Belize – Megan Joyce

Day One: Travels to Belize

So I left New York this morning in snow and 10 degree weather. After picking up a connecting flight in Belize City, I hitched a ride on a little tiny plane to Dangriga. It’s really windy today (made that second plane ride interesting) but still looks beautiful. Spent a while finishing my book on the hammock on my balcony, but I felt like I was going to blow away. Maybe the wind blows all the bugs away? I sprayed all of the clothes that I brought with crazy amounts of DEET anyway. A lot of it probably blew away anyway. That boat in the water from the sunny picture I took when I got here? It was a gonner. At time of writing, a group of people are holding onto a rope attached to a car and trying to save the boat. Will update.

Update: They are still trying to drag the boat out of the water after dinner. (I had pork chops with rice, by the way – pretty good. Food might not be as good as Hawaii though.)

We’ll see how tomorrow shapes up!

Day Two: All Things Boats

Update on the boat: They finally got it out of the water. It’s up on the shore, looks okay but I’m sure the motor is shot.

The sunrise didn’t look very promising since it’s still cloudy, but there was a small break in the clouds once the sun got up higher than the horizon. Breakfast was good. I had an omelet and fried jacks (I’m not sure exactly what they are – some kind of fried pastry thing? apples? you can get them filled with cheese or fruit apparently?) and sat pretty much directly on the beach.

So it turns out we’re not going to the reef today, in part because someone’s flight was delayed and in part because the wind and the waves are calmer in the morning. So we’re staying here at Pelican Beach. Which is okay because the food is good and I can still update my blog and they have hot water for showers and I wouldn’t have seen this iguana! We’re having a group dinner and then probably going over things, but I met Katie and Demian and they’re very nice and clearly passionate about the ocean. (I also started reading Jane Alexander’s book and it’s really good.)

Day Three: Travels to Glover’s Reef

We woke up this morning and the water almost looked like a lake compared to yesterday, so it was actually better that we waited until today to come. No sooner had we gotten in the boat then a really small spotted eagle ray jumped out of the water next to us. The trip was smooth and only took an hour and a half.

The atoll is beautiful. When you cross to the inside, the lagoon part, the water becomes bright blue and clear, and you can see little islands with palm trees dotting the horizon and waves breaking over the reef.

Glover’s is a cool little research station. We’re in bunk rooms, all the buildings, including the composting toilets are on stilts. The food is awesome! There are two really nice women who work in the kitchen and should really publish a cookbook…

We had a little talk from Katie on species ID of sharks and rays that we might see, and prepped all of our fishing gear for tomorrow.

(Sorry for the lack of updates, the internet on an atoll is rather spotty – as is getting someone actually out to the island to fix the internet.)

Day Four: Fishing for Bait

I not sleep well last night at all. We have dinner from 6-7 pm and then do a few more things prepping gear for today and then went back to our rooms. I read for a while, but tried to fall asleep at 9 (10 ET), which is really early for me. Woke up every half hour after 2 until I finally got up at 5:30 and walked around the island looking at the sunrise. It was a nice one.

We went snorkeling after breakfast off the dock to test our gear – we saw a nurse shark, a southern stingray, lots of spiny lobster, an upside-down jelly, and tons of cool fish in the patch reefs.

The first block rigs we set caught 3 sharks, but unfortunately one was dead when we got there and one was too tired to be worked up so we released it immediately. The last was too old, so we couldn’t tag it for the residency study. Which meant we didn’t get to do any actual data collection today. We checked the block rigs all day but didn’t catch anything else.

In our waiting time, we hand-lined for bait fish. I actually caught 5! And maybe I’ll get better as the week goes on. Bert, the first mate on the boat, is like the fish whisperer though, he can smell when they’re on his line or something.

After dinner, we tried to chum the water at the end of the dock for lemon sharks but to no avail, and then the rain chased us in. Better luck tomorrow.

Day Five: Fishing for Nurse Sharks

After breakfast this morning, we headed back out to the block rigs to catch some sharks. Once we baited, we went to hand-line for some more bait. We were all catching pretty small fish until Sam (and I) hooked a big nurse shark. (The and I part is because it swallowed my hook and then hooked itself to Sam’s line and was pulled up on his side of the boat.) Once we got it off the line we had to head back to check the block rigs. Right when we turned to drive back, we were greeted by two playful bottlenose dolphins. We caught one more big nurse shark on the block rigs, but no more reef sharks.

After lunch we baited and set a long line, but just got another nurse shark.

The sunset and the moonrise were gorgeous. I spent a while trying to take pictures of the various bird life. After dinner, Demian gave a short talk on Global FinPrint and the BRUVs we’ll be setting tomorrow. WE’re setting along the wall and there was talk of snorkeling!

Day Six: Setting and Hauling BRUVs

Today was our first day of baited remote underwater videos (BRUVs) – which is a fancy name for a GoPro attached to a frame and a stick with bait. We leave them at the bottom for 90 minutes to see what’s down there. In between times where we set them and hauled them up (pulling a rope attached to a metal/wood from 60-100 ft up through the water) we snorkeled. Saw some cool fish, but what’s really neat is to be on THE DROP OFF. That’s right. We WENT TO THE DROP OFF!

We saw some cool stuff on our videos – 2 reef sharks, a nurse shark, a bunch of HUGE grouper, a ton of southern stingrays, and 2 giant green moray eels.

We were supposed to set long lines and fish at night, but right before dinner we got caught in a huge squall with the rain pelting our faces, and Norlan, the captain, not even looking at where we were going when he was driving. Needless to say, we decided not to set.

Hopefully night fishing tomorrow!

Day Seven: Spawning and Feeding

We set BRUVs again this morning with a snorkel while we were waiting. We saw a big nurse shark while we were snorkeling and some cool fish. Then we set another bunch before lunch and found thousands of spawning dog snapper so we jumped in for a real quick snorkel hoping to see a manta a manta or a whale shark. No luck but the fish were awesome. After lunch we set a long line, fished for bait, and only caught a stingray. Unfortunately, the weather was too iffy for a night fish again. We fed all of the leftover and old bait to the frigate birds, which was a lot of fun.

On today’s BRUVs we saw the world’s fastest porcupine fish, a bunch of eels and stingrays, and one nurse shark.

Tomorrow is our last day, so lots of fishing (and snorkeling!) to try to find some sharks!

Day Eight: Last Day Living on an Island

Today we had a lot of fun. We went out early and set the long lines and the block rigs, then waited back here and Katie gave her talk on sting rays. We kept checking the lines and in between we had an awesome snorkel in the channel between two other islands. I saw and eagle ray and tons of interesting fish (including a porcupine fish that was waaaayyyy slower than the one on our video). There was an octopus, but unfortunately I was too far from the hole it sunk back into.

We caught a reef shark, two big nurse sharks, and a stingray on our lines in the afternoon. We had fun playing a few card games after dinner. I really enjoyed everyone on this trip and I think it will be cool to pull together an EarthWatch thing with Sinan and Nicole – I have a few ideas! Back to shore tomorrow!

Day Nine: Travels Home

We had to wake up super early to get on the boat to head back to the mainland and catch flights home. The boat ride was a lot of fun though, watching the sunrise over the atoll from the boat was a nice treat. And another treat – we crossed paths with a pod of spotted dolphins!

We made it to the mainland in time for most of us to have one last Belizean breakfast – which meant one more basket of fried jacks!

A few of us were together in the airport for a while, reflecting on the experience, and then it was off to Miami and then back to NY. Time to trade in the snorkel gear for skis!