Belize Research 2012 Video

Last visit to Hol Chan

These last few days here on Amberguis Caye have been very nice, sunny days, with little clouds. We headed out a little early this morning to stop at the store and to take some extra photos.

Corner store

Our daily walk to the boat

 As I sat on the rock wall by our dock this morning, I took some time to appreciate the beautiful world that we live in! It is so amazing that our planet can support so many different species of life and can be so different in various parts of the world. Our captain and his son, Jeff rode up on their bicycles to get the boat ready.

Captain Norman and son, Jeff

Last trip to the boat

The boat ride out today was sort of sad because we knew it would the last one of our trip. Our first stop was to revisit Turtle Rock Island and do a fish count. There were many rays here to check for chum from the boat.

 French Grunts trial one - 7. Trial 2 - 16 After my count was over, I swam to the conch shell graveyard of thousands and looked for the turtle, but did not see him there today. However, We did see a whole school of about 4 inch French Grunts, but couldn't count them because the time was already up on our counts!

Oh, well! There were again, lots of fish around the conch shells. Big ones, little ones, tiny ones of all types. I waited awhile for the turtle, but guess he was busy today. The next stop was Shark Ray Alley. When Jeff set out the chum bucket, we ended up counting 23 sharks at the back of the boat!

Nurse sharks!

These are nurse sharks that are basically harmless to us. They feed on conch shells and seem to "nurse" on them to get the stuff out so I think that is why they are called nurse sharks. The horse eye jacks were all over the chum. As Jeff threw out pieces of fish, they were beating the sharks to most of the food. Also, some blue tangs came up to try to eat. We did one count here. French Grunts - 5          I was able to get some good shark photos here.

 Finally, our last snorkel of the trip was at Hol Chan channel. Once again, this place was amazing. The size of the fish were so much bigger! There were schools of fish all over the place. My buddy was counting blue striped grunts like crazy!

 I could not see as many French grunts here. French grunts trial one (channel) - 26 I did see more in the back coral of the channel. French grunts back channel - 69 We went by the underwater small cave to let some people attempt going through it. Not me! I will need more practice diving lower! We were also blessed to get to see the green turtle again! This time I had my camera and tried to get photos! (last time, my battery went out and I missed the good photos) It was fun watching it eat! It would go down to the bottom and eat some turtle grass then would gently float up to the surface to get a breath of air.

We saw rainbow parrot fish today! I saw a Spanish grunt today also. This marine reserve was full of so many different types of fish that it is difficult to remember all of them. When we were done and headed back to the boat, there were a lot more boats and people there to see this amazing place.

Every time you come into the reserve, you must pay a fee sort of like going to state parks in Texas. This money goes to helping to protect the park so it is well spent. It was tough getting back in the boat knowing that it was our last time to view the underwater wonderland. If I could explain what it is like to snorkel along the reef, I would have to say that it must be like being an astronaut exploring the surface of a new planet, but in reality, the new planet is Earth! I have studied about coral reefs in books, but that is nothing like experiencing the real thing!

Last Day of data collecting and miscellaneous thoughts

Today is Sunday morning and our last day of data collecting here in Belize. This trip has been a once in a lifetime experience for me. I have never really been off the safety and comfort of the continental US before. We have been so blessed with all the comforts and conveniences in America that we often take them for granted. For instance, air conditioning, trash removal, iced drinks, automobiles, and many more. In Belize, or should I say Amberguis Caye, most people survive fine without air conditioning. I really think that the only reason they have it in some places here is for the American tourists who are sweating buckets because of our intolerance to uncomfortable conditions.

 About the trash removal, I am not sure, but I think that the trash here is burned. There are wooden boxes on stilts for most of the domestic houses to place their trash, but often you will find it on the sides of the streets and also washed along the beach.

 Again, I wonder if there would be so much trash if it wasn't for the tourism and our convenience. One of our group members commented last night, "I would try to pick up some of this trash, but I'm not sure it would make a difference" ...which is probably true. Next, one of the things I miss most is a Sonic drink with lots of crushed ice! They have ice here, but it melts very quickly so most of the time it is useless to get an "iced" drink because it will just melt and dilute your beverage if you don't drink it fast enough. Isn't it crazy that little things such as ice are so important to us? Now the transportation on this island is also different here. There is one main road that is busy with golf carts, vans to haul tourists, and bicycles with side streets coming off of the main road. It is a wild free for all! The carts will run you over if you don't get out of the way! Same with the vans! Gasoline is at about five dollars a gallon here. There is no enforced speed limit so that is controlled by massive speed bumps.

 My mode of transportation here by choice is walking. Many in our group have obtained blisters from walking and snorkeling. Duct tape seems to be the only way to attach a band aid so that it won't fall off! Many of the locals ride bicycles. I have seen them carrying pipes, children, bags of food, and just about anything on the front of their bicycles. If it wasn't for the tourists I think most people here would get around by walking or riding bikes. This place is wonderful for tourism, but unfortunately, I feel that the tourism takes away from the naturalness of the island. This is such a beautiful place that it is sad to see what our human race have done to it. I can only imagine what it must have looked like before civilization moved in. If I take one important lesson away from being here, I hope that I appreciate the natural world enough to try not to destroy it just for my petty conveniences.

Data collection day Tres Cocos

Today I am TIRED. We collected data at North Tres Cocos (not in the reserve). Our first snorkel lasted two hours. We swam north up the reef and took two counts. Our boat captain moved the boat down and met us down the reef. Part of the snorkel area was only about 3 feet deep so you have to do the "superman" pose so you wouldn't touch bottom. I did get one good scrape on my leg from some sharp coral. Wow, salt water makes scrapes burn! Second snorkel trip was to the Tres Cocos channel. The water was pretty thought to swim here. There was some ballast stones piled somewhere near this area, but I never really got a good look at them. This evening, we had a nice dinner at Captain Norman's restaurant downtown. The food was delicious!

 Data for today: French grunts - trial 1 (back reef) - 45 Trial 2. - 8 French grunts - trial 3 (channel). - 40 Trial 4 - 9 Extra notes: blue striped grunts sometimes open their mouths and look like they are trying to bite each other. I witnessed this today. Weird! Also, I have noticed Isopods on the faces of two French grunts so far.

Data Collection Day Three - Turtle Rock Island, Shark Ray Alley, and Hol Chan Channel

Oh my goodness! What a day! Today we were collecting data from the areas in Hol Chan Marine Reserve. The reserve is a protected area from fishing. You are not allowed to touch or take things in this area and the park rangers were there to make sure that the rules are followed. We actually saw park rangers in two places today. The first place we visited today was Turtle Rock Island. There is not much of an island left because of hurricanes and erosion over the years, but you can see where the island was from the past. The people on the boat put out a container with food in it that looked like a large PVC pipe with holes in it and caps on the ends. By doing this, rays, sharks, turtles, various fish will come to see what we have for them.

 At this site, there is a Loggerhead turtle named Bombaso that lives here. Also, we saw several rays, horseshoe and southern that came to feed. We were able to see the turtle today! It looked brown with spots around its face and had stuff growing on its carapace. On the west side of turtle island, there is a conch shell graveyard of thousands on shells! There were all kinds of young fish swimming in and around the shells! I saw Queen Triggerfish here...with their "mascara like eyes". I also saw a fish that was very colorful...We think it was a clown wrasse. We conducted two surveys a at this site. French Grunt trial 1 - 55. Trial 2 - 32 Blue striped Grunts trial 1. - 341. Trial 2. - 30 Seeing that Loggerhead turtle was one of the most beautiful sites I have seen this trip. It started to swim toward us as a school of bar jacks swam by right in front of it. The bar jacks' purple bars were glimmering brilliantly. Our next stop was Shark Ray Alley. Wow! When we rode up to the buoy to tie up, there were sharks there to greet us. About ten or more nurse sharks came to the chum bucket to feed. By the time we got in the water, they had eaten most of the food and moved away. The horse eye jacks came to see what we had also. There were many of them! They are about 2 feet or so in length with a yellow tail and big eyes. They would swim right around you with no worry at all. As we went off to do our data survey in this reef area, we did encounter one of the nurse sharks swimming around in the corral. It was longer than my snorkel buddy, Cari so it must have been at least six feet or longer! French Grunt count 48 Blue striped grunt 240 We had no reason to be afraid of these magnificent nurse sharks! They were very graceful and fun to watch. They mainly wanted to stay away from us except if we had food. After lunch, we headed to the famous Hol Chan Channel. There were several boats there already by this time. This is what the park is named for because of the 33 feet deep channel that cuts through it. We conducted three counts here at what seemed to be a three ring circus with all kinds of things going on at once! I will explain why. In this part, all snorkels must be led by a guide so we followed Ken in my group. As we headed to the channel, we saw EVERYTHING you can imagine! First we got a look at a green sea turtle feeding on the turtle grass. It's shell was so beautiful! These turtles are named green turtles not because they are green to see but because they are green on the inside. It's shell was a brown and cream color with a turtle like pattern. As we continued, we saw sharks, rays, a bBarracuda, a Goliath Grouper (big fish!), schools of black Margate,a long thin Tarpon, Dogfish with its slanted head, school of Permit fish, Black Groupers, Gray Snappers, and, yes....TWO Green Moray Eels! In the past, I have not been a big fan of the green moray eel because they have one of the ugliest faces that I have ever seen. However, I was able to look this guy in the eye without too much fear...maybe with a small gurgled scream through my snorkel, but other than that, I met up with my greatest fear and survived just fine. Our group leader, Ken, has a mangled finger from being bit by one of these guys because he said that their teeth point backwards so if they bite, it is almost impossible to get your hand away. French Grunt count trial 1 up the channel - 27 Trial 2 - 85 Trial 3(patch coral) 34 Blue striped Grunt trial 1 - 273 Trial 2. - 654 Trial 3(patch coral)-433 There was so much to see in this channel and reef area! I can actually say that at one time, a nurse shark swam under me and I just ignored it because I was too busy counting and watching all the new species that were in this very diverse area of the park. Another interesting site was a school of parrot fish that swam in front of me. When they passed they were white, but something startled them and they left in the other direction as they turned blue! It was amazing! I never thought that I would say... "nurse shark...oh well..look over here at this!" I can tell that protecting this park seems to be making a difference from what I observed today! In about an hour or so, we are going on a night snorkel... We are eating pizza on the boat and then are heading out to Tuffy. We may get to see octopus! I will write more about it later.

Ken briefing us on the night snorkel

anxious to get in the water

Back from one of the most unique experiences I have ever had... A night snorkel. We had our pizza on the boat...yum, yum, and then we headed out to the Tuffy site. Ken talked to us about what to expect for about 30 minutes or so until it began to get dark. He is very good about explaining in advance what we are doing so that we can get the most out of the adventure. You could feel the tension and anxiety building in our group because jumping into the water at night after seeing all the things that we have seen, is quite scary! I knew that it was a chance of a lifetime so I swallowed any fear and jumped in. At first it was a combination of chaos, darkness, and people bumping into each other. For about ten minutes or so, I was just trying to figure out the dive light, carry my camera, and not run into things, but then things settled down. Someone yelled "octopus" so I headed that way. The first one got away because they are slippery little guys, but the second one got caught. George, one of our group members is a big fan of these creatures so I took some pictures of him and the octopus for awhile.

My snorkel buddy, Cari also held it and I took a picture. Next, it was my turn to hold it. The octopus was about big enough to put in your hand. It felt like a pile of slime at first. You could feel its suckers stick to your hand! While I was holding it, the octopus starting turning a little green on its arms. What an experience! Also, during the snorkel, we turned off our lights so that we could see the bio luminescence of these tiny crustaceans called the "string of pearls". The male sends a chemical signal to attract a mate that looks like Morse code in lights. There were glowing messages all underneath us! It was awesome! Also if you kick your fins to the bottom, little sparkles of another creature would come up from the bottom. If you looked up at the night sky you could see stars overhead and sparkles below. What a phenomenon! I saw a sleeping Parrotfish that sort of just "conk out" at night. I got to put a squid in a trance with my light and it just kept coming towards me until it bumped my light! I saw two puffed up porcupine fish that looked like squeaky toys. The grunts that we normally see just hanging out in the day were out feeding at night and looked slightly different. Out of all the things that we have done, this one was the greatest adventure. (so far)

Data collection day two, manatee channel, and Deke's

Today was a beautiful day to go out on the water! The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and we headed down our path to meet up with Goliath, Captain Norman, and his son Jeff. Our first stop today was the Manatee channel in Hol Chan Marine Reserve. We all were very excited to get a chance to see a manatee. Ken told us about this area and what we should do. The coral made a wall that sort of protected us from the current and was our safe place. The channel here was sort of on the end of the reef so it was a little different to snorkel through. This reef called the MesoAmerican Reef is the second largest reef in the world!

If we want to see a manatee, you need to be one of the first boats out during the day. We weren't the first...there were some local fisherman boats out there looking for lobster. In the reserve, only the "old timers" are able to fish. We had the full group and the students from Pennsylvania with us. ( there is a group of 9 middle school students also staying here at TREC. Jeff, the captain's son, saw some manatees in the water, but by the time we all got in the water, they had moved on out to the ocean. We saw no manatees today, but it was still an investing place to explore. The current in one place was very strong so we did not collect data here. At one part of the snorkeling, I was swimming as hard as I could, but was going nowhere! We moved on to the next stop which was the site of half a mystery ship wreck. Ken explained to us about how half a ship is there, but they don't know where the other half is. We looked around the shipwreck for a while.

Ship wreck

Ship wreck

 There were all kinds of fish swimming in and around the ship. We saw some Brown Chromis here which we hadn't seen before. Next, we moved on to the island of Caye Caulker . We were treated to a lunch on the island and had a little time to walk around before heading out to our next stop, Deke's place in Coral Gardens. This is where we collected out data for data. My partner and I saw the following: French Grunts first trial - 8 second trial - 6 third trial 14 Blue striped Grunts first trial - over 200 second trial - over 400 third trial -60 We saw some Queen Angelfish, French Angelfish, and many other fish also. Earlier in the day, we saw two nurse sharks and a barracuda. One unusual sighting was a stream of needle fish. They were right on the surface and looked like silver needles moving along in a group. Finally, we saw bar jacks that had a purple stripe that shimmered in the sun. Overall, it turned out to be a very good day! We have now collected data at two sites out of the marine reserve. Now we need to collect data inside the park to compare numbers. I think tomorrow, we will start of in the park at shark ray alley. I can't wait!