Day 10 Snorkeling

Today we went back to Turtle Rock Island, Shark Ray Alley, and Hol Chan Channel. We took 5 fish counts total.  It was a great day to be on the water, it was sunny and calm.  I didn't really see any new fish that I have already seen, but we saw tons of fish today.  It was a really great snorkel.  The water around Turtle Rock Island was kind of murky because the water was so calm and warm that the plankton population exploded.  All the plankton made the visibility lower than usual.  At Shark Ray Alley there were 23 sharks behind the boat waiting for the chum.  Some of our group actually saw two reef sharks.  Lynn and I went looking for some geocaches during the afternoon, but we did not find any.  It was disappointing because they had travel bugs in them that we could have brought back home.  Packing tonight and heading home tomorrow.  I am sad to leave, but ready to go home and analyze our data.  The first thing I am going to do when I get back is drink some ice tea.  I will post our data later and upload many pictures when I have better internet connection. 

Day 8 Night Snorkel

Tonight I went on my first night snorkel, and I was scared to death!  I thought I was going to get lost, and I could not see anyone in  the water, just their lights.  I was also afraid of running into the coral.  It was not really as hard as I had expected.  We saw quite a few things in the night water.  We saw:

• lobsters
• crab
• spotted moray
• donkey dung (sea cucumber)
• squid
• squirrel fish
• sleeping parrot
• four eye butterfly
• blue stripe grunt (1)
• porcupine fish

I also held an octopus for the first time!!  Ryan saw it then Jeff dove down and scooped it up.  George was really excited to see the octopus, so he held it first.  Then George gave it to me to hold.  Once it was in my hand, it was not hard to keep it there.  I didn't want to be an octopus hog so I gave it to Lynn next.  George held it with him the rest of the snorkel.  We also got to play with the porcupine fish.  It puffed up and looked llike a dog's chew toy.  We kept bouncing it in the water.  Maureen found what is called a string of pearls.  They are invertibrates, ostracods, tiny crustaceans the size of a tomato seed that secrete a chemical mucus that resembels a string of pearls.  The females use the pearls to find their mate.  The string of pearls biolumenesce in the dark.  We all turned off our flashlights and you could see the whole reef light up from these pearls.  It was amazing!  Ken said he had never seen this many at one time lighting up. 

Day 8 Snorkeling

Today we finally got to explore the marine reserve Hol Chan.  Hol Chan is Mayan for little channel.  Park Rangers patrol the area and they actually came to our boat to make sure we were supposed to be there.  There are four areas in the Hol Chan reserve.  We got to explore the Hol Chan channel, Shark Ray Alley, and Turtle Rock Island.  Turtle Rock Island is an island where one fisherman used to clean his conch.  There is literally thousands of conch shells that act as a type of reef.  Turtles were attracted to this area because of the leftovers from the fisherman's catch.  The island has eroded away alot from storms, but there is still one resident turtle that stays in the area.  It is a loggerhead turtle and we actually got to see it.  It swam around us many times, and I will post pictures and videos later.  Jeff called the turtle Bombaso.  It was a great experience to swim with the turtle.  We also saw a horseshoe ray.  According to Ken, horseshoe rays are very rare, but they like this protected area.  We did two counts here, and I counted 341 and 30 blue striped grunts.  We also saw:

• clown wrasse
• needle fish
• southern ray

Our next spot was Shark Ray Alley and we did only one count here.  I counted 240 blue striped grunts.  When  we arrived the sharks and rays were attracted to the sound of the boat.  Jeff also put out some chum to draw in the sharks.  They followed our boat until the chum was gone then they were off to the next boat.  While we were snorkeling I had a standoff with one of the sharks.  It was swimming towards me, but I had no where to go so I stood my ground.  It finally turned around.  Our last stop was the Hol Chan channel.   We saw tons of new species at this area.  Including:

• white margate
• goliath grouper
• tarpon
• dog fish
• permit
• green turtles
• black grouper
• green moray eel
• grey snapper
• sharks
• rays
• barracuda

This was the best spot we have been to, except for seeing bombaso.  This protected area has so much more diversity than the other areas we have been to.  We collected three data sets here, two in the channel, and one in the patch reef.  My channel counts were 273 and 654.  My patch reef count was 433.  Our observations are showing that the marine park is having an impact on species diversity.  We still have to analyze the data, but i think the reserve is benefiting species biodiversity. 

Day 7 Snorkeling

Today we went to manatee channel, a shipwreck, and Dekes.  It was a great day! At the manatee channel, we did not see any manatees, but there were fishermen there and I think they ran them off.  Ken's wife, Maureen, was our guide for this snorkel.  We found a seabiscuit that I am going to try and bring back home with me.  I hope it makes the plane ride.  A seabiscuit is the exoskeleton of the sea urchin.  I also saw many different things that I have not seen yet including:

• pudding wife
• needle fish
• hound fish
• barracuda
• scrawled file fish
• cowfish
• squid
• 2 sharks

The shipwreck was really cool to snorkel.  It is like its own ecosystem and has tons of fish around and inside it.  We saw lots of grunts and some brown chromis.  At Dekes, we took three fish counts.  I counted bluestripe grunts again.  I counted 132, 437, and 60 grunts.  Dekes was a patch reef system part of coral gardens.  We didn't have much time to explore because we were doing three counts.  Really cool day with our first shark sighting!!

Day 6 Dry Day

Today was our day off from snorkeling.  We went to the city and explored.  I visited lots of local shops and tried to find souvenirs for everyone.  Today was sunny and very humid! I was dripping sweat all day long.  First, we went into a store that was similar to our mall.  They had all types of clothes, furniture, and appliances.  I even saw some abercrombie and fitch and hollister shirts.  We also stopped for ice cream, and I had a scoop of Belizian Fudge, not fudge, it was kind of like caramel and peanut.  It was really good.  Then we met up with the rest of our group for lunch.  I had a hamburger and fries.  Which is really good because all we have is beans, rice, and chicken everyday.  It was kind of weird because when we sat down there was the most beautiful cat that was sleeping by our table.  (In the restaurant!)  When our food came he wanted us to feed him, but he was already well fed so we didn't.  We walked back to the research facility to rest for the day after lunch.  It was nice to have a day off from snorkeling.  I like snorkeling, but it was nice to be dry (somewhat). 

Day 5 Night Saine

We went out to the beach this night and sained to see what we would find.  Saining is when you take a net and drag it through the water to filter out the organisms.  After we filtered out the organisms we placed them in a bucket with water to observe them.  We saw many different things including: 

• puffer fish
• yellow spotted sting ray
• baby grunts
• red fin parrot fish
• needle fish
• silver sides
• school master snappers
• pipe fish (related to seahorses)
• jelly fish
• sharp nosed puffers

One of the highlights for the night was seeing the neighborhood children gather around the bucket to see what we had caught.  They were very eager to learn about the fish.  They even helped take the fish from the net and put them in the bucket for us. 

Day 5 Snorkeling

Halfway through! We took our first real data collection today.  We went to two different places to collect data, Eiley Rocks and Tuffy.  Eiley Rocks is named after our boat captain, Norman Eiley.  It is a patch reef system that is a part of coral gardens.  We buddy teamed this spot and did two fish counts.  For our first count, I counted 49 bluestriped grunts.  The second count I counted 78.  The grunts were by far the most abundant fish we saw here.  When we were done counting, we snorkeled around more and saw:

• 6ft barracuda (with very large teeth)
• mahogany snapper
• mutton snapper
• nassau grouper
• bar jack
• squid
• tilefish

On the boat ride to the next location, Tuffy, we encountered a pod of dolphins.  I took a video and will post it when I get back home.  They swam along with our boat for a while.  Tuffy is named after a shrimp boat that sank in that location.  At Tuffy, there is a channel that runs through the reef and we were looking at that channel to compare with the marine park Hol Chan.  In the channel I only counted 19 bluestriped grunts.  On the back reef we did two more counts, and I counted 9 and 15 grunts.  On our way through the channel we saw a very large spotted eagle ray and right behind it was a large nurse shartk.  This was my first time to see a shark and I was very excited!  We watched it for a little while until it swam away and then continued the counting.  I also got to hold a sea urchin while we were snorkeling this place.  We saw many different fish and it is also where we are going to go on our night snorkel.  A few other things we saw:

• 2 southern stingray
• lionfish
• spotted moray eel

I will have videos to post from Tuffy of the shark and the lionfish.  I took a video of Norman's son Jeff killing the lionfish.  Lionfish are an invasive species, and Jeff kills them whenever he goes out on a dive or snorkel.  Lionfish are predators that eat the other fish, but they are not prey for anything.  If left unchecked, they can do a lot of damage to the reef ecosystem.  He killed four just today.  Each month there is a lionfish tournament and last month they killed 6000lbs of lionfish.