which would have made measuring twenty-odd feet down more difficult were the quadrat not covering a completely sandy area. After finishing our measurements, we got to explore the reef a bit. I found a beautiful Flamingo Tongue, and some more Sponge Zoanthids (Parazoanthus parasiticus) growing on the same type of sponge I found it on yesterday (Niphates digitalis). I also got to practice blowing bubble rings, since we finally got into water that we couldn’t stand in.

After our first data collection, we then spent 25 minutes picking up as many sea urchins as possible in order to measure them tomorrow. We will compare our findings for the urchins and the coral cover from today, which were taken in a Marine Protected Area, to findings from an area that is not protected tomorrow. I am excited to see more reefs and potentially snorkel after dark tomorrow! Glover’s Reef is truly paradise.

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Splash

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The 5am wakeup ended up being an easy one, since I went to sleep at 10pm for the first time in a while, not to mention the morning songbirds’ assistance. After a quick breakfast of PB&J sandwiches, we set out for Glover’s Reef Atoll. One hour and the bus and two and a half more on the boat, which featured a massive Green Turtle surfacing close to our boat. We finally arrived at Middle Caye, settled in, toured the island quickly, and then ate a much-desired lunch.

A boat at Middle Caye

After lunch, it was time for the main event: our first snorkel of the trip. After pulling on my brand new dive skin and putting on my much older mask, the water invited us in to take a break from the blisteringly hot sun. We stayed in the shallow waters by the dock for today, snorkeling around some patch reefs a short swim away. I managed to find a fair amount of my assigned taxon group of anemones, corallimorphs, and zoanthids. With Adrienne’s help, I found a small colony of mat zoanthids (Zoanthus pulchellus) growing on a small stony patch, and I then found some small Sponge Zoanthids (Parazoanthus parasiticus) growing on a pale blue, vase-shaped sponge. I even managed to spot a small Caribbean Giant Anemone (Condylactis gigantea) among the sea-grass on the way out of the water. Although I don’t have to keep track of reptiles for another week, I noted the appearance of three spiny-tailed iguanas (Ctenosaura similis) on Middle Caye, as well as a house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus).

Zoanthus pulchellus: Mat Zoanthids

After our snorkel, we went to a coral graveyard on the island full of dead coral skeletons. We identified them using guidebooks, and used them to learn to recognize the potential corals we will see tomorrow. After dinner, we rounded off our day with lectures on echinoderms and stony corals, and finished by making quadrats that we will use tomorrow for our activities.

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If You’re Reading This, I’m Sweating

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It’s hard to believe that it was just this morning that I hopped on the lightrail in Houston with my backpack and suitcase to meet the rest of the group at Rice.  After some preparation at Rice, we got on the shuttle to Hobby for our flight. Despite slow lines and a minor delay, we finally got on our way to Belize City.

Upon arriving at about 4pm, we were picked up by a van, loaded all of our gear up, and went on our way to the Tropical Education Center (TEC). After stopping to buy snacks and refreshments at a convenience store on the way, we arrived at the TEC around 6. We managed to spot some reptiles here, including a green iguana (Iguana iguana) in a tree eating some leaves, lots of little geckos that I believe are house geckos (Hemidactylus frenatus), and a spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis) on a windowsill after dark.

Leafcutter ants at the TEC
Low-quality picture of the green iguana we spotted at the TEC – sorry for the quality, look at the branch 

I don’t think I have stopped sweating since I got to Belize. I’m realizing quickly that I won’t feel clean again for the next two weeks, but I am already dreaming of the ice-cold shower I will take after writing this post. I’m very excited for our journey to Glover’s Reef tomorrow, despite the before-6am wakeup that comes with it. I guess it’s a good thing I am already prepared to crash at 8:30 pm.

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Belize Bound

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After taking my first malaria pill and finally finishing up all my assignments, it’s beginning to finally hit me that tomorrow is the day we take off for Belize. I’m lucky enough to say that I have traveled to Belize and other parts of the Americas before, but I don’t think those trips will compare to this one. Having access to some of the most pristine habitats that can only be accessed by special groups such as ours is a privilege that I can’t wait to seize. I am especially excited for Glover’s Reef. I have always been enamored by marine life, and I take any chance I can get to dive or snorkel.

With that being said, I know this trip will not be all fun and games and that I’ll have to wake up early, take good notes in my field notebook, and write these blogs every day. Our preparations of making taxon sheets, doing readings on the environments we will encounter, making power points, and searching for gear have made it clear that this will be a fast-paced trip, but one that will also teach me a lot. I hope that the trip will give me a good idea of what it is like to be a field biologist, something that has always been alluring to me but that I don’t have firsthand experience doing. I don’t find myself too nervous about anything we will encounter except for the large amount of insect bites that I already know I will have to endure.

I do have a lot of experience traveling, especially in the last year or so, but seeing a new place never seems any less appealing to me; in fact, the more I travel, the more I want to see, and the more I want to have different experiences. I am most excited this trip because research is the focal task, unlike any trip I have ever taken before. Rather than traveling primarily to observe, I am now traveling with the primary purpose of actively interacting with my environment.