Overflights
Perhaps the most intense learning occurs during the two chartered over-flights. A 45 minute “mini over-flight” was added in 2005. This flight initiates from Belize International Airport on the first day of the seminar. Typically, the flight path crosses the Belize River delta, continues along the mainland coastline for about 20 miles, crosses the shelf and numerous shelf reefs then lands at the Placentia airstrip. The mini over-flight gives the participants an early understanding of the size and spatial relationship of the mainland, shelf and barrier reef that contributes to their observations conducted during snorkeling transects across these same environment.
A comprehensive two hour over-flight of the Belize complex is conducted in the middle of the seminar. Our chartered flight takes us over each specific location visited during the first four days. We fly figure “8’s” over each cay so that participants on each side of the plane have several different views of the studied area. After observing the shelf, we cross the barrier and fly to Glovers Reef (an atoll located basinward of the barrier). Passengers are able to quickly distinguish windward and leeward sides of the atoll and speculate on the origin of the many pinnacle reefs located within the atoll lagoon. Returning to the barrier, the flight zigzags north starting at South Water Caye so each participant observes the variability of the reef as induced by changes in depositional processes, sea level changes and spatial relationships of the basinward atolls. We continue northward to Rocky Point where the barrier intersects with land.
Southwater Caye
Rocky Point