Day Nine

hi everyone. Hopefully this blog post won't be erased. Today we started out early in the morning with some toast and eggs for breakfast. Right after that we put on sunscreen and prepared for snorkeling all day. The stops showed large brain coral and purple sea fans, as well as a wide variety of Parrot fish and other tropical fish. Belize is legendary for its assortment of tropical fish. Our first stop lasted half an hour and after we went to see a bird sanctuary island with frigates nesting. The mating season was currently being undergone as the males displayed their large red throats to attract females. Frigates turn off 1 half of their brain while the other is active. After the bird island we went to the mangrove trees, which are extremely important to the ecosystem in Belize. They serve as a buffer for tropical storms and a hatchery for small fish. When these trees are torn down, fish don't have places to safely grow up and there is no buffer for the islands. We also went to a mangrove swamp later in the day where we examined peat (decomposed material by the mangroves) and took soil samples. We hit a few more snorkeling spots and went to the Smithsonian research lab and talked to scientists who were researching parrot fish feeding. As we returned to the Island, we talked about the night snorkel and got prepared. Excited to be back tomorrow.