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!