Day #6 - January 13th, 2015
Location: Tropical Research Education Center, Ambergris Caye, Belize

The best day of snorkeling ever!

Today started off in a most unpromising fashion. A heavy downpour began around midnight and continued until our 9AM departure time. After dropping off a load of laundry at a local shop, we headed to the ship, hoping for nicer skies. Soon the rain stopped, the sun appeared, and we were treated to the calmest smoothest seas of the entire trip, just in time for the Best Day of Snorkeling Ever!

We began the Best Day by visiting Turtle Rock Island. This spot, within the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, is known for its population of loggerhead turtles who come out to feed from scraps left behind by a local conch fisherman. The turtles and rays in this area are therefore quite used to human presence and so will stay for an extended period, presenting great photo opportunities!

The students (and professors!) were totally jazzed to have spent an hour in the water viewing these magnificent creatures up close. This dive alone would have been worth the trip. But wait! There's more!

We headed to the main area of the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, the most heavily protected reef in Belize .We were lead on a guided tour along the reef, across the channel for which the park is named, and then across the other side. Highlights included green sea turtles, nurse sharks, barracuda, green moray eels, groupers at least 5' long, and countless varieties of healthy colorful coral. There was even a cave tunnel that the braver among us were able to swim through.

Hol Chan is truly a natural wonder and we are all very lucky that the country of Belize has put so much effort into preserving this marine sanctuary. The students were shocked to learn that it was already 2PM at this point, so they ate a quick lunch on the boat (supplemented by the usual captain's recipe for bean dip and chips, as well as our never-ending supply of snack bars) as we motored the short distance to Shark Ray Alley. Read that name again. How badly do you want to go there? So badly! This spot is commonly used to view nurse sharks as well as horseshoe rays and southern sting rays. The students were able to swim with the rays to their full contentment, as well as to swim around and view the sharks.

Doesn't it look like this horseshoe ray is smiling at me?

Nurse shark

Nurse shark (and horse eyed jack in the foreground)

Southern and horseshoe sting rays

Southern sting ray

Wow! What an amazing experience. Everyone left the water completely psyched up by the experience, chattering away with each other excitedly and comparing experiences. I can't imagine that any of us will ever forget this day - The Best Day of Snorkeling Ever!

We returned to TREC and everyone prepared for the final species ID exam. I prepared a series of photos and videos from the last few days and students had to quickly identify 44 species by sight. I am proud to report that, despite the fact that over half the class consists of non-science-major students, the average on the final exam was 95%! Outstanding students, every one! I had laid out a challenge at the start of the semester: any student who could maintain a prefect 100% average on the 7 species ID quizzes would earn a free lobster dinner for them and a guest in Belize. I was a bit nervous when 3 people were still alive for the prize going into the final, but two of those students missed one question, leaving just one winner to claim the lobster dinner!

We all headed into town walking along the beach as the Belizean sun sank below the Caribbean. We all nattered on about the day and our time on the island. We enjoyed a nice local dinner, including ceviche, conch fritters, blackened snapper, and of course lobster for our exam winner:

After dinner, students were encouraged to stimulate the local Belizean economy by shopping (ice cream souvenirs, etc.). You may have noticed that I posted more than the usual number of photos today. That is because there was a lot to photograph, but also because, as I write this, all the students (save one) are out enjoying some night life, so I have the Internet connection all to myself! While the students play, I get to sort through over 500+ photos from the day and write the blog to all you wonderful people.  :-)  If it wasn't for the mosquitoes feasting on my legs, I would say that arrangement was just about perfect.

We leave the island early tomorrow morning for three days in the interior rainforest area. I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on our time on the reef, but sleep calls me now, so that will have to wait for another day.

Everyone is doing very well. Nearly all the students have completed their lab research projects, and everyone is keeping up with their journal writing. I'd say that every single student is hitting a good balance of work and play, taking the time to experience the culture while also remembering the purpose of this trip is primarily educational. This is really a great group of students!

Best wishes to everyone. I'm not sure of the Internet situation where we are headed, so I'm not sure when my next update will be. Please don't worry if you don't hear from me for a few days - it's just the jungle taking away our WiFi!

Thanks for reading!

Day #5: January 12th, 2015
Location: Tropical Research Education Center, Ambergris Caye, Belize

Shipwreck, Caye Caulker, and Research

Greetings to all our friends around the world reading this blog. Thank you for tuning in for another report!

Today was actually the most mellow day we had in terms of activities. But it was heavy on the brainwork. Read on to see what I mean.

Our first stop of the day was to snorkel around a shipwreck. About 15 years ago, a barge sank off the island and settled near a reef. Like many artificial structures, it quickly began to be colonized by coral, forming a new reef. The boat is only about 7 feet beneath the surface, making it a rare shipwreck that is ideal for snorkeling. The students were able to explore the surface and look inside in a few spots.

We have begun a research project at this site. We hope to document the succession of coral growth on this new reef, determining growth rates and patterns and to establish patterns of competition. The five students who are participating in our Tropical Reef Ecology Senior Science Seminar course spent over an hour carefully measuring the shipwreck and gathering data.

Five students and I will be returning in March through NEC's Study Away program to continue this research. We hope to make this a multi-year ongoing project that spans many student participants. Everyone did an amazing job putting in a really great effort on the reef.

From the shipwreck, we motored for about an hour. As usual, this gave plenty of opportunities for some relaxation. Even the professor enjoyed the spray of the ocean from the bow of the ship! But others were more responsible, using the time to write in journals and study our research projects.

We spent the afternoon on a small island called Caye Caulker. This is one of the mellowest places I've ever been! It's basically a long spit of sand, about 3 streets wide, with lots of small local hotels, restaurants, and craft stores. We ate lunch and then took some time to stroll up and down "main street" to see conch grilled on the beach, everyone in bare feet and dreadlocks, and to shop for local crafts. It was a very mellow time and many students expressed a wide to return!

After our mellow visit to Caye Caulker, we returned to TREC around 5PM. The students spent the rest of the day and evening and night gathering, discussing, and analyzing the data from the week. Each student is working on their own hypothesis regarding the species richness and diversity of different sites that we visited. Students worked in the classroom to combine data and calculate values, and then spent the night writing their lab reports. The science major students gamely helped the non-science-major students. Everyone worked hard (even with the math - eek!) and without complaint. We are urging everyone to complete their lab reports before we leave the island in two days. Great job students!

Some of the senior thesis students spent the evening learning how to dissect lionfish. After measuring and weighing each specimen (which we had speared in the mangrove the day before), we carefully removed the poisonous spines using shears and Kevlar gloves. We then dissected out the stomach and removed the stomach contents

We will be bringing samples of the stomach contents back to NEC for DNA extraction and analysis. We hope to infer the feeding behavior of the lion fish around Belize by performing genomic analyses on the stomach contents. We are still working out the methods, but I am really proud of how hard the students have been working! Great job to all of them!

It is very hot and humid in the classroom tonight. Most of the students are still here at 10PM working on their reports. Everyone is looking forward to our last day on the island tomorrow, which should feature the best snorkeling of the trip.

Everyone is well and happy, with the standard exceptions for sunburns, coral scrapes, bug bites, etc. Everyone is well fed and hydrated.

Thank you for reading!

Day #4: January 11th, 2015
Location: Tropical Research Education Center, Ambergris Caye, Belize

Mangrove, Coral Gardens, and Night Dive

Greetings to all our friends, relatives, and blog readers! I am actually writing this on Monday morning rather than Sunday night. By the end of the blog, you'll know why! Yesterday was our longest day, with about 13 hours of activities.

We started our usual way: breakfast, walk to beach, clean up, on to the boat.

When then motored for about an hour, which is always a good opportunity to relax and enjoy being in the sun.

Our first destination: a mangrove swamp. The mangrove swamp is a fairly rare biodiversity hotspot consisting of trees that grow in tight clusters on the water.

The roots form a dense network similar to a coral reef. It acts as a fish nursery for huge numbers of juvenile species. The mangrove teems with life, countless numbers of fish darting in every direction. It is fairly silty, so it's a bit hard to get a sense of it from photographs. There are also many interesting and colorful invertebrates such as sponges and tunicates:

We also saw some large fish, including a particularly huge barracuda (as well as at least a dozen juvenilles), schools of needlefish, and some lionfish--a kill-on-sight species in Belize (because they are invasive and very damaging to fish populations) which I was able to kill with a spear gun.

We are going to use the lionfish as part of an ongiong study. Tonight, we'll be dissecting it, measuring it, recording lots of data, removing its stomach contents, and subjecting them to DNA analysis back at NEC to determine what the lionfish is eating on the reef.

One nice tradition aboard the Goliath is that after every snorkel there is a pot of hot bean dip. We eat it with chips, and it is always heavily anticipated:

After the mangrove, we enjoyed our daily lunch on the boat. We always bring a cooler of sandwiches, and there is always peanut butter and jelly and bread available.

Our next stop was Coral Gardens, a magnificent large reef with lots of large coral formations and an abundance of fish and other marine life. We spent over an hour touring this area with a guide. Highlights including seeing a nurse shark, four species of angelfish, and huge stands of staghorn coral:

A stand of mixed coral, with venomous fire coral on top

A trumpetfish

A student holds a West Indian Sea Egg

A small nurse shark

We also spent about 45 minutes gathering data for our reef biodiversity study. After Coral Gardens, we motored back to the dock, returning just after 4PM. Students had one hour to dry off, recharge, write in their journals, and head back down to the beach for sunset:

We boarded Goliath for a much-anticipated and somewhat-feared highlight of the trip: the night dive. We started with a shipboard pizza dinner. Pizza on a boat in Belize at sunset -- a nice way to be!

We motored ten minutes to a nearby reef ad received a lengthy introduction to reef night life. Many species look and act differently at night, plus there are some species that come out much more often at night. We split into three groups and took tours of the reef using dive lights. We saw barracuda, a green sea turtle, many lobsters and crabs and shrimp, as well as sleeping fish. We also observed three different types of bioluminescence; at one point we stirred up dinoflagellates in the sea grass which flashed and popped all around us, like thousands of tiny fireflies clinging to our arms and legs. It was pretty spectacular! Several people were very worried and stressed about the night dive, but every single one of us made it into the water and completed a tour. The "short tour" group (the one with people who were most worried) were rewarded by being the only group to encounter an octopus! They brought it back to the boat for the rest of us to jealously observe. Unfortunately, I have no photos of the night dive, but I will upload video at some point.

We returned to TREC around 9PM, dried off, and regrouped for a walk into town. We visited a favorite frozen custard store and enjoyed a nice dessert:

We split into groups to walk back on the beach:

We returned to TREC for the final time about 13.5 hours after we first left. So please excuse me for not updating the blog (which takes several hours) last night!

Every one is happy and relatively healthy. Pretty much all of us have sunburns and coral scrapes somewhere. But nothing serious. Everyone is enjoying the time on the reef and on the island. Work is proceeding well. Tonight will be our final research meeting to accumulate and go over data, and then the students can work to complete their lab reports.

Thanks for the comments - every one is read to the appropriate student (sometimes to some razzing!).

Thanks for reading!