Abalone Caye, Port Honduras Marine Reserve (PHMR) ranger station: an island in the Caribbean, just big enough for a house with a watch tower, a couple of sandy dogs, some palm trees, dive gear, a dock, and a little stretch of sand on either side.

 

It would probably take a minute at the very most to run the entire circumference of the island – and only that long because you have to avoid the multitude of tiny crabs that scurry into their holes as you approach, the tires piled with discarded conch shells as shore breaks to protect the house, and the small mountains of broken coral the tide builds daily. (The shore breaks are a losing battle, as the island has lost about 8 feet of sand in the last 5 years – hello erosion!) To flush the toilet in the house you must first go out the back steps to the ocean and fill up a bucket with seawater, which you then dump in the toilet. The shower is outside on the beach with a door that does not shut fully, the water is a bucket you’ve filled with rainwater, and a coconut husk scoop.

 

I’ve had the pleasure of staying out here for a week long conch survey earlier this summer, and this past week I went back out for two days to participate in a quick survey of hawksbill sea turtle nesting sites, on the Snake Cayes, and then to participate in the water quality monitoring of PHMR.

 

The nesting site survey consists of a lovely walk across the beach looking for a suspiciously deep indentation in the sand, often covered in leaf litter. We found an exciting number of nests, all of whose locations were accordingly recorded on GPS.

 

The next day 3 rangers another volunteer and I spent about 5 hours total conducting water quality sampling at the 17 sites around PHMR that are used in this assessment. It was a choppy day out, so along with water quality samples, I got a very bumpy (and rainy) tour of the perimeter of PHMR. All the way from the Monkey River to the Snake Cayes. And during our lunch break on the island (lunch chef-ed by a culinarily inspired ranger) I got to handle one of the boas that give the Snake Cayes their name! All in all, a very good 2 days. Now back to the office to write some more and work on some mangrove assessments in the lab. There are definitely worse jobs out there.

 

By Avra Heller