Marine Ecology Seminar

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As Ben would say, St. George's Caye...AMAZING!  We just spent six days in paradise.  We stayed at a resort.  I got my own suite, the first time I have had my own room since I got here!  They served use multi-course meals three times a day, plus appetizers and dessert.  The staff was super friendly and I felt like I was staying with family to whole time!  St. George's Caye is only about twenty minutes by boat from Belize City and is completely privately owned.  It is small, I walked to whole thing in less than an hour and kayaked around it in about two.  We spent one day learning about sea grasses, another on mangroves, and two days on the reef.  We had two trips to the reef, one during the day and another at sunset/night.  On our first trip Kalyn and I came across a baracuda which was at least four feet long.  She immediately swam behind me and stayed there until he swam away because she was afraid he would attack her because of her shiny medical bracelet!  On the second trip, I swam next to a Spotted Eagle Ray, which was about six feet long and four feet wide!  We also saw tons of fish and coral.

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Since we only spent about half a day actually having lectures and class, we got to try wind surfing (I am terrible, and now all scratched up!), kayaking, digging for shells, snorkeling, swimming, playing volleyball, sitting in the hammocks, and basically anything else you can imagine to do on a beach!  We did mini presentations to prepare us for our ISPs.  Kalyn and I did a shell identification survey.  For our presentation, we donned ourselves in bathing suits on which we had attached shells!  It was hilarious, and thankfully Jerry and Luz (our marine instructor) thought it was too!  Jerry made us pose for a picture, maybe he will get it put on the SIT website!  Luz was by far the best instructor we have had so far.  I learned more from her than all of our other instructors combined!

We did our presentation in bathing suits with shells attached!

James windsurfing
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We got back to the TEC today and Selso met us at the bus because he said we had a problem, there are two other huge (30+ students) here and they didn't have enough room for all of us.  Fortunately, about half of the people decided to leave early for the free days.  Too bad for them though, because Selso decided to put us in the guest houses!  No more dorm rooms, I am staying in the treehouse, where Cameron Diaz lived while she was in Belize.  I have my own bathroom and kitchen/wet bar.  The perks of staying behind!

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Tomorrow a couple of us are leaving to go down to Punta Gorda for our free days.  We will meet up with the group there again in order to prepare for our Mayan village homestays.  We are going to each be living in separate villages with a Mayan family, doing whatever they do, for four days.  I am sure I am going to have some problems with the gender roles, since it is a very traditional culture, with the women staying in the house and the men going out to work in the fields and hunt, but I am looking forward to the experience.  I am also hoping that I learn how to make some good food!