Big Finale Friday

The morning began with breakfast and an 8:30 am snorkel.  This snorkel was a true test of all we have learned this week.  We took the boat out to Fish Den, were given a list of sea creatures to find and off we went to find as many as we could in 20 minutes.  We carefully looked for sponges, types of coral, four different invertebrates and six fish.  Harley and Josh came back tied at ten.  Josh won the tie breaker with the coolest find - 10 squid swimming in formation.  After our last snorkel, we returned to Anthony's Key for a quick lunch before heading into town.

Underwater Scavenger Hunt

After lunch, we loaded on to the bus and traveled the short distance to the town of West End.  The group started our town tour with gelato on the beach.  After that, we spread out and started shopping.  Harley bought a hacky sack that says Roatan on it.  Josh bought a hammock (we've been hearing about how he wanted one all week).  Sarah bought a turtle t-shirt and Ashlee found a turtle bag.

After hunting down all of our souvenirs, we were treated to a tour of Mr. and Mrs. Galindo's gardens. Don Julio Galindo is the owner of the resort.  He told us "don't expect too much", but the 2 hour tour was amazing nonetheless!  The Galindo's walked us around their 16 acre gardens, with over 100 different species of palm tree.  Don Julio made quite an impression on the boys.  He took them aside,asked about their futures and walked them over to a coconut tree.  The "men" returned with twelve coconuts in tow.  Mr. Galindo proceeded to open the coconuts with his machete, offering each of us fresh coconut water to drink.

Cashew Fruit

Mr Galindo Cutting the coconuts.

Mrs. Galindo after receiving our donations for the bilingual school.

Mrs. Galindo was pleased to show her amazing hybrid hibiscus garden.  Many of the flowers were as big as a dinner plate!  She also couldn't wait to show us all of the fruit trees growing in their garden.  We tasted locust, cashew fruit, and other interesting fruits.  We were also treated to the pungent smells of lemongrass, clove, cinnamon, cliantro, ylang ylang, sage, and plumeria.  Mrs. Galindo also explained that soursop and noni fruit are used as a natural chemotherapy medicines.  

Another interesting plant growing in their garden is the miracle fruit bush.  Mr. Galindo gave each of us a lime wedge to taste.  It was very sour!  Then, Mrs. Galindo gave each of us the miracle fruit.  It did not taste that good!  But then, we re-tasted the lime and low and behold, the miracle fruit made it taste sweet.   I guess we know how it got its name.  We were extremely grateful for the time the Galindos spent with us.  They went over and above the duties of resort hosts.  We really thank them for taking time out of their day to share their lovely gardens with us, it was one of the most special parts of our trip.

We returned to the resort for dinner. Following our last journaling session with Mrs. Dole, we set up a ping pong tournament.

Fun Filled Thursday

Greetings from the chaperones!

Elizabeth Kent, Julie Palmer, Jennifer Palmer, Hazel Wodehouse, Sarah Mueller, Lisa Brosnick

The day started out hot and rainy.  After another delicious Honduran breakfast (eggs, ham, avocado, beans, and tortillas) we began our fun filled day with a lecture on mangroves.  We all learned how important the mangroves are to the health of the reef.  We also learned about the many adaptations the mangroves have to help them survive.  Our mangrove lecture was followed by a mangrove snorkel.  We returned to Blue Harbor to snorkel the mangroves around Man O War Key.  This is a difficult snorkel and all of our beginners did a fabulous job using good snorkel technique to keep the visibility good. We saw several juvenile fish, 5 lion fish hanging out under a ledge, arrow carbs feeding, tunicates and beautiful feather-duster worms.

Arrow crab in Mangrove Roots

Tube worm in mangroves

Following the mangrove snorkel, we headed back into Blue Harbor, the most beautiful place on Earth.  Jennifer (our biologist) collected an encrusting algae for us to break apart on the boat.

Sarah Gawlak with brittle star

Josh and Harley holding brittle star, boat lab

As we started to break apart this algae, the most amazing creatures were found living in every crack and crevice.  Some of our favorite finds include a conch fish, bumblebee shrimp, brittle stars, a mantis shrimp and even a octopus!  Harley even remarked that this little chunk of algae was its own mini ecosystem!  How right he was.  We returned all of our finds back into the water and headed home for lunch.

Ashlee Hohman with Polly

Harley Mehnert with Tilly

After a replenishing meal of seafood, we returned to our aquatic activities. We headed over to Bailey's Key to train dolphins. But we realized quickly that it was not the dolphins being educated. These amazingly intelligent sea mammals have just as much to teach us. Teri Bolten, the woman who runs the dolphin training program, gave us a special behind the scenes experience. She answered student questions about the delicate nature of working with dolphin behavior. These trainers build real emotional and meaningful relationships with the animals. The level of trust is astonishing. Teri demonstrated the cognitive behavior to "create," with 2 pairs of dolphins. One special hand gesture and the pair use their big brains to collaborate and do a brand new behavior sequence. When it was our turn to try, we were each given a different hand gesture to elicit a varied display of dance moves, high fives, whistles, tail slaps, and songs. Upon our applause and a fish tossed from the trainer, the dolphins laughed and giggled, pleased with themselves for impressing us. They truly enriched our lives. Perhaps one or two of us have fallen in love and will return to befriend one of these magnificent beasts.

Wet 'n Wild Wednesday

Day 4 in paradise was jam-packed, but a lot of fun! We started our day with breakfast and then enjoyed a lecture on one of our favorite creatures-sea turtles! We were told that the presentation would be good luck for us in our snorkeling adventures, so hopefully we will see one in our last couple of days here. After our lecture, we got on the boat for our first snorkel of the day. Our boat ride proved to be very interesting as we got to see some flying fish along the way! The snorkel site we stopped at was the Blue Harbor Back Reef on the back of Anthony's Key. On this snorkel, we were given nets with which we could catch some organisms we find. In the end, we ended up with quite the collection! Together, we found sea stars, conch, sea biscuits, sand dollars, and even a rare sea slug! There was also a little octopus hidden within a conch shell, but he was not alive when we found him. We had the opportunity to hold and observe each of these organisms closely before releasing them. We even had a fun time collecting and identifying species of fish during our snorkel. Most of us saw four-eyed butterfly fish, squirrel fish, parrot fish, and some of us even spotted a majestic eagle ray!

Conch with a giant hermit crab!

Little octopus we found

After our collecting, snorkeling excursion, we headed back to Anthony's Key where most of us had delicious chicken quesadillas for lunch. We had a little bit of time before our next snorkel, so some of us decided to check out the gift shop and explore the island while others opted for a game or two of ping-pong. Then it was time to go back on the boat again. We headed over to another snorkel site known as Deep Water Eel Garden. The water was very rough, so we did not stay in for too long, which is unfortunate because I thought that the coral there was very beautiful! We saw many schools of blue tangs, chubs, black durgons, blue-striped grunts, and comb jellies (everywhere!). 

Examining our collection

Once we got back to Anthony's Key, we showered and got dressed up for an evening fiesta! But before we went, we settled in for a lecture on another one of our favorite creatures-dolphins! We all enjoyed learning about their anatomy, intelligence, and ability to echo-locate. Then, at happy hour, it was time for the fiesta. We took a boat taxi to the other side of the Key and enjoyed some more "cocktails" before the festivities began. While we waited for food, some of us started tossing a frisbee back and forth with a boy we befriended a few days ago named Theodore. Then we all sat down to dinner consisting of ribs, sea bass, potatoes, and beans. The festivities soon began with a hermit crab race! We each picked our own crabs and even opted to name them. But neither Carl, Eugene, Bartholomew or Sebastian won from our group. Next, there was a limbo contest. Harley and I got very close to winning but unfortunately fell short. But little Theodore was crowned the limbo king. Shortly afterwards, some local dancers came to perform for us and really gave us a taste of Honduran culture. It was in that moment as we watched the dancers in their colorful outfits and listened to the melody of the drums that we began to embrace the culture and take everything in. It truly was a moment that none of us will forget as we haven´t seen anything like it before. But the fun wasn´t over just yet. Our last festivity of the night was a dance competition. Most of us participated, and everyone emerged victorious. The whole night was an amazing experience!

Harley dancing the night away!

Mom and Dad: Thanks for commenting and letting me know you both are looking at the blog! Hahaha...Just wanted you to know that I´m having fun and look forward to sharing all of my experiences when I come home!

-Sarah

Today's News from Roatan.

First dive of the day

Hello Eagle Nation this is Josh Schmit here with your news from Roatan about Tuesday April 11th. Today we woke up like any other day to the birds chirping and the nice tropical breeze blowing. For breakfast I had a ham and cheese omelet with a side of bacon, cinnamon rolls and fruit with orange juice. Once we were done with breakfast, we headed down to the classroom area for a lecture on corals. This was a pretty interesting lecture because we got to see the names of all the things that we had seen on all of our snorkeling trips so far. Once the lecture was done, we went out to the boat and got ready for our first snorkel trip of the day. For this trip, we went to a reef called Peter's Place.
This was a pretty cool dive and we saw lots of fish that we talked about in the fish lecture the night before. We saw a black durgon, sea urchin, trumpet fish and even a barracuda.

Black Durgon

Sea urchin

When we were finished with that dive, we went back to the island for a little relaxing by the pool before lunch. For lunch, I had a Cuban Sandwich that had pork, cheese and pickles on it. We had a little more downtime before the next snorkel. Harley and I decided to go down to the clubhouse to play ping pong....he beat me 7 times. By the time we were done with that we had to go to the next snorkel dive and we went out to the northeastern side of the island. This time we saw a school of blue tang fish with trumpet fish mixed in. We also saw lots of knobby brain coral and all different colors of parrot fish.We had yet another lecture when we returned from snorkeling and this one was about the invertebrates of the reef. This was a day jammed pack with activities and we weren't done yet because we were going night snorkeling. This was probably my favorite snorkel of the trip so far because it was so cool to see all of the fish that are mainly out at night.

Lobster

We saw lobsters, crabs, and even a shrimp. We got back just in time for dinner which was grilled sea bass and rice. Well that's your news for the day for the NCMBC trip this is Josh Schmit signing off.

Best Monday In A Long Time

After a good night's sleep we all woke up to beautiful warm weather. It was not too hot with a slight breeze, breakfast woke me up with some delicious mango, fresh orange juice (lots of pulp), frosted flakes and a ham and cheese omelet.

After Breakfast, the sun was shining much brighter and the reality of being on a tropical island set in. We then walked down to the dock and boarded a water taxi. We rode the water taxi to Bailey´s Key where all the dolphins are trained. Once we got to the island a worker explained some stuff we needed to know before going in the water and experiencing the dolphins. The small key, the home of the dolphins was also inhabited by some stray cats, but the cats were not like the mangy cats we would find at a dairy farm back home. The cats were very clean and looked healthy. I was told they were also fixed so there weren't a million running around. We suited up for the water and waded in about 10 feet from the shore where we met a dolphin named Polly and her trainer, Brooke. The trainer talked about Polly while showing us a lot of cool stuff she  could do, like make different noises with her blowhole, swim really fast, jump super high in the air.  We even got to pet the Dolphin and pose for pictures with her. After the pictures were done, we put our snorkel gear on and swam with them watching them underwater, It was unreal.

Polly and her trainer

Once we finished our Dolphin experience, we got on a boat and headed for Maya Key, On the way to the key, we stopped at Mandy´s Eel Garden which is great beginner reef to snorkel at off the shore of mainland Roatan. The water was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom through 10-15 ft of water. The sand was white and the fish and coral was beautiful.

We finished our snorkel and rode the boat the rest of the way to Maya Key. Once again it was very hot outside and it didn't take long to dry off on the boat. We arrived to the destination and once we got off the boat we went to lunch. We followed a pathway through tropical trees and warm sand up to an eating area with tables to sit at, scenery to look at, and food to eat. They had a buffet style setting, It wasn't like the Chinese buffet I'm used to at home, this was a Caribbean buffet. They served fried sea bass which tasted so good I had three servings of it.  They also had ¨fall off the bone¨ island BBQ chicken. While eating lunch two spiny tailed iguanas appeared next to our table and started asserting there dominance through a series of dancing head movements. After eating lunch, we explored the key, There was a lot of exhibits displaying rescue animals such as Tropical birds, monkeys, crocodiles, and even a jaguar. We also relaxed on the beach, visited replica ancient Mayan ruins and threw a Frisbee around on the beach. The boat ride back to Anthony's Key was even better than the ride in  the morning, the water was much smoother.

Photo creds: Mrs.Palmer

 




After arriving back to the resort, we had a lecture about identifying different fish around the island while snorkeling. Once the lecture was finished, we enjoyed virgin cocktails and ate dinner while watching the tropical sunset. For dinner I ate sauteed calamari and vegetable soup. This blog is concluding my wonderful Monday here in Roatan, Honduras. Have fun in the Ruff Buff.

Hello from Roatan!

Josh, Ashlee, Sarah & Jennifer riding water taxi

This is our home for the week!

After a long day of adventures in Toronto yesterday, we were up bright and early at 4 o’clock this morning for our flight.  We got to Dallas no problem and shortly after we were off to Roatan. When we got to Roatan, there was no terminal to get off rather a set of stairs that dropped us right onto the runway. We waited in line to go through customs and then we were off to Anthony’s Key.

When we arrived at Anthony’s Key, we registered and ate a quick lunch. The food they have here is delicious. Our choices for lunch were tilapia with rice or salads. After eating lunch, we retired to our rooms to get into some clothes more appropriate for the heat here in Roatan. The group then wandered down to the boat taxi which took us on a quick ride to Anthony’s Key.
We walked to the other end of the key where we had our first snorkel experience. Mr. Dole took us around the perimeter of the key and we saw so many cool creatures. We saw a spiny lobster, christmas tree worm, spaghetti worm, and Mrs. Brosnick even found a banded coral shrimp that she pointed out to us. We also saw lots of vase coral and brain coral. There were sharp-nose pufferfish everywhere, lots of different kinds of parrotfish and I even found a lionfish, which are an invasive species to the Caribbean.

They have a long day planned for us tomorrow! We get our first encounter with the dolphins and we are visiting Maya Key.

-Ashlee Hohman

P.S Hope everything is good at home, love and miss you mom and dad… and Scott too.

Finally Here in Paradise

After two full days of travel (planes, trains and automobiles) we finally arrived in Roatan!  More from the students after lecture and a delicious dinner.

Toronto

Mrs. BrosnickApril 8, 2017 at 9:44 PM

We are all safe and sound in our Toronto airport hotel. After a full day of travel, we had a lovely dinner in downtown Toronto. Harley and Josh are playing pool in the hotel lobby. Sarah and Ashlee love the cloud like beds at this hotel. Although we are disappointed to miss a day in Roatan, visiting the big city was fun, too!

More fish...

Smallmouth Grunts at Fish Den (great snorkel spot)

Adult Spotted Drum

Spotted Drum but a juvenile

Hi, from Roatan

The weather has been very hot (97 in the shade) but forecast to be cooler (mid 80s) next week. Here are a few photos from our first day in the water...

Creole Wrasse

Peacock Flounder

Sharpnose Pufferfish

Secretary Blenny

Mantis Shrimp

Christmas Tree Worm

Counting the days until we travel to AKR and the Roatan Institute for Marine Science!