"Good morning everyone!  This is my last roundup of our adventures.  It’s a little sad to be honest… especially due to the rain I hear we’re having at home…  We had an early wake up time to get our bus down to the boat dock for our trip out to Tobacco Caye.  The resort provided us with a bagged breakfast of a delicious breakfast burrito for our ride.

Our group always sticks together for boat rides and water activities (not going to lie I really didn’t want to be responsible for other children in or on the water!). The captain warned us that the seas were rough and the ride would be too… he wasn’t lying.  I can honestly say that our bottoms felt it.  Thankfully the seats had cushions that most of us were hanging onto very tightly. 

Tobacco Caye is a beautiful little island surrounded by reef.  It’s in the largest reef in the northern hemisphere and has a marine reserve on the island.  The reserve does research, conservation, and education.  James is the station manager and is from the UK and was all personality.  Our group really took to James and you shouldn’t be surprised if your child starts snapping at positive experiences moving forward!  (It reminded me of poetry readings!)

We participated in three activities on the reserve.  Our first was a lionfish dissection.  Everyone did their part in helping with the dissection.  Lionfish are a venomous invasive species that we even see in North Carolina now.  They eat up to 50 different fish species (highly adaptable) and have no natural predator.  These two factors are why it’s invasive.. they easily take over an ecosystem because they are so adaptable.

Fortunately they are edible (poisonous fish are not edible… like puffer fish… venomous are as long as you remove the source of venom.  For lionfish this is their spines.)

For the dissection we removed their spines, and saved their tail fin to be made into jewelry for sale to raise money for the reserve.  

We also removed the stomach and examined the contents to identify (if possible) any fish that it had eaten.  This is how they know that there are 50 different fish species they will eat!

At the end the fish was filleted and some meat was given to our feline manager Moe 😊

From there we went snorkeling.  The water was a little rough but we got to see a stingray, lots of much larger fish including parrot fish which make the  majority of the sand in Belize. (they bite off bits of the coral to eat the coral and they then excrete the indigestible coral pieces… so yeah… you walk on fish poop for sand in Belize!). We also saw a few moray eels and a flounder.

After snorkeling we had lunch followed by our last activity… nurdle hunting.  Nurdles are tiny plastics… think the beans inside stuffed animals… our group found the most!  74 in 20 mins.  The station has a jar they keep all the nurdles collected by school groups.  It has over 1800 and barely looks like there's any!

Sadly, it was time to leave… I had to drag some kids away from their discussions with the various leaders from the reserve.  I feel that this was the most engaging part of our trip and am grateful to end with such a wonderful experience.

Back to the Belize home page