A bit of a shock and and some great fish

During the early morning of the Tuesday having dived once the previous day, I was quietly sitting reading in a hammock when I spotted some movement in the sea just off the coast. With my morning coffee I was treated to the sight of a pod of dolphins, obviously on the hunt for breakfast.
In itself an amazing sight, and one I was not quick enough to capture on my camera, Grrrrr.
However I did capture this breakfast visitor to my cabana instead.

He was hungry

 But on to the stationary things on the Tuesday Dives........

Ever tried to photograph a fish when you haven't done it for a while...

The View Underwater in a drift current

Quadruple Sponge

Big Sponge

Cushion Starfish

Brain Coral with new Growth

Flower Coral

Lettuce  Coral

Outcrop with sponges, soft coral and fans

The Wow Factor!

On the Monday morning after signing all the PADI forms we sped our way toward the island in our dive boat Tornado, steered by Snake, our Captain.

Our starlets for the week were positioned strategically around the boat, around the clean linen, food for the week and our luggage. The weather was great and we already knew that if we had a good trip to Tom Owens Caye, we would get a dive in. 



Snake Our Captain



Underwater Dancer, Annie Oakley and the Sundance Kid

Michael Douglas, Lara Croft, & Underwater Dancer

Babe Ruth, Wonder Woman, Simon & Tracey



Drum Major, Babe Ruth, Wonder Woman



The Wonderful Audrey Hepburn

Our destination of Tom Owens Caye



I’m Back! <<<< The Ultimate Yardstick

When I last visited ReefCI’s marine conservation volunteer programme ( Nov-Dec 2013) it’s fair to say that I absolutely loved it. I was enthused enough to put together a blog not just to show the fun I was having and the knowledge I was gaining, but also to tell my family and friends, exactly what, and, how great conservation work is to do and also how great environmental outcomes can be delivered as a sustainable business though an NGO. 

After my visit in November ReefCI asked me to feedback my experience to a set of questions. I was truly genuinely “flummoxed”. The reality was I couldn’t find the right words to describe the experience, the sense of purpose to both putting “something back”, and, the excitement of learning something so totally different and yet be on holiday. Maybe I had used all my words up in compiling my blog? 

The real answer is, of course, it's a real challenge to sum up a magical experience with just a few words, on an email.  Patently it proved almost impossible for me as the ReefCI team are still waiting for my feedback. 

So how about this? 

I have travelled to many places in many ways and to do different activities and meet different people. 

 So ReefCI team, the best way I could find to show you how amazing you are because of what you do, and, what you give us, your guests and students, is that I CAME BACK! (and with a vengeance)– Didn’t I? 

 <<<<< drum major

And yet again I have met some amazing people, from all different walks of life, ages and backgrounds, students, financial people, engineers, lawyers, retired teachers, park rangers, and this time a whole “flotilla” of coast guard cadets being trained in Scuba….All these people are also committed to marine conservation so our common thread meant we had a great time working, diving, and holidaying together.

This time round we are using pseudonyms for our blog of our journey. No doubt some of you will recognise yourselves. It was an absolute pleasure meeting with you, learning with you, surveying with you and culling lionfish with you; may we meet soon to repeat the experience! 

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!