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. 

Day 4 Snorkeling

Today started off much better with no rain!!  We set out to see the Mangroves and Coral Gardens today.  We took Goliath again, Norman was our captain, for an hour ride to get to the Mangroves.  Mangroves are very important for the ecosystem.  They are fish nurseries for the reef.  They are also called island builders because they trap the sediment in the water and it builds up and eventually makes an island.  Red Mangroves like the salt water and they grow first in an area.  Once the island is built up, the Black Mangroves start to grow in the center while the Red Mangroves expand the island more.  While we were in the Mangroves, we snorkeled around the roots of the Mangrove trees.  I didn't see much because the water was murky and there wasn't very much visibility.  I did see an arrow crab and a bat fish.  Dr. McGinley pointed out the arrow crab, and he also found the bat fish.  The bat fish is neat because its fins are adapted to sort of "walk" along the bottom.  We saw lots of baby fish, but I could not tell what many of them were because they looked so different from the adult fish.  When I got on the boat, I had some isopods on me which are kind of like white rollie pollies.  They suck your blood like mosquitoes, and they feel kind of like a mosquito bite when they are on you.  According to Jeff, our captains son, if they get in your ears they lay eggs.  When you talk on your phone, it activates the eggs and they travel to your brain and eat it.  (Believe him if you want.) 
Coral Gardens was better for snorkeling.  It was deeper and clearer, totally opposite of the Mangroves.  At Coral Gardens we were to start practicing counting our fish.  My buddy, Lynn, and I got to count the grunts.  We thought this would be hard because there are so many grunts and they travel in large schools sometimes.  It really wasn't as hard as we were thinking.  We had to count for 15 minutes at a time.  I counted 82, and Lynn counted 69.  We are going to start our official counts later in the week.  After we counted grunts, we could free snorkel.  At this site we saw:

• yellow sting ray
• lots of different parrot fish
• 6 barracuda (finally, i always miss them!)
• many of the fish I have already mentioned

Day 3 Snorkeling

Today started off terrible.  It started raining about 3 in the morning, which I did not hear because I was sleeping, and it continued until about 10.  We were supposed to leave out at 9 but with the lightning and thunder we were delayed an hour.  It was cloudy and cool all day, but we perservered.  We went to Mexico Rocks, Mexico Cave, and Playa Blanca.  Once again, the places are named because of what you see when you look at the shore.  We were on a different boat today called Goliath.  It is much bigger than the speed boat we were on yesterday.  Some middle school students from Pensylvania are staying here and they went with us today.  We were on the boat all day.  Ken was our guide and even though the water was rough, we made it through the day.  Every time we get in the water it is unbelieveable what we see, it never gets old.  Today we saw:

Mexico Rocks:

• spadefish
• Ryan saw a lionfish (not me)
• southern stingray
• queen angelfish
• french angelfish
• eel
• squid
• yellow goatfish
• spanish hogfish
• scrawled cowfish
• spotted trunkfish
• numerous parrotfish

Mexico Cave:

We just stopped at this location to practice our free diving skills.  (Of which I have NONE!) The cave was 12-22 feet down and we were to dive down and look into the cave.  One of the guys in our group dove down and saw a 10ft nurse shark! When the shark saw all the people, it came out of the cave and took off!  I did not see the shark, but my dive buddy Lynn saw it swim off.  She said it was huge!  The water was cooler here and I did not stay in very long because I could not dive down to the cave. 

Playa Blanca:

This spot was a buddy snorkel, so Lynn and I got to snorkel by ourselves.  We went at our own pace and could look at whatever we wanted too.  I really lliked this type of snorkel.  The bad part was that we were so close to the reef that the current was really strong.  It was very hard to snorkel and look at the fish while we were being tossed around by the waves. 

• Dr. McGinley pointed out a sleeping nurse shark
• french angelfish
• queen angelfish
• yellow tail damsel
• bicolor damsel
• spanish hogfish
• french grunt
• snappers
• blue tang
• saucer eye porgy
• porkfish

Once again, I know I am leaving out numerous fish, but it is really hard to remember everything that we see.  I am just trying to take in everything and enjoy this moment.  We are going to start our actual research soon.  Our professor wants us all to become comfortable in the water before we start the actual fish counting.  I will have more on our research as we begin to start it later this week.

Day 2 Snorkeling

Our first stop for day two was Tres Cocos.  It was named because before the hurricanes, you could see three tall coconut trees on the land, but they are gone now from the storms.  This is how they mark places by what they can see on land.  The water was much saltier than I expected, and it was also much rougher than I was expecting.  Throughout the day it rained and was windy.   Jodi was our boat driver and he also guided us around the reef as we snorkeled.  The coral was right under us the whole time and it was very hard to maneuver around it.  It was important not to touch the coral because if you touched it, that would cause the coral to die.  The rough seas and the worry about the coral made me start to feel sick.  Note:  Take Dramamine! The second place was Pillar Coral.  It is named that because the coral looks like pillars.  I finally took the dramamine and felt much better on the second snorkel.  There was more room to move and I felt more comfortable at this site.  We saw many things throughout the day including:

Tres Cocos:

• sllippery dick
• bicolor damsel
• sargent major
• yellow tail damsel
• french grunt
• bluestripe grunt
• stoplight parrot
• trumpet fish
• yellowtail snapper
• flounder
• conch
• elkhorn coral
• longspine urchin
• sting ray
• foureye butterfly
• porkfish
• blue head wrasse
• spotted goatfish
• surgeon fish
• blue tang
• squirrel fish

Pillar Coral:

• spotted eagle ray
• lobster
• baby seargent major
• shrimp
• fire coral
• green sea star
• gray angelfish

So far, besides being sick, this trip has been everything that I could have asked for! We have seen most of the fish we studied and many more that we have yet to learn.  Our snorkeling guides, Ken, Jodi, and Dr. McGinley, are all very good at pointing out what we may not see and telling us what we are looking at.  There are many things that I saw, but I cannot remember them all.  Tomorrow I am going to do a  better job of writing down what we see so I can share. 

Day 1 Travel

Travel to Belize City was uneventful.  I took many pictures from the plane, including one showing the Texas coastline.  The internet here in Belize is not very fast, so I will be uploading pictures when I return.  When we arrived in Belize City, we took a smaller prop plane to the island, which was much scarier!  ..We were welcomed at TREC with nachos by Ken.  The TREC facilities are super nice and we chose the room with the air conditioning.  Most of our group are in rooms with no air conditioning.  It is really nice to get out of the hot humid air for a while.  Our meal was beans, rice, chicken, corn, and salad.  It was delicious, and we even had cake for dessert!  A big plus!  Ken briefed us about where we are going to snorkel.  We are going to Pillar Coral and Tres Cocos.  I am super excited to start snorkeling and see some real fish!!  More to come with pictures!