The long road to Carrie Bow Caye, Belize

Today, we travelled to Belize to start harvesting the experiments we initiated at six different locations in the Western Atlantic Ocean one year ago. Of course, we were in for an early morning (you haven't lived if you've never woken up to a 3.30am alarm) to catch our flight out of cold, windy, and snowy Washington, but a few stops (Miami and Belize City) and very achy legs later (I swear that aircraft seats are getting smaller and smaller every year), we made it to Pelican Beach Resort in Dangriga, Belize (minus two of our bags, which managed to sneak away and caught a later flight out of Belize City -- cheeky little buggers). From there, it was only a very rough, very wet boat-ride (think rodeo plus garden hose) to get to Carrie Bow Caye, perhaps one of the most beautiful research stations in the world -- if not, at least the world's most interestingly situated toilet (see photo below).

 

 

Weary from the travel (and the significant lack of sleep the night before), we (and by that I mean definitely not myself) managed to unpack most of our gear and successfully retrieve the goodies that were left behind from our last trip. Ergo, come tomorrow morning, we will be able to start re-visiting the dock pilings we set up last year and play with poor, unsuspecting fishes. I'm very excited to see the results of our manipulations (although as previously, I will steer clear from sampling the pilings around the outhouse!!). Stay tuned for updates tomorrow (presuming the 90s style internet connection on CBC will actually permit me to share those updates).