BELIZE 2009
My trip to Belize was slightly abbreviated this year in anticipation of racing a new boat this summer. Sadly, I should have stayed in Belize, as the boat is not going to make it into the water until when I would normally have returned home, but I digress before I even start. It was again the usual surf and turf program of diving and excavations at the ancient Maya ruin of Uxbenka.
Diving was particularly spectacular this year. Not the absolute best dive ever, but many very high caliber close encounters with large animals living on the reef. I swam into a shoal of two or three dozen tarpon, all of them bigger than I am. If I had not been so awed, I might have had the good sense to be frightened. The next day we drifted through a feeding area that was incredibly active and diverse. There were huge shoals of everything from small fry to small shoals of large jacks, snappers, and barracudas. There were big angle fish and god knows what else, all swimming around me and feeding. I have seen similar things, but nothing quite of this scale. I drifted through it for easily 10 to 15 minutes. Then there were the turtles. I saw several species. Hawksbill and Green are the only two I recognized, but there were six or seven of them over four dives, one that came close enough that I reached out and touched the back of its shell.
Inland, Uxbenka was what I actually went to Belize to do. I caught up with most of my friends on the project and made some new ones. Some absent friends that didn’t make it back were sorely missed. We had a bunch of new toys to play with the year. There is a portion of the site hypothesized to be a market area that was the focus of investigations in the site core. We were taking soil samples for phosphorus testing and setting up a lab in the field to do the chemical analysis. I am not sure if we are going to get good results, but it has turned up some promising information at other sites. It is definitely cool to be doing that kind of lab work in the field. The project also acquired a portable XRF machine. It uses x-rays to analyze the chemical makeup of objects. They used it to source obsidian and examine speleothems…I used it to examine my PB&J samich (not really, but I though about it). Unfortunately, I left before we got very far with the excavations. The most spectacular thing I came across was a virtually intact plaster floor about 75 cm below the surface and underneath several subsequent floors. It is not clear how early the floor is, but it fits with the general pattern at the site of at least three major building episodes, the earliest dating to somewhere around A.D. 250 (I think).
On a personal note: I was heartily and tragically incorrect when I insisted that there was not enough rum in Belize to get me to sing karaoke (thankfully there was no dancing involved); enough said. I had great fun and expect to return again next season.
Diving was particularly spectacular this year. Not the absolute best dive ever, but many very high caliber close encounters with large animals living on the reef. I swam into a shoal of two or three dozen tarpon, all of them bigger than I am. If I had not been so awed, I might have had the good sense to be frightened. The next day we drifted through a feeding area that was incredibly active and diverse. There were huge shoals of everything from small fry to small shoals of large jacks, snappers, and barracudas. There were big angle fish and god knows what else, all swimming around me and feeding. I have seen similar things, but nothing quite of this scale. I drifted through it for easily 10 to 15 minutes. Then there were the turtles. I saw several species. Hawksbill and Green are the only two I recognized, but there were six or seven of them over four dives, one that came close enough that I reached out and touched the back of its shell.
Inland, Uxbenka was what I actually went to Belize to do. I caught up with most of my friends on the project and made some new ones. Some absent friends that didn’t make it back were sorely missed. We had a bunch of new toys to play with the year. There is a portion of the site hypothesized to be a market area that was the focus of investigations in the site core. We were taking soil samples for phosphorus testing and setting up a lab in the field to do the chemical analysis. I am not sure if we are going to get good results, but it has turned up some promising information at other sites. It is definitely cool to be doing that kind of lab work in the field. The project also acquired a portable XRF machine. It uses x-rays to analyze the chemical makeup of objects. They used it to source obsidian and examine speleothems…I used it to examine my PB&J samich (not really, but I though about it). Unfortunately, I left before we got very far with the excavations. The most spectacular thing I came across was a virtually intact plaster floor about 75 cm below the surface and underneath several subsequent floors. It is not clear how early the floor is, but it fits with the general pattern at the site of at least three major building episodes, the earliest dating to somewhere around A.D. 250 (I think).
On a personal note: I was heartily and tragically incorrect when I insisted that there was not enough rum in Belize to get me to sing karaoke (thankfully there was no dancing involved); enough said. I had great fun and expect to return again next season.
posted by TOC | 10:16 PM
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