1st Quarter 2006

In January we had a team from UCSD (University of California San Diego) Scripps Institute of Oceanography with us for the month to do research on the rate of coral growth and the human impact over the past 50 years. This is an on-going, important collaboration and a great asset for the work that ReefCI are doing. They are a great team and we worked and played hard together!!! Thanks again to Jessica, Eddy, Brad and Sheila……very interesting month.

Then….in February we had another group here, this time from Scuba Leisure in the UK. What a great couple of weeks, everyone gelled well together and we managed to complete 2 Reef Check surveys, Lobster surveys and conch surveys. The lectures were always hilarious, Nigel’s contributions were invaluable!!!!!! By the way Nigel, next time you come get some prescription lenses!!! Amanda and John….keep up the good work! Sarah and John spent the weekend on the Caye, spending their time fishing, snorkelling and celebrating John’s Birthday which was shortly followed by Sarah’s. Colin thanks for being a great organiser and my buddy for the deep dives! We are all looking forward to the next Scuba Leisure trip…..However, I am not sure that I am looking forward to the cold water dives that I promised to do when I visit you guys in the UK!!!

My over sized South African friend, Arnie visited in February with his mate Russell….loved having you here Arnie….. And Russ….hope you are better now!!!!

We monitored Grouper spawning aggregations during December, January, February and March. We were very lucky to observe 3 aggregations of up to 70 massive black groupers. The spectacle was incredible and has definitely helped us be more prepared for next year.

ReefCI are working very closely with the Belizean Department of Fisheries and Craig is doing lots of work along side them which includes water quality testing, MBRS (Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System) monitoring for fish stocks and fish recruitment, coral and Diadema urchins together with the on-going lobster and conch projects.

ReefCI are sponsoring our local football team, Jah Roots. We got them their kit which they all look fantastic in and they are playing much better now….Good luck for the cup.

We went to our first Belizean wedding in March for Adrianna and Kep….fantastic day and night and can’t believe that they put it all together in an afternoon…by night time there was a marquee, food and music. Everyone danced Punta Rock all night and had a brilliant time.

We had a fantastic weekend in Placencia for Craig’s Birthday…

Alex finished her 6 month contract with us as a very helpful PADI Master Instructor…..thanks Alex and good luck with the future.

Ben and Clayton are now officially qualified PADI Dive Masters….well done to you both and a huge good luck from us all….we will miss you when you finally leave. Both ReefCI and TASTE are very proud of you both.

Drew is doing his IDC and IE in Utila, Honduras at the moment; he is going to then come back as one of our resident PADI Instructors. Not bad from a person who came for a couple of weeks in July last year with 10 dives under his belt……definitely part of the furniture…..

Karen, welcome to ReefCI and you are a huge asset to our team already.

We are so very lucky to be diving in a pretty unexplored area where we never come across any other divers. We have discovered lots of new sites and we thank everyone for their help. This has greatly improved our knowledge of the area and helped us tremendously with our research efforts.

Our annual report is now available on the website.

And finally…….Whale Shark season is here until June or later……look out for the next newsletter…

Polly, founder of ReefCI.