After efficient and successful sampling at our 3 initial sites during the first part of the week, we made the trek another 15 miles offshore to Glover’s Reef Atoll to collect 60 additional Montastraea cavernosa samples (n=15 at each depth zone). With these we will be able to make a preliminary assessment of connectivity between the Atoll and the main Meso-American reef. We dove at Bev’s Garden, just off Long Caye, which had awesome wall structure with M. cavernosa populations that were ideal for our sampling needs. We were able to knock out all of our 60 samples in two dives and we used our third dive to explore Middle Caye Wall and scout for M. cavernosa colonies for future sampling. Both sites at Glover’s were beautiful. The walls had huge sponges and octocorals, Nassau Grouper, parrotfishes, and plenty of M. cavernosa and other sclerectinian corals. At Bev’s Garden we got to see two pods of Bottlenose Dolphin cruise over top of us. With luck, a trip back to Glover’s is in our future.
Finally, we spent our last day in the field exploring reefs near Carrie Bow Cay to find new sites to expand our dataset even further. We dove on three new (to us) reefs that looked very promising for our next trip back to the Carrie Bow Cay field station. We have packed up our 300 pounds of gear and are waiting for our boat ride back to Dangriga where we will stay the night before our trip back to Florida tomorrow. It’s bittersweet having to leave Carrie Bow after the week. It’s a beautiful place and a wonderful station to work at. We could not have been so successful without all the great support from our captain, Earl, station managers Scott and Lisa, and of course our wonderful cook Martha who made sure we were always well fed and ready to take on the day. So, although it’s sad to say goodbye and return back to real life, it feels great to have everything and more completely done and dusted.
Check out our Flickr album for more images from the trip and stay turned for updates on Ryan's analyses of the coral samples collected during this mission. Click on the embedded links to learn more about FAU Harbor and CIOERT.
Post written by Ryan Eckert.
Finally, we spent our last day in the field exploring reefs near Carrie Bow Cay to find new sites to expand our dataset even further. We dove on three new (to us) reefs that looked very promising for our next trip back to the Carrie Bow Cay field station. We have packed up our 300 pounds of gear and are waiting for our boat ride back to Dangriga where we will stay the night before our trip back to Florida tomorrow. It’s bittersweet having to leave Carrie Bow after the week. It’s a beautiful place and a wonderful station to work at. We could not have been so successful without all the great support from our captain, Earl, station managers Scott and Lisa, and of course our wonderful cook Martha who made sure we were always well fed and ready to take on the day. So, although it’s sad to say goodbye and return back to real life, it feels great to have everything and more completely done and dusted.
Check out our Flickr album for more images from the trip and stay turned for updates on Ryan's analyses of the coral samples collected during this mission. Click on the embedded links to learn more about FAU Harbor and CIOERT.
Post written by Ryan Eckert.
