In the winter of 2010, Ret contracted with Reaktion Books (London) to write Coral for the award-winning Animal series. To mirror his winter 2010 trip to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Ret planned a trip to the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in Belize the following summer. While there, he was the guest of the Smithsonian Insitutution's Carrie Bow Cay Field Station, and he had the opportunity to check out a very unusual Mayan site. This is the story of that trip.
The boat ride back from Carrie Bow Cay was actually quite smooth. It was just me and my gear and the two boatmen, and we zipped across the lagoon without any issues. One of the worst parts about leaving was that Martha was cleaning fresh fish for dinner! Once back at Dangriga and the Pelican Beach Resort, I made a snap decision to hitch a ride out to the Jaguar Preserve. No coral but very, very worth the trip. Wish I had more time. I didn't see a jaguar, but knowing that one might have been eyeing me as the sun set over the cacauphony of jungle sounds was more than worth the trip.
It's now time to switch gears into Maya mode, as I plan to head south tomorrow on a Tropic Air flight that will hop down the coast from Dangriga to Palentia then onto Punta Gorda (or PG, as everyone calls it). There I will meet Dan of Blue Belize. After stashing my gear at his place, we'll hit the water and (hopefully) have a chance to see some Maya sites. Please understand that this is not Lamanai or Cahal Pech that we'll be visiting. These are largely unexcavated sites on low-lying, unihabited islands, where access to stone was extremely difficult (e.g., no big temples here). This is, however, exactly the reason I want to go, as the wealthy (or maybe just pragmatic) Maya here, in the absence of stone, turned to coral for the foundations of their most significant structures.
I am hoping to be able to see the resulting mounds, which are the result of up to six structures being successively built on top of one-another with the oldest structures dating back to A.D. 600-900! As susequent structures were added on top of the oldest structure, the Maya used coral as a foundation building material, hence my interest in this site. During the excavations, many burial sites were also found in the mounds, giving many clues to the Maya who lived there. Anyway, I'm quite excited to see the site, but I should try to get a few hours sleep in the interim...
Here I sit on the front porch of the Smithsonian Institution's Field Station at Carrie Bow Cay waiting for a boat to return me to Dangriga. The wind is blowing pretty hard today--maybe 15-20 knots--so everyone is in the lab instead of in the water (although Raph, Chico and I did return this morning to the first reef I visited when I arrived to epoxy Raph's Favia species back onto the reef with Z-Spar epoxy). There is a good ground swell today, and, combined with the wind chop, the sea state is a little rough. I suspect it will be a wet boat ride back to Dangriga (but even wetter for the folks coming out). I'm looking forward to meeting Valerie Paul, CCRE Director, and Zach Foltz, Carrie Bow Cay Station Manager, although I fear it will be a bit like ships passing in the night.
Overall I am very pleased with my time at Carrie Bow Cay. While I re-wrote the chapter that deals with coral reproduction and settlement while I was here, it is the time I spent with Bob, Raphael and Chico that has really helped me locate the book's heart. As I have been researching and writing this book over the past five months, I have continually been surprised by how little people know about coral (as in "I thought coral was a rock" and "Coral is an animal? No way!"). The time I have spent on Carrie Bow, and on the reefs that surround it, have, in many ways, reminded me of how little I know about coral. Perhaps that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement for a book I am writing and will shortly be trying to sell, but for me it's actually very exciting.
I feel like I now have the chance to not only introduce coral to many people who thought it was little more than a rock, but I also have the chance to place the animal in the context of a much broader (and, arguably, more important discussion). I really owe that all to Bob, Raph and Chico. Obviously they are talented scientists and brilliant individuals, but, more importantly, they are thoughtful and generous individuals. If you ever wondered if scientists really do have the capacity to make the world a better place, have a beer with one of these guys. You'll be glad you did.
Of course I owe huge kudos to Martha and Woody as well. With out their attention to detail and friendliness, my trip to Carrie Bow would have been a very different experience. If you are ever in the neighborhood of Carrie Bow, please give them a call (or email) and ask for a tour. If they can accommodate you, you are in for a treat. Be sure to bring at least $20 so you can buy a print of one of Martha's paintings!
Guess what? We're in the lab. Bob, Chico and Raphael are staring into scopes looking at crustose coralline algae, and I'm reading a bevy of scientific papers Bob just shared with me. One of the more interesting papers is one titled "Coral reef management and conservation in light of rapidly evolving ecological paradigms" by Peter Mumby and Bob. Those of you familiar with my work probably remember that I have interviewed Peter before for articles on reef herbivores. He, like Bob, is one of those marine scientists who is not only brilliant but is also generous with his time and knowledge. Anyway, this paper on coral reef management, which was published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution (Vol.23 No.10), is interesting for many reasons, but the part where Peter and Bob put the whole coral reef discussion in context is pretty mind-blowing, I think. To wit:
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, armies of reef scientists developed 'worldviews' explaining how, apparently stable, coral reefs were structured and functioned. Endean asserted that coral reefs had 'a particularly stable or predictable organisation because they are biologically accommodated.' The focus then was on documenting this stability by measuring patterns of distribution and abundance and on 'biologically accommodating' ecological processes such as competition and predation. For example, manipulative experiments identified herbivory as a key driver maintaining the then low algal abundance of the Caribbean. New population dynamics models developed for clonal corals concluded that 'once [coral] colonies reached moderate size, the probability of their being killed falls almost to zero'. Others concluded that the most unpredictable event in the lives of large coral might be so rare that they would include millennialscale changes in sea level. Mortality of large reef-building corals was thought to be confined to intense and localised, but infrequent, storms. Ecological theory used the frequency and intensity of such storms and resulted in the 'intermediate disturbance hypothesis', which took hold because it compellingly integrated ecological processes of competition and disturbance with observed patterns of biodiversity. Arguably, much of the science at that time helped explain why highly diverse coral-dominated systems were so stable.
Of course nobody in his or her right mind is arguing that coral reefs are stable today, but the fact that within my own lifetime, conventional wisdom held that it would take "millennialscale changes" to negatively affect coral reefs simply blows my mind. The paper is an important one, and I will be leaning on it as I'm writing the chapter of the book that deals with management.
Anyway, today was a good day. We dove on the opposite side of Carrie Bow Cay, where I had not been before. It was a 2.5 meter transect survey, and the reef was quite different from the other sites on which we have spent time. As usual, Chico collected samples along the transects, Bob did a visual survey and took loads of notes and Raph, amongst his other duties, took some (what I assume will be) stunning photos. Raph is a very capable photographer (the picture below of coral larvae is his), and I am hoping to include some of his photos in the book. I'm also hopeful that he would consider collaborating on some future articles that need good underwater photography.
In addition to the dive, we spent (you guessed it) a lot of time in the lab, and I cranked out some serious copy. The chapter on the life history of coral is almost in the can, I think. Oh, and Raph gave me an unbelievable anecdote for the unexpected human usages of coral section! This one might be the most interesting (bizarre? morbid?) yet.
I'm having a hard time believing tomorrow is my last full day on Carrie Bow Cay. On Monday, I will catch a boat back to Dangriga and hop a plane south to Punta Gorda (PG), where I will be hot on the trail of a very curious Maya site.
Today was a great day with a good rain storm blowing through this morning. We had a couple other bursts of rain, but overall it has been the clearest day, and the (nearly?) full moon is impressive. The morning was spent with lab work, and the afternoon was supposed to be a dive on the 1 meter transects that turned into a dive on the 20-meter transects (due to a swell that would have made working in 1 meter less than ideal).
Rafael's Agaracia specimens (pictured here) did not release again (he has been putting them in buckets at night and then in the shallows by the pier during the day), which was somewhat disappointing to me. The Favia specimens, on the other hand, did release again (although not as good as the night before). Regardless, he seems happy that he has enough larvae with which to work, and I am still blown away every time I look in the petri dish and see the coral larvae motoring about, settling or even transitioning from pelagic larvae to sessile benthic juveniles. So cool!
I should probably back up a moment and explain from where it is that these larvae actually originated. Corals are animals, but unlike many animals, corals have the ability to reproduce both asexually and sexually. Asexual reproduction happens through budding, whereby a new coral polyp grows from an existing polyp. The new polyp is genetically identical to the parent polyp, and in this way, a colony of genetically identical polyps emerges. In some cases, one or more polyps may be broken off from the colony and form its own colony, which, like the parent colony, will grow through budding.
Asexual reproduction has many advantages for coral. For example, in good, stable conditions, asexual reproduction allows a colony to expand fairly rapidly. Along with the advantages, though, come some disadvantages. As mentioned above, all the polyps resulting from asexual reproduction are genetically identical meaning that they are more vulnerable to a pathogen. In addition, because they lack genetic diversity, they do not have the opportunity to adapt to changing conditions as readily.
Enter sexual reproduction. In addition to the asexual reproduction described above, many corals are also capable of sexual reproduction. When it comes to sexual reproduction, corals are either brooders or spawners. The gametes of the brooders are fertilized within the coral, while the gametes of the spawners are fertilized in the water column. In either case, the resulting free-swimming larvae are then dispersed via currents (although they can affect their own destination to a certain extent--more about this later!). Successful larvae will usually settle on an appropriate substrate within a few hours, days or weeks (although it has been shown that they can survive for over 200 days as pelagic larvae!). Once settled, the larva begins to metamorphose into a juvenile coral and becomes a coral recruit.
To get back to the Favia species with which Raphael is working, this coral is a common hermaphroditic brooder around Carrie Bow, and, as such, it is possible to collect the specimens at the right time of the month (the releases can be predicted by their relationship to the lunar cycle), hold them in specimen cups, and then collect the free-swimming larvae each morning. So that's what Raphael has been doing each morning for the last three mornings. What is he doing with them? Well that gets into the really interesting stuff, so I'll save that for later. Back to the day...
After the dive, we returned to Carrie Bow, where lab work continued. Bob has an absolutely immense pile of crustose corraline algae samples that Chico has collected along each of the transects, and the identification of each, even for someone as knowledgeable as Bob, can be painstaking work (he spent over an hour with one specimen today!). When it's all recorded, the data will show the diversity of species at different depths from one meter to 20 meters. Because coverage of certain species of crustose coralline algae is an excellent indicator of reef health and recovery potential, this kind of data is absolutely essential. The problem is that there are only a handful of people (or less) who can actually ID crustose coralline algae down to the species level.
As you can probably tell, I feel really privileged to have been a fly on the wall for the last few days at Carrie Bow Cay. On the one hand, I feel like I missed my calling, as I would love to have the knowledge and skills that Bob, Raphael and Chico possess. On the other hand, I feel fortunate to be a writer with the opportunity to perhaps share some of the work they are doing with a popular audience that may, as a result, come to view coral in a whole new light.
...at least that's the goal.
Well the weather appears to have shifted back into what may be a more "normal" state. This afternoon was full of lots of sun, and the nearly full moon was breathtaking during dinner. The seas were calm enough that Bob, Raphael and Chico worked in the spur and groove zone, and I tagged along. This is one of my favorite reef zones in which to dive--it kind of reminds me of when I used to guide in the Needles of South Dakota, scrambling amidst the fins of rock in a hobbit-like landscape. The energy in this part of the reef is so intense, and the resulting coral growth on spurs towering above deeply eroded sand channels has always intrigued me. Some of the coral species seen included Agaracia tenuifolia, Millepora spp. (complanata?), Porites spp., Diploria strigosa, and Acropora spp.
Chico collected many more specimens of crustose coralline algae along Bob's transects, and that is what is keeping Bob busy downstairs in the lab as I type. In terms of Raphael's work, last night he placed chips of Hydrolithon boergesenii in petri dishes along with the larvae collected from the Favia specimens he collected the first day (no spawn from the Agaricia specimens collected yesterday), and, by this morning, several of the larvae had settled on several of the chips. It really is quite remarkable to see these blind, free-swimming larvae select and settle on a chip of coralline alga. I know I've said this before, but this is, quite literally, where it all begins for both coral as an animal and Coral as my book.
In other news, we had a heck of a squall come through in the early morning hours. Crashing thunder and lightning accompanied by horizontal rain and gusty wind. By breakfast (pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fruit), the weather had blown out and the day steadily improved. I got a god bit of writing done this morning (working on a rewrite of the first chapter using Carrie Bow as the narrative device), and I had time to read a few papers and do a little digging into the history of the island itself. Allow me to share a few tidbits.
It seems that Carrie Bow was previously known as Ellen's Caye or Birds Caye ("as lots of birds assembled there") but was renamed "Carrie Bow Island off my dear wife Carrie." So writes Henry T.A. Bowman in his 1979 biography, which I found in the library. According to Bowman, the island came into his family when a man who had been awarded the caye by the government sold it to Bowman's father for "a reasonable price."
Later, good dad sold it to me at the same price he had paid. I decided to knock off the mangrove trees; not realizing that this is what holds those islands together. Later I bought a house from Fred Sen, a German, who tried to grow coffee at Mile 21 without success. I carried it out in sections; and renamed the little island.... In 1942, I built a cement pier and was able to tile it. This pier has stood up to all hurricanes up to now; although a lot of the tiles have washed away; and the acid droppings of the pelicans have eaten into the remaining tiles. (57-58)
Bowman goes on to point out that the island has suffered considerable erosion, claiming that by 1979, the island was "a little over half the size it was when I first bought it and built the house on it." While erosion is certainly a downside to the removal of the mangroves, the almost complete lack of insects is a major plus. Even Bowman appreciated this, saying "One pleasant point is that being so small, it very rarely harbors any sand flies or mosquitoes, the curse of most of our sea areas." I'm sure I will not be able to say the same of Wild Cane Cay next week!
In 1972, the Smithsonian Institution, through the invitation and generosity of the Bowman family, began using the island as a field research station. The original house burned in an electrical fire, and the current building was subsequently built by the Smithsonian Institution, which, still to this day, leases the island from the Bowman family. More history later... (like what about the skeleton found on Carrie Bow?!)
Post-dive lab work occupied the time between dinner and cocktails, which was accompanied by an admirable sunset (see below). Once again the conversation was wide-ranging over beers and then throughout another delicious dinner. With dinner over, it was back into the lab, where (you guessed it!) crustose coralline algae microscopy was the business at hand. I headed up to the library to rework chapter one and to work on a reasonable layperson definition of coral reproduction. There are some issues with the generator tonight, so we may get cut short on burning the midnight oil, but until the lights go out, rest assured we all have plenty to do!
I was writing about crustose coralline algae before cocktailing under the coconut palms got my attention. At this point, I should point out that while crustose coralline algae is the main attraction at Carrie Bow Cay this week, it is obviously not the only algae found on a tropical reef. There are three functional groups of algae found on reefs: macroalgae, turf algae and crustose coralline algae. The coralline algae is, in simple speak, the "good" algae, at least as far as coral-dominated reefs are concerned. These calcified algae, which are pink to purple in color, generally encrust the substrate and, as Bob has shown, it is frequently on this crustose alga that coral recruits settle.
Of course crustose coralline is not crustose coralline is not crustose coralline and, as it turns out, certain species of crustose coralline seem to be preferred settlement sites for coral larvae. The two genera of crustose coralline I hear mentioned a lot in relation to the work being done this week at Carrie Bow are Titanaderma and Hydrolithon. While I don't want to get into too much detail at present (I do want you to buy the book), it was interesting for me to note that this is pretty logical given that Titanaderma species slough far less than other crustose coralline algae and Hydrolithon species grow laterally more slowly than many other crustose coralline algae. As such, coral recruits appear to prefer to settle on Titanaderma and next to Hydrolithon, which, at least to this pea-brained writer, makes perfectly good sense.
While it may be terribly overstated to say something like "A reef dominated by crustose coralline algae from the genus Titanaderma shows excellent potential for remaining or becoming a healthy, coral-dominated reef," the type of research being conducted by people like Bob and Raphael may allow us to develop diagnostic techniques and even restoration management plans that currently do not exist to address the well documented phase shifts away from coral-dominated reefs. Given the state of the world's coral reefs, that would be a very good thing.
At any rate, I have a lot to learn, but some of the pieces are starting to fall into place, especially in terms of how the story being told here relates to my overall narrative. I continue to find every moment spent with Bob, Raphael and Chico to be immensely interesting. I suspect I will, in only a few days time, look back on some of what I have written with embarrassment, as my learning curve will continue to be steep. Such is the beauty of blogging. :-)
The rest of the day? In addition to collecting the Agaricia species with Raphael today and spending a heap of time looking over Bob's and Raphael's shoulders in the lab, I did take some time to get out on the seagrass flats adjacent to Carrie Bow. I absolutely adore seagrasses, and the time spent exploring these flats with mask and snorkel was, in my estimation, time well spent (even if it doesn't have a direct impact on the book). Healthy beds of Thalassia punctuated by conch shells (one even with an anemone! Bartholomea annulata?), a smattering of common gastropods and a few coral specimens (e.g., Siderastrea spp.).
The daylight work was followed by a beer accompanied with many more stories before the dinner bell chimed at 6:30. Chicken, cauliflower, fried eggplant, and salad hit the spot (thanks, Martha!). Then it was back into the lab, where Bob set about identifying specimens collected from the 10-meter transect (already dried in the oven), and Raphael began positively identifying the Hydrolithon boergesenii specimens he collected this morning (these will be the ones he uses for his experiments with the coral larvae he collects from the Favia fragum and Agaricia sp.).
It will be interesting (to me) to see what the weather does tomorrow. Today the full sun never emerged, and the cloud cover has impeded the satellite connection (hence the delay in posting this entry). Regardless of weather, it is hard to imagine a more perfect place to be pulling together a book entitled Coral. If only there was more time...
I just got back from the reef, where Raphael ad Chico collected ten Agaricia species so that he can (hopefully) collect their larvae. They are in buckets out on the dock. The reef where he collected them was on the far side of the channel between Carrie Bow and South Water out near the reef crest. Lots of energy and a fair amount of diversity. Have I pointed out that I've never spent a bad day underwater? :-)
We had a good squall come through last night--lots of thunder and lightning but not very much rain. It was great to fall asleep to the sound of the breakers on the reef, and a steady breeze kept the temperature quite comfortable. Breakfast was at 7, and then we were off. Bob walked Chico through some basics concerning Caribbean crustose coralline identification (an essential skill), while Raphael collected the larvae released by the Favia spp. last night. With those tasks accomplished, Bob, Raphael and Chico headed out on the reef wall to collect crustose coralline specimens, and I stayed behind to try to get some writing done.
Lunch was delicious, as expected, but I'm not sure I'd fully earned it given the lack of coherent sentences I managed to string together during my morning writig session. In reality, I spent a good deal of my time going over my notes from Bob's primer for Chico on crustose coralline ID (see picture above). I don't think I've explained all the focus on crustose coralline algae, have I? The bottom line for me and the book's narrative (I think) is that understanding more about how coral recruits settle, especially as it relates to a particular recruit's preference for a certain coralline algal species, may well be very important when assessing a given reef's health and even in managing the recovery of an unhealthy reef. In short, it mightbe said that understanding why a coral recruit settles where it settles is, quite literally, the starting point in understanding the real health of a coral reef and managing that reef for the future.
Here I sit in the library of the second story of the Smithsonian's Carrie Bow Field Station on Carrie Bow Cay in Belize. It is a remarkable place, and I am fortunate to share it for the next several days with some remarkable people.
We arrived at close to three in the afternoon after about a forty-five minute boat ride from the dock at the Pelican Beach Resort. It was interesting to see the mud-hued water change to crystal aquarecence as the boat neared the cays and the barrier reef. Terrestrial runoff seemed to impact the barrier reef much more in the places I saw in Papua New Guinea. By the time we arrived at Carrie Bow, the water was absolutely what one expects from a place with a diving reputation such that Belize has.
We unloaded the skiff, and I got the quick tour of the island while the previous week's inhabitants scurried to clear the labs and get on the boat back to Pelican Beach. When I say quick, I am not slighting my very capable tour guide--Raphael Ritson-Williams, who reckons he has been on Carrie Bow 15 times. It's just that the island is very, very small. Raphael is a research technician at the Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce. According to NOAA Ocean Explorer website, "His research interests focus on coral reef organisms and the natural product compounds that influence their evolution and ecology. Recent research projects include the feeding ecology of coral reef herbivores and predators, chemical and aposematic defenses in nudibranchs, and chemical cues for larval settlement and metamorphosis."
In addition to Raphael, Bob and Chico, Woody and Martha are also at Carrie Bow. Woody is William Lee, a research assistant with more than two decades of experience with the Smithsonian. He generally works with visiting scientists, but given his MacGyveresque skills, he quite ably steps into the position of acting station manager (my title, not his) in Zach Foltz's absence. Martha is the cook, and boy is she a good one! Tonight's shrimp over rice with veggies was top shelf in my book. Martha is also a talented artist.
True to my expectations, it is clear that when one gets a chance to be on Carrie Bow, one burns the candle at both ends. I know both Bob and Raphael were up in the predawn hours to catch their respective flights to Belize, and both are still up now in the lab getting set up. We were not on the island for more than an hour, in fact, when Raphael headed out (see photo above with Carrie Bow in background) to collect 28 Favia spp. (Favia fragum) for his first experiment. I tagged along to the collection site--a small patch reef near the channel between Carrie Bow and South Water Cay. Once underwater, I was truly impressed with the diversity of coral species on such a small reef so close to Carrie Bow. Stunning. Really.
We returned to Carrie Bow, got the specimens into a tray in the wet lab and then settled in for a pre-dinner beer. Bob, whom I view as the ideal ambassador--the type species, if you will--for marine science, shared myriad stories from trips to coral hot spots around the world, as well as a few Maine tales (Bob's from Maine). As I said before, I can't imagine a better group of people with whom to spend several days on a very small island (especially if you just happen to be writing a book about coral!). Dinner was at 6:30, and as mentioned above, it was outstanding.
After dinner, Raphael headed for the wet lab to put each coral specimen collected earlier in its own cup. Raphael will be collecting the larvae released by these colonies, and several of the colonies had already released. The free-swimming larvae, which I've seen before but never with such interest, are visible to the naked eye. I was amazed by the size of some of them. Raphael said he has observed one colony producing as many as 300 larvae, but that was exceptional. Once in their individual specimen cup (with mesh barrier bottoms for water exchange), it was lights out on the colonies. Raphael pointed out that he was a few days late in collecting these colonies given the regular cycle of monthly spawning activity, but he hopes to get a few nights of good releases from at least five of these colonies.
Well it's getting late, and I still have photos to edit and a draft chapter to review, so I'll sign off for now. Feel free to send questions to rettalbot@hotmail.com.
The flight from Belize City to Dangriga is a quick 18 minutes (the entire country, after all, is about the size of Massachusetts). The little Cessna Caravan climbed out over the flat, lowland coastal plain, as the sun--low in the sky--glinted off the swamplands below. We arced out over the coast and started the trip south following the ragged line of mangroves. In no time, we were descending over citrus orchards to a small patch of tarmac on the outskirts of Dangriga, Belize.
Dangriga is frequently referred to as the cultural capital of Belize. With a population I was told that is right around 9,000, it is the district capital and home to the Garifuna people, who are of Amerindian and African ancestry. North Stann Creek runs through the center of town, and it is from here that visitors travel out to the nearby cayes.
Upon arriving at Pelican Beach Resort (which is literally adjacent to the airstrip--no need for a taxi if you pack smart), I was shown to my room. The room, which is well appointed, has a large patio looking out over the water, where I was greeted by a stiff afternoon breeze that had wind chop coming up onto the dock.
After a cold shower, I changed into shorts and shirt-sleeves and headed down to the veranda where I met Chico Birrell, who will be working with Bob Steneck on Carrie Bow. I get the sense I'm going to like Chico--easy-going, thoughtful and with a proclivity for adventure--our discussion ranged widely over a couple beers and fish plates.
I have corresponded briefly with Bob before, and Chico helped to fill in some of the details regarding the work they will be undertaking on Carrie Bow. Bob is Robert S. Steneck, Ph.D, Professor of Oceanography, Marine Biology and Marine Policy at the School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, where he is a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation at the Darling Marine Center. Bob is looking at how coral recruits (aka baby corals) get their start on the coral reef. "We've come to learn that they can detect species of calcareous algae which, when present, facilitate the settlement into the coral reef," Bob told me via email a few weeks ago. "We have also determined that other types of seaweed (dense filamentous turf algae and macroalgae) inhibit coral settlement," he continues. "So we jokingly describe our work as 'coral settlement in the gardens of good and evil.'"
Bob and Chico will be mapping, quantifying and collecting species of coralline algae from specific depth zones during this trip. Later, others working at Carrie Bow Cay will test spawning coral larvae from the different zones to see if the larvae key in on the assemblage that is unique to the specific zone. What's the point of all this? "As important as corals are," Bob tells me, "we still don't know how blind larvae find their way to the zone where they will live for perhaps centuries."
Arrived on schedule to Belize City (Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport) after a quick layover in Dallas. The weather from Dallas to Belize caused several detours, and while the pilot warned of heavy rain on the field, the sun was actually out when we deplaned. A quick walk across the tarmac reminded me that I really think I like tropic heat, despite my oft professed penchant for winter. Customs was a breeze, and I soon had my bags and was headed to the Tropic Air ticket counter. Terri, my contact at Pelican Beach Resort who has been immensely helpful in planning this trip, suggested I try to get on the 3:25 flight instead of the 4:45 on which I was scheduled if I got in on time. Unfortunately there was no room on the earlier flight, so I have had a couple hours to kill at the airport.
The layover provided me with an opportunity to continue my research concerning the Maya in Belize, as I am keen to be able to place Wild Cane Cay into context when I get there in about a week. Those of you familiar with even a cursory knowledge of the Maya will not find any of this particularly illuminating, but others, for whom their knowledge of the Maya may be limited to Apocolypto, may find some of the following worthwhile.
The history of the Maya is generally broken down into four periods. They are:
- Pre-Classic Period (2000 BCE to 250 AD)
- Classic Period (250 AD to 900)
- Late Classic (800 to 900)
- Post Classic (900 to 1500)
The peak of the Mayan civilization was somewhere around 750 AD, when the entire population may have exceeded 10 million people. It would not have been uncommon at that time for major Mayan cities to have more than 200,000 inhabitants. The Maya traded with one another throughout what is now present day Belize, using the major rivers as highways.
In Belize, the earliest known Maya sites, places like Lamanai and Cahal Pech, date back to 1500 BCE. In Lamanai, which may be translated as "submerged crocodile", the earliest stone buildings date from around 800 to 600 BCE. Lamanai was inhabited by the Maya up until the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.
The Maya settlements in Belize were very important early on, but by the late pre-Classic period, the political power of the Mayan empire moved to Guatemala. In AD 562, however, Caracol (western Belize) conquered Tikal (Guatemala), and the base of power and political import shifted back to Belize. By 750, the Mayan civilization was, quite mysteriously, in decline.
Karen (my wife) took the evening off from the Sawdust Art Festival, where she exhibits her conservation art each summer, to drive me up to Los Angeles for my flight out at 6:45 tomorrow morning. We decided to make a night of it, staying in the wonderfully quirky Belamar Hotel in Manhattan Beach. After a walk to the beach and a couple navy grogs and some appetizers at Rock'n Fish, we headed back to the Belamar, where we shared an outstanding dinner including a poached lobster and seared ahi salad with baby arugula, friseé, shaved fennel, red onions, tomatoes, and citrus vinaigrette and an amazing piece of horseradish crusted halibut over wild mushroom risotto and roasted beets and topped with a four citrus sauce. Mmmmmmm.
Oh yes! And we did see a coral specimen (dead) at the aquarium at the end of Manhattan Pier. Off to Belize tomorrow!
Belize definitely is not as off-the-beaten track as some of my recent travels (such as my Papua New Guinea trip), but this trip is far from run of the mill. Here's a little background of where I'm going and why I'm going there.
When Reaktion Books contracted me to write Coral, I immediately contacted the Smithsonian Institution (SI) to see if I could learn more about the Carrie Bow Field Station on the Meso-American Barrier Reef in Belize. Why? The Carrie Bow Field Station, which is home to the SI's Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems (CCRE) Program's field operations, has been one of the most important places in the world for coral reef research for more than three decades. When Zach Foltz, station manager, invited me to come and shadow four researchers on Carrie Bow for five days, I obviously jumped at the chance.
While most of my time in Belize will be spent on and adjacent to Carrie Bow Cay (which, by the way, is a one acre large island!), I am also incredibly excited to have the chance to blitz down to southern Belize to hopefully observe a very unusual Mayan site. The site, located on Wild Cane Cay, has been studied by Dr. Heather McKillop of Louisiana State University (LSU) and is remarkable for its use of coral as a building material. Did the Maya on this island employ coral for the foundations of some of their buildings to indicate or their status? Or was it simply a pragmatic decision appropriate for a low lying barrier island? Either way, the fact that the Maya here quarried massive brain corals and smaller finger corals to build these foundations certainly makes this a site of interest for Coral.
In terms of logistics, the plan, in short, is to head up to Los Angeles tomorrow evening and spend the night before departing for Belize City (via Dallas) at 6 a.m. the following morning. From Belize City, I will hop a flight to Dangriga, where I will stay at the Pelican Beach Resort for the night before hitching a ride on the weekly supply boat to Carrie Bow Cay the next morning. I will spend the next five nights on Carrie Bow before returning to Dangriga. After a second night at the Pelican Beach Resort, I will hop another flight south to Punta Gorda (PG), where I will meet Dan Castellanos of BlueBelize Guesthouse and Tours. Dan will be my guide as we explore Wild Cane Cay.
It's a quick trip, and it's the final major trip for research on Coral, which is due to the publisher 1 September. If you have any questions or comments about this trip, please feel free to email me at rettalbot@hotmail.com.
