Treasures! Glover's Reef Atoll - Belize Day 6 by Wayne & Karen Brown

Avadon Divers took us on a two hour boat ride to Glover's Reef. Both Anne-Marie and her brother Philip went along on this all-day dive trip. And their divemasters, Sean, Gieri, and Jerome went too.

Glovers Reef is an coral atoll named after the pirate John Glover. He was an English pirate who hid among the tiny islands that dot the reef, and waited for Spanish ships to come along so that he could plunder them. Some people say that there is buried treasure on the islands. We found lots of treasure, but not lost pirate treasure. We found the beautiful natural treasure, the animals who live on the coral reef.

Glover's Reef is the southernmost of Belize's three atolls, and it is the smallest. It is 20 miles long and 7 miles wide. If you look at Glover's Reef from outer space, it looks like a huge pearl necklace. Inside the necklace is the lagoon. The deepest part of the lagoon is only 50 feet deep. The lagoon is surrounded by the coral reef which comes very close to the surface and then drops off steeply to over 3000 feet!

We had a chance to dive at Glover's Reef three times today. The water was warm and crystal clear. It was so clear we could see the other divers who were over 100 feet away. The seas were calm so it was a beautiful day to dive.

We saw lots of colorful reef fish like queen angelfish and blue tangs and creole wrasse. We also saw some big barracuda. They like to sneak up on you and show their big sharp teeth. But we know they are just curious and won't attack.

And -- we saw a turtle! It was a hawksbill turtle, about two feet long. It just swam slowly past us along the edge of the atoll drop-off. Hawksbills like to eat sponges that grow on the reef. Sponges taste so bad that very few other animals will eat them.

But the most exciting animals that we saw today were three spotted eagle rays, swimming together. They have a funny-looking dog-like head and beautiful yellow spots on their back and an extremely long tail. They are related to sharks and are totally harmless. They don't have a stinger on their tails as other sting rays do. They looked so graceful as they swam along together. They were the perfect ending to a day full of treasures under the sea.

Tomorrow we are back in Gladden Spit looking for more whale sharks!

Best fishes,
Wayne & Karen Brown

Position: 16º 45' N / 87º 47' W
Air Temp: 87ºF
Weather: light breeze, sunny with scattered clouds and calm seas.
Water Temp: 83ºF

Glover's Reef is an atoll with small islands around the edge like pearls on a necklace.

Karen is looking inside a gigantic barrel sponge that is bigger than she is!

This hawksbill sea turtle swam over to check us out!


We saw these large spotted-eagle rays cruising along the edge of the drop-off.

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