November 2019
Two-week sailing and SCUBA diving trip along the Belize Barrier Reef with the family–me, Ruth, Liam, and Finn.
Ruth and I had visited Belize on a previous sailing/diving trip for our honeymoon in 2001, and returned to some of the same places, but in a little more style. Instead of a small Mayan lobster boat, we chartered a 40 foot catamaran, and for the first time, we went SCUBA diving without a guide/dive boat. Instead, we stocked 25 SCUBA tanks on board, and did our own dives (Liam had just gotten his Open Water Diver certification about a month before).
It was very interesting to see the changes (mainly development) at the same locations compared to 20 years earlier. Mostly it was small islands that had no development at all in 2001, but were built up with visitor facilities, docks, picnic tables, tourist services, and accommodations. While still not too overcrowded, there were definitely more people and more resorts and dive boats.
Like other dive sites and reefs I’ve had the opportunity to visit multiple times over the years (like in the Galapagos, Florida, and especially Hawaii), I also noticed the gradual decline in reef quality and integrity. While there are more protected areas and there is more environmental awareness now, there has also been a huge increase in visitor numbers as well as more ignorance about reef ecology and low impact travel. When I snorkel or dive, I try to observe fairly strict protocols (dropping anchor away from the reef, not standing up on the coral, not getting vertical in the water and kicking up sand, not hassling organisms like the sea turtles and sea lions, not collecting or touching the coral, watching your fin movements, wearing reef safe sunscreen), but even with the best and most conscientious guides (like in the Galapagos), visitors on a day trip don’t adhere to those guidelines, and with larger tourist groups that are unfamiliar with snorkeling and environmental considerations, I see a lot of standing up on the coral and shuffling around (especially if they are having problems with swimming, flotation, or mask fit), getting way to close and even touching coral and organisms mostly to get pictures/selfies, lots of broken coral fragments (from deliberate or accidental kicking), and a lot of sand being kicked up and settling on the coral. Over the years, it has led to noticeable degradation of the reefs. This is exacerbated by beach erosion, sea level rise, increased waste from more development, and the effects of climate change (coral bleaching, acidification, and ocean temperature increases).
