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.