May 9, 2013
Under the Sea
Its snorkel
day! Mario’s Tours is taking us out to
snorkel, snorkel, snorkel. The entire
group gets all the necessary snorkel equipment and load onto a boat. I’m so excited. We head out to the reefs, the coral
reefs. I have read about coral reefs and
have seen so many pictures about the reefs, so when I catch a first glimpse of
the reef, I am unable to recognize them.
I always expected to see bright blues and greens and lots of reds and
oranges under the sea. Not so here. There is a lot of neutral colors, which
actually works to my benefit when looking for sea life. There are Brain Coral everywhere, and one of
the first things that I notice is the health of the reef. Some of the coral looks unhealthy, parts of it
dying or already dead. I feel a little
sad at the state of our beautiful planet.
I keep my head underwater and keep up with group. I start to see so many different fish. One of my favorite sights is a bright blue
fish with electric cobalt blue spots. The
reef is much larger than anticipated, and we are swimming around a large horseshoe
shaped area. Elias and Ali are our tour
guides for the next couple of days, and they take the time to point out the
Fire Coral that grows off of the reef.
This is a good fact to decipher; Fire Coral doesn’t feel good when
touched. It’s incredible. All of it is beautiful and so different than
anything I have witnessed before. The
silence of snorkeling helps set the atmosphere, and I am left to my own
thoughts against the rhythm of my breathing.
I quickly begin to understand why there are so many future Marine
Biologists in the world and why it is such an attractive degree and
profession. It’s beautiful, but I feel I
have said this before. The water is
pretty choppy and after learning how to transect certain parts of the ocean
floor and identify and count different sea species, I head for the boat. I am tired, the sun is hot and a slow feeling
of nausea is starting to settle into the bottom of my belly. We all gather aboard the boat and head back
to shore, I am getting sick. I am, uh oh…..this
could go either way. The boat makes it
back, I make it to the hotel room, into the shower and……I have to miss the
afternoon trip. I am sea sick for the
first time in my life, and I have to lay down.
I miss Sting-Ray ally and my roomie tells me all about when she gets
back. I am slightly jealous, but my
rumbling belly reminds us all why I missed it.
I have to skip eating a big dinner, probably for the best. For the first time on this trip I am ready
for bed at 8:00 pm. I miss my bed at
home.
May 10, 2013
Another day in pure
paradise
Oh great, the sun still comes up at 6:00 am,
bright and early. Very bright, and we
have a red/orange (reorange?) colored curtain.
I can’t pretend to sleep, I need coffee.
My roomie and I scour the island for coffee, one place opens at 6:30 am,
I think it’s instant coffee. I miss real
creamer at this point. We are doing
another day of snorkeling, I am confident my belly is fixed and I am ready to
go. We are actually headed to check out
one of the 100 Island Keys that surround Belize. Yep, there are over 100 keys in Belize. We take a boat over there and unload onto a
desert Island type place. It is slightly
creepy, but there are coconuts everywhere!
I am then informed that coconuts are invasive/introduced species, which
I had no idea. I assumed everyone loved
Coconut Palms. Helen is our guide from
one of the local Belize Environmental groups.
She informs us that Coconut Palms are not hated, they are just dominant
and overcrowd areas. This can force
other plants to not grow or grow slowly, thus throwing off the biological diversity
of species. We walk around the tiny
island and look at all of the Mangroves.
The order of mangroves make sense, Black Mangroves are usually out
farther from the land. Red Mangroves,
the ones that I can name instantly due to the prop roots, are slightly offshore
and the White Mangroves are usually on shore.
This is the appropriate order due to the fact that the Black Mangroves
are the ones that are able to survive salt water, while the others are not able
to as well. It is quite
fascinating. Helen shows us what she has
done with her group and a recent trip to the island with a High School group
for earth day. They were busy planting
Red Mangroves and housing them in a thick PVC pipe to protect them from the
currents during high tide. It is obvious
that the restoration project is working well.
We continue to walk around the tiny island and notice that it is
littered with trash. Helen informs us
that this is from years of people dumping into the sea. They started the project of Mangrove
restoration after multiple hurricanes.
She informs us that the island used to be completely covered in foliage,
and only recently have they decided to start clearing it out. It took many days to clear a small area;
Helen tells us that they decided to clear out some of the Coconut Palms to
allow other plants to grow. We walk to a
place that has clearly fallen victim to a massive fire. Helen tells us that it is an unknown fire and
no one knows why. There is glass
everywhere, after years of people polluting the waters all of the glass washed
up on shore. With the heat from the fire
it caused all of the bottles to break and scatter everywhere. Looks like another clean-up project is in the
works. We head back to the main area and
start more transecting. We are counting
the number of Red Mangroves and the density of them. We finish this project and head out to the water
to do another transect of sea grass.
Manatee Grass and Turtle Grass are the dominate grasses that grow in
this area and Ali tells us the importance for these species to protect the
land. It helps to stop the erosion of the
mainland. All in all it is a fantastic
day and it’s time to head in for another wonderful lunch at Wet Willy’s. With a full belly we head back out to look to
the reefs and do more snorkeling. We are
searching for the lobsters that are help with tourism in this part of the
world. Lobster season is about to start
in June, and we are hoping to find some of these yummy crustaceans. Unfortunately, nothing, not one lobster is
found. Other amazing fish are swimming
around allowing me to have another fantastic underwater sea show. This was a great day and I am ready for bed.
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