An underwater Hoolliieee! - What do you do when you can't see a thing?

On Thursday the 5th December dive 1 at 0730am was a bit of a roller coaster. 

There was I equipped for a commercial Fish ID descending to a reef with a surge level that challenged our new divers and which I thoroughly enjoyed.  It was just like being in a GIANT hammock with a massive swoosh in two directions - Brilliant. 

Unfortunately the Viz was a challenge, and so throughout the dive i only managed to spot 13 fish and 12 of those were yellow tailed snapper. 

So not a very representative survey then. :-)

So we decided as a team that there was little point trying to complete the planned reef survey for all that we had been trained in along the transept as it was more likely that we would damage the reef.  So first law of diving - dont touch the reef was enacted and so we concentrated on having fun and snorkelling off the shore and learning new things. 

Because of this I concentrated in recording other really important things from the trivia to the fun to lessons in sexing lobsters and freedive hunting... 

So here we go....
What I could see when I was diving... 

My bubbles - looking up

My fins - 1.5m

In honour of the new thing of taking a "selfie" - I went for as *ScaryasPossible*

  

 What do you do when you can't dive...?. 

Ruby Reading...... my choice too.

Or you could sleep away the day like Paul

Like Spot you could defend your coconut

Or when someone stole the coconut and threw it in the sea you could swim like Spot to collect the coconut...

Or like Simon and Snake you could go freedive hunting for dinner!

Mind you - it's a lot of physical effort and the catch has to be thrown into the canoe

And you need to watch out for "hangers on" who want the scraps

Then you have to gut and clean a Yellow fin Grouper and associated Lionfish....

 

And you start to lick your lips for dinner.......  

But first like Jason you have to dissect another load of lionfish to get the results off to the fisheries team

And then you have to learn about Spiny Lobster - One here is a lady and one is a man... Both are legal for harvest as the carapace is greater than 3.5" long.

This is the lady lobster - the clue is the extra claw on the foot of the fifth leg

This man lobster only has one claw on the foot of the fifth leg

The lady lobster on the right has inner and outer tendrils the man lobster only has outies

The point of the special claw and the innie and outtie tendrils is that of course the lady lobster needs these to manage egg production in the closed season when lobster reproduce.  It is not permitted to harvest a pregnant lobster.

You might of course also have to clean the underside of our Tornado speed and dive boat like Woolfie.

Scuba gear has a domestic engineering use too........ Thanks Woolfie

And finally you might sit down to a succulent zero miles dinner of rice, grouper, and grilled lobster tails in garlic butter with steamed veg.......

And face plant into a fishy dinner

All cooked by the wonderful Adrienne........  .................................................................. Yes it was a non diving day and so a couple of beers were consumed.....

supported by Snake whose specialty is to cook the lobster tails...... in between being very competitive at beach volley ball

Of Coral Watches and Newbie Divers! :-)

Dive 2 & 3 on Wednesday 4th included a coral watch and our new Open Water divers doing their first of two in the day qualification dives. 

Dive 2 Coral Watch 
This dive was super cloudy - but I hope to be able to make the point.  The point of this dive is to ascertain the status of health of the various corals on the reef.  The corals are watched as their colour and behaviours are predictors of how the reef will continue to function and provide food for the resident fish and flooding protection to the surrounding land based communities of Belize, Mexico and Guatamala.

Coral Bleaching is an indication that the reef is stressed and can be caused by a combination of factors. 

1. Physical presence of foreign bodies ( such as fishing line)
2. Water temperatures below and or above optimum thresholds
3. Salinity levels
4. Acidification of the oceans.
5. Pollution levels of sediment, phosphates and increased algae blooming

All of which (amongst other reasons) are indicators to a potential loss in sustainable fisheries due to the loss of the organic life forms within the crusty shell of hard corals.

The best way I can find to illustrate the phenomenan of bleaching is to show you evidence from the dive site near Tom Owens Caye

A healthy Lettuce Coral

Started to Bleach.....

Almost Totally Bleached.......

Bleaching on a larger scale on larger corals looks like....

A mound coral on to it's final phases of bleaching

At the end of the day the more that coral bleaches and dies the less chance the zoological part of the coral will be able to re-enter the carbonated shell to continue growth of the reef.

And if the Coral dies where will this Arrow crab and other reef species live?

New Divers - Dive 2 and 3
 
Despite the Viz we were able to welcome Ilmera, Ruby and Emily to becoming Open Water qualified divers. 

Well done them...

She did it!  Well done Ruby :-)

Emily displaying near perfect buoyancy control

Our resident Amercian Russian - Ilmera - also qualified and wants to visit again

A perfect controlled ascent to a safety Stop by (LtoR) Ilmera, Ruby, and Emily - Ladies you were inspirational

Dive 3 - Shore Dive!

A very Shy Spotted Trunkfish

Yes it is!  A Southern Stingray chowing down!

A very camouflaged Yellow Stingray convinced we can't see it! ---- WRONG!

Yes that made a count of 3 Rays in 3 dives...

And then during the night dive we saw 3 more....  A veritable plethora of Rays in one day.

Why didn't I write these few pages of blog on the day.... You try doing 4 dives in a day and see what you do after dinner..?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - Night Night!

Can it get Better than this? - Oh yes it can!

Well Wednesday 4th December was Brilliant!

4 dives in the day, with the final one being a night time dive.  Sadly no pictures of the night dive for very valid reasons.  

Much of the reef ecology is regenerating overnight, so species such as parrot fish and octopus are highly sensitive to light and the effects of light interruptions can be extremely detrimental to their living cycles and the use of a camera flash at this time is not recommended.

It has to be said that Wednesdays dives were effected by slightly reduced visibility, but that didn't stop us doing the work we had come out to do including a coral watch and documentation report.  

We also experienced increased surge and this did effect the enjoyment of the less experienced divers. 

Nevertheless we were treated to some amazing sights again and whilst I post the photos I recognise that the photos are not the best due to the suspended silts in the water. You can complain - BUT I Can't Hear you! *snigger*

We did go deeper to both improve the Viz and to allow Paul and Tom to complete their Advanced Open Water Certification Qualification in Dive 1.  And the bottom 10 meters of the dive plan allowed some clear photographs. But dives 2 and 3 were effected as you will see in follow on posts. 

Nature will be nature! :-)

But wait til you see some of the pictures in this post to see what we were treated to both during the dive an do again on our safety stops.


Before Dive 1 - Today was destined to be a good one!

A sunrise to be amazed at - over the deserted Island

 On Dive 1

A matching Pair of Spotfin Butterflyfish - It's love!

You can't see me said the Nassau Grouper - (so how do I know what it is?)

A very European looking French Grunt!

Red Barrell Sponge

A very inquisitive Grey Angelfish

And on a our safety stop!  I promise you that the photo below is of a 1.5 m "wing" span Spotted Eagle Ray.  It was so interested in our safety stop it looped right around us.  (So sorry for the impact of the viz on the photo)

I Promise this is a spotted eagle ray!  Look really hard!

And as my fellow divers can testify it was a magical way to end Dive 1 of the day.

Conch, commercial fish surveying and some lovely discoveries

A really jam packed day on Tuesday 3rd December.

Jason has taught us commercial fish surveying, and as part of this we have had to learn to spot and distinguish between some 30 different fish, ranging through the individual species in the groupers, mackerels, snappers etc.

But first our first dive at 730am was another conch survey. 

Jason showing the difference between a Milk (back) and Queen (front) Conch

Paul Measuring a Queen Conch

We encountered one Queen Conch  that had been tagged and another that we could not move as the Conch was obviously carrying eggs.  This was unusual outside of the traditional closed season for Conch reproduction.

The Conch eggs can be seen under the shell on the LHS

Whilst we were doing our first dive, Ruby, mastered removing and replacing her mask underwater and was now firmly back on track, together with our other new starters Ilmera, and Emily.  This means weather permitting, they are on track to complete their open water certification before the end of the week. 

During the commercial fish survey (1130am second dive) I was photographing some of the shoals of fish we saw to assist the count process, and to be sure of the ID of the fish retrospectively.  This can be a very confusing process.  Particularly when some fish have a habit of pretending to be something else. 

A shoal of Lane Snappers - (pretending to look like Grunts)

In some parts of the reef, the use of the camera, no matter how bad the phography, was essential.  This was becausethe fish were, in some shoals, to numerous to even count properly as they swirled around the divers. 

During this dive we came across a Turtle. - A hawksbill - we think a very ladylike one. What do you think? 

Isn't she Beautiful?  We thought she was.

It was great to see the turtle sitting on the reef, and gave me a chance to log the turtle sighting on the ECO mar website.  My very first go at contributing to species protection and monitoring as part of a national collective endeavour. 

The ECO mar website can be found on the link below, if you are interested in finding out more. 

ECO Mar Turtle watch and other species 

We were also very lucky to be able to spot a number of commercial fish as part of our Commercial Fish I.D. survey and count them to allow stocks to be estimated and fishing season dates to be set by the fisheries department.  This to ensure the health of the reef and the industry is as productive as possible.

A Tiger Grouper - A very tasty fish!

If you zoom in on this picture you will understand why photographs help surveys

A whole host of School Master Snapper using the reef as camouflage.  The photo enabled us to verify the fish and the count for the survey- good advice from Jason

On our way out of the water at our Safety Stop, we came across this jelly fish. Now I know it should have a species name, but from the research done on the internet the closest I can come to is a Common Jelly Fish.  Anyone any better ideas?

I think this is a common Jelly Fish (but don't quote me)

As to that T-shirt!  Oh yes - on our third dive for the day we were able to "remove" more lionfish from the reefs around Tom Owens Caye and all were taken home for dissection and a selection were had for tea.

*howterriblybritish*

Earning the Right to Wear the Tee-shirt.

Today (Tues 3rd) I speared two lionfish!  That makes a body count of three for me. 

Me Lining up a Lion Fish - to capture it without damaging any corals

Got It!

I get to do more tomorrow. - Yeahhy

 

Jason our Marine Biologist, and Paul my dive buddy on this dive

Thanks to Polly, Tracy, Simon, and Jason, for the training. 

All in all a full on day with a full body count of 34 #lionfish for everyone's efforts for this week by end of Tuesday