pez maya magazine vol. 1, issue 3

magazine

Behind the Science

coral identity criSiS

rayS for dayS

ogling the oSpray

the plaStic iSland

Be a hero Become a reScue diver

the BendS

the Wonderful World of regulatorS

the Story of empanada, part 2

the BraveSt race

SharkS! their ocean not our SWimming pool

Contents A Pez Maya Publication

Facebook: GVI Mexico Yucatan

GVI Dive Academy

Twitter:@gvi_mexico

Instagram:gvitravel

Publisher

Andy Ez

Editors Andy Ezeta Jodie Savage

Sam Wilson

Contributors Andy Ez

Sam Wilson Kerry Passingham

Jim Clark Eugene Beery Jodie Savage

Emilia MurcottAdam Dugmore

Craig JessopSteffanie Ransom

Photography Editor and Illustrator

Andy Ez

PhotographersAndy Ez

Alejandro DúranMarine M. Vasseur

Coralpidea

Pez Maya Magazine Third Quarter 2015 Vol 1 Issue 3

2 You are the Difference

3 Behind the Science

5 Coral Identity Crisis

7 Rays for Days

9 Sharks, Their Ocean Not Our Swimming Pool

11 Ogling the Ospray

12 Creatures of Pez Maya

14 The Plastic Island

16 Be a Hero, Become a Rescue Diver

17 The Bends

18 The Wonderful World of Regulators

20 The Bravest Race

21 The Story of Empanada, Part 2

22 The Pez Puzzler

The Pez Maya Magazine is published every 3 months by the GVI Mexico - Pez Maya team. This is and always will be a free publication. Copyright GVI.2015

Cover photo by Andy Ez: Staff Training Dive

1•Pez Maya Magazine •2015

Contents Global Vision International (GVI) is a multi-award winning social enterprise that runs high impact volunteer and international education programs.

For more than 15 years GVI has helped thousands of people make a real difference to the world they live in while also gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to live and work in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world.

We began more than 15 years ago with a simple mission: To work hand in hand with local communities, NGO’s and government organisations to facilitate real change on the ground while also giving our participants the opportunity to grow personally and professionally.

It’s an undertaking we’ve been proud to pursue in over 25 countries, through 450 programs and by the support of over 25,000 participants and we

are thankful to all past present and future volunteers.

you are the difference


Andy Ez

BehindtheScience By Sam Wilson

This time around we will be looking at a site we have not managed to visit since 2006!La Colonia, a 10 and 20 meter site, right off the coast of a local fishing village called Punta Allen. This site is around 20 kilometres from Pez Maya, and with our boats being relatively small, weather conditions here often make it nearly im-possible to visit this particular monitoring site.

Until now!

To be honest most of the reason we had not attempted it recently is because no one working here currently knew any-thing about the drive there, and we seemed to be lacking on notes from previous visits. There was talk of hiring external boats out of Punta Allen, however fortunately we are a pretty incredible team and managed to work our magic, and drive ourselves down there and monitor two sites in just three trips. Anyone who has been with us before will know this is a fairly impressive feat by itself! But enough about how good we are, what about the science! Well let’s have a look at how the site has been doing since its first records in 2004 through to 2015.

These first graphs show us the number of corals per metre for each site. Typically the shallower sites always show a small-er number of total colonies, and this, as we can see is still reflected in La Colonia between LC10 & LC20. Now something shown in these graphs that is very inter-esting is the activity over the years, cor-relating with a few major events that we can attribute to certain changes.

Now we all know that hurricanes cause a lot of damage, we see their effects on land in the form of homes wrecked, coastlines trashed, and thousands of people affect-ed for months if not years.

But what about the reefs?

Coral reefs, along with mangrove sys-tems, actually reduce a large amount of the hurricanes impact through the ab-sorption of its energy. This is unfortu-nately in the form of physical impact to the coral reef and mangroves however, and depending on the strength of the storms, can devastate coral communities. From this it is important for us to learn about the recovery time of our coral communities. It’s been recorded that reef recovery times are significantly slow-er than previous decades due to climate change and increase in diseases.


Graph 1. Coral cover displayed as individual colonies per meter, using the Coral Communities methodology for La Colonia 10 meters site (LC10)

Graph 2. Coral cover displayed as individual colonies per meter, using the Coral Communities methodology for La Colonia 20 meters site (LC20)

But back to the hurricanes. In 2004, a large number of hurricanes were generated over the Caribbean. None of these made landfall in Mexico, but could have led to several changes that left the coral communities more susceptible to fu-ture damage. Some sites, such as LC20, did actually show a reduction in percentage coral cover as shown in Graph 4.

The most significant change happens in 2005. Hurricane Emily, followed a few months later by hurricane Wilma devastated the Yucatan peninsula. This is reflected by our visits to La Colonia in 2006, after the hurricanes. As all the graphs 1 & 2 show, there was a major drop in coral numbers following the 2005 hurricane season.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at how the balance in the community was affected:

Looks a bit different now doesn’t it!

Not quite as simple as a drop in coral numbers. Graph 3 & 4 show what is known as a phase shift on a reef system. It means that during the hurricanes the number of coral colonies was reduced, and as corals take much longer to recov-er the algae simply took over the abundance of available space that was opened up.

But why has this not happened before? Surely coral reefs have always been affected by hurricanes, why change now? Well the answer to that is a little complex, but the simple fact is it’s likely we are the cause. Through pollution, climate change, and overfishing we have severely reduced the health of our reef systems: specifically, their ability to recover from natural phenomena like hurricanes.

With more diseases, higher acidity and temperature rise we have greatly compromised the corals ability to grow. On top of this, overfishing has led to a significant reduction in our herbivorous fish here in the Sian Ka’an (namely parrot fish), which used to feed heavily on algae, thereby reducing the competition between algae and coral for space.

Thanks to the combination of all these factors we are now looking at an algae dominant reef, and as we are learning from our previous years of data, the reef didn’t always look that way.

We are getting excited about reviewing all of our sites and finally reporting back on ten years of data from the Sian Ka’an, this is just taste of the delicious science we hope to report on.

So stay tuned!


Graph 3. Percentage cover comparison between Coral and Macroalgae, using the Point Intercept methodology for La Co-

lonia 10 meters site (LC10)

Graph 4. Percentage cover comparison between Coral and Macroalgae, using the Point Intercept methodology for La Co-

lonia 20 meters site (LC20)

Coral Identity Crisis

Genetic research has greatly advanced the study of speciation (the measure by which animals become different enough to be considered a new species), but it can also be the cause of endless frustration to scientists in the field.This year we have seen a lot of our species change in the scientific literature, and most of our referencing sites which we use for the maintenance of our species lists reflect this change. On top of this, our environment is not set in stone (well … actually, corals are literally set in stone… but, you get the point), and new species can appear over a number of years before they are officially recognized as being established. In our case, we have actually discovered several “cryptic species” on our reef, species that until now were thought to belong to groups already being recorded, due to being incredibly visually similar. It’s vital that a research base such as ours keep up to date with both of these kinds of changes, to remain a relevant source of coral reef information for our partners and for

anyone else who wishes to partner with us in future.

By Sam Wilson

Altered Species

Agaricia agaricites___________Undaria agaricites

Agaricia tenuifolia___________Undaria tenuifolia

Montastraea annularis ________Orbicella annularis

Montastraea faveolata ________Orbicella faveolata

Montastraea franksi__________Orbicella franksi

So let`s give you a quick run-down of what we are look-ing at and why these particular individuals have changed their names. Spoiler alert: it`s not because the corals did-n`t like their original names.

Cryptic Species

Meandrina jacksonii (Similar species – Meandrina meandrites)

Undaria humilis (Similar species – Undaria agaricites)


To start, Agaricia genus have been split due to a difference in their growth strategies. True Agaricia (i.e. A. lamarki, A. grahamae, A. undaria and A. fragilis) typically only have one face. That is to say, that their pol-yps only grow on the upperside of the plate, not on both sides. The now named Undaria genus however are bi-facial - they grow with polyps on both sides of the plates, usually due to the fact that they grow upwards al-lowing them to receive light on both sides.

The Montastraea genus is slightly simpler. Three of our species have changed to Orbi-cella, but this is owed only to the fact that M. cavernosa is now considered the only true Montastraea. Anyone who has seen this group will understand, you can see the size difference in the polyps shown in the pictures opposite.

Now for the sneaky cryptic species. These individuals have been hiding amongst our regular target list for a few years now, but scientific literature has finally given us some visual clues to distinguish them from one another.

As with everything coral related, it takes time to distinguish species, whether you are learning them from scratch or have spent years studying them. So even we are not en-tirely confident in differentiating these new species from the original ones.

However, if you look at the photos of Me-andrina spp. on the right, you can see the kinds of differences that we will be looking for. For example, M. meandrites has thicker ridges, with less spacing between them than the M jacksonii.

So there you have it! Our wonderful new list. Now we as science officers get all the fun of attempting to learn these new species, then convincing all the other staff and volunteers that they are different!

We won`t be adding them into our species list quite yet, but we will have to be ready and able to include them in our 2016 data set.

It’s this constant shift in what we think we know that makes being open minded so important in science, even long term bases like us need to constantly re-assess what we think we are looking at.

So if you take anything away from this article let it be this; never assume that everything you read is en-tirely supported, always check multiple sources, and be prepared to change your point of view when pre-

sented with evidence that contradicts what you think you know.

Meandrina meandrites Meandrina jacksonii

Montastrea cavernosa Montastrea franksi

NOW- Orbicella franksi

Agaricia lamarcki Agaricia tenuifolia

NOW- Undaria Tenuifolia


Here at Pez Maya our main focus when it comes to monitoring and data collec-tion is the MBRS SMP (Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System; Synoptic Monitoring Program). This is the fish and coral data we collect for our partners, Amigos de Sian Ka’an, and the primary reason the Pez Maya hub was started. However, as scientists, naturalists, and just folk generally interested in the natural world and conservation we gather data on just about everything we can! Since we spend so much time in the water, we regularly see animals that aren’t recorded on our tran-sects, and these are often the one’s that excite us most; Rays, moray eels, turtles, sharks and dolphins are among our favourite sightings. The presence and abun-dance of these animals also tells us about the health of the reef ecosystem, making them important to record. In this article I will focus on the rays we see at Pez, and how to identify them.

Rays for DaysBy Emilia Murcott


Andy Ez

First off, what is a ray? Rays are fish of the superorder Batoidea, that have a cartilaginous skeleton, and are closely related to sharks. They have flattened bodies and large pectoral fins fused along the length of their bodies and heads which they use for swimming. They typically have five gill slits located ventrally along with their mouth on the underside, while their eyes and spiracles (used for drawing in water for breathing) are on their dorsal side. Rays are predatory, and are typically bottom-feeders consuming a wide variety of prey including molluscs, crustaceans, and fish, but a few are specialized planktivores. Here at Pez Maya we observe five different species of rays in four families.

Whip-tail stingrays (family Dasyatidae) are found in tropical to temperate marine environments throughout the world, as well as in some freshwater environments. Their bodies are typically round with a long, thin tail that has one or more venomous spines used for defence. These rays are ben-thic and can often be seen buried in the sand, rummaging for food. They are fairly unconcerned of divers, but bolt away when approached too closely. Stingrays are our most common ray sighting, with the southern stingray and the Caribbean whiptail stingray occurring in the area. These two are fairly similar looking due to their large size (reaching over 1.5m) and both species come in a range of colours from olive brown to grey to black with a pale underside. The easiest way to distinguish between them is by their body shape, known as the disc. The Southern stingray is diamond-shaped, with distinct points at the front of the head and wingtips. The disc of the Caribbean whiptail stingray, however, is round and relatively flattened at the front of the head.

The yellow stingray (family Urotrygonidae) is a much smaller species of ray compared to those de-scribed above, with a maximum width of 36cm. This species exhibits the same behaviour of burying itself in the sand while rooting for molluscs and fish. The disc is almost completely round, and while there is great variety in the colour and markings, typically the dorsal side is yellowish brown with pale and dark spots and blotches, with a pale underside. The yellow stingray has the ability to change colour and become darker or lighter to blend in with its surroundings. The tail differs from that of the whip-tail stingrays in that it is relatively short, has a caudal fin at the tip and a single venomous spine.

Superficially similar to the yellow stingray is the lesser electric ray (family Narcinidae), growing to a comparable size or slightly wider. This species is also typically seen lying on sandy patches between reef spurs. The dorsal surface is grey to brown and often has dark blotches. The disc is almost com-pletely round; however, the tail is notably different from that of the yellow stingray. The tail of the lesser electric ray is distinctly thick at the base and has two dorsal fins as well as a caudal fin. Electric rays use their thick tails for swimming rather than their pectoral fins as most rays do. The tail also lacks any venomous spines and instead this species uses electricity for defence, as well as to stun prey. They have two electric organs running the length of the disc from behind the eyes to the rear. If touched, they can deliver a mild shock of 14-37 volts. For comparison, the shock you might get from a car batter could give you around 12 volts; so while it won`t harm you, but you would certainly notice it!

The spotted eagle ray (family Myliobatidae) is a free-swimming stingray, meaning that it is primarily seen swimming through the water rather than resting on the sand. It is easily recognised by the way in which it appears to “fly” using its pectoral fins, which are lengthened compared to most other rays. Another distinctive feature is the markings: the dorsal side is dark with bright white spots and/or circles, and the underside is white. The head protrudes from the disc, though the mouth is located on the underside as this ray is also a bottom feeder. The long, thin tail has one to five venomous spines on it, again used for defence only. Spotted eagle rays are large, with a wingspan of up to 2.5m. They are not a common sighting at Pez but seeing one of these graceful giants on a dive will certainly make your day! They are closely related to manta rays, which unfortunately we haven’t seen on our reef, as the species is mainly oceanic. Manta rays can reach a colossal size of 7m from wing-tip to wing-tip.

Spotted eagle rays also share a characteristic behaviour with the rest of their family, whereby they are seen jumping from the water, launching themselves several meters into the air. This behaviour has been attributed to several motivations: 1. A good way to escape predators is to launch through the air, as there is less resistance and they are momentarily out of sight of their predator; 2. Mating rituals often involve displays of strength and stamina, here the highest jumping individual, or the ray that “flies” for longer may win mating rights above others; 3. A more simple explanation could simply be that they are attempting to scratch parasites off their back by slapping back into the water upside down!

Early into their stay here, our volunteers are trained up in how to recognise and distinguish be-tween these species of rays. As a diver, being knowledgeable about your surroundings adds a great deal to your enjoyment of a dive, and also increases your awareness enabling you to see even more interesting creatures! Ray sightings are added to our Incidental Sightings database, which we use as a means of recording what species of megafauna occur in the area, in what abundances they occur, and whether this is changing. Additionally, we input our shark and ray sightings to the Shark Obser-vation Network, an online database which can be added to by any registered parties and is used by a number of organisations around the world. This is just one of the many ways we collect and share data about our ocean, in the hope to understand it and ultimately preserve it.


Andy Ez

A girl growing up in the second biggest city in the UK, the furthest from the sea in any direction, I did not really have an understanding of the importance of sharks until later in life. I remember watching Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws (way too young and definitely under the age limit!!), and being on holiday in Cyprus and not wanting to get in the water due to fear of being attacked. Despite this I still chose to study Marine Geography and went off on my merry way to University and learnt all about the marine and coastal ecosystems of England and then further afield.

One of the first elements of my education talk-ed about the succession of the food chain – the transfer of energy and nutrients within an ecosystem, typically starting from a plant, which is then eaten by a small animal, which is in turn eaten by a larger ani-mal and so on up the chain until you reach the Apex predator. The Apex predator is an animal, where as an adult, has no natural predators within its ecosystem and helps maintain the balance in that ecosystem, for a perfect example...SHARKS.

Just a quick bit on what sharks are just in case. Sharks are a group of fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton (no bones), with five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. The upper side of a shark is generally dark to blend in with the water from above and their undersides are white or lighter coloured to blend in with the lighter surface of the sea from below. This helps to camouflage them from predators and prey. They have been around for more than 450 million years, and today there are more than 465 known spe-cies of sharks living in our oceans, ranging from the smallest: the Dwarf Lantern Shark being maximum 21.2cm’s, to the largest: the Whale Shark reaching up to 18m’s in length; with varying diets such as fish, crus-taceans, molluscs, plankton, krill, marine mammals and other sharks. Depending on species it can take between 10 – 30 years for sharks to reach sexual maturity, which obviously affects population size if they are not given the chance to get to those ages.

So why are they so important? As one of the main Apex predators in the marine ecosystem, sharks keep popu-lations of other fish healthy and in proper proportion. Sharks eat very efficiently, going after the old, sick, or slower fish in a population, and therefore keeping that

population healthier by preventing spread of disease or strengthening the gene pool. Sharks are essential-

ly keeping populations of marine life to the right size so that those prey species don’t cause harm to the ecosystem by becoming too populous and throwing things out of balance. Scientists ac-tually consider sharks to be a “keystone” spe-cies, meaning that removing them causes the

whole structure of the marine ecosystem to collapse. A number of scientific studies

demonstrate that depletion of shark’s results in the loss of commercially

important fish and shellfish species down the food chain, including key fisheries such as tuna, which maintain the health of coral reefs.

Well, what is happening to them then? In 2013 it was estimated that 100 million sharks are killed ev-ery year around the world, a number that far ex-ceeds what many populations need to recover or even continue to exist (this was a conservative esti-mate and could be as high as 273 million per year). A main contributor to the decimation of shark pop-ulations is the illegal finning industry, where fleets of ships catch any variety of sharks and remove their fins before throwing the shark back into the ocean to drown.

A researcher focusing on the Hong Kong finning trade estimated that finning claims between 26 mil-lion and 73 million sharks annually. All to accommo-date a popular Asian dish of shark fin soup – that is deemed as a status symbol with bowls costing from

US$100-$350 per dish. The next in line is the commer-cial fishing industry using nets and trawlers that catch

their target species of fish, but also bring onboard ‘by-catch’, something they didn’t mean to catch, animals like turtles, dolphins, and sharks. An estimated 50 million sharks are caught as bycatch in commercial fisheries each year.

SHARKS! THEIR OCEAN NOT OUR SWIMMING POOL

By Jodie Savage


Still affecting the shark populations but in much lower numbers is sport fishing, commercial fishing for sharks but sold under different names, and one that troubles me greatly – Governmental culling (killing) programs. I have lived in New South Wales (NSW) Australia for the last 10 years, and have been to multiple talks about the shark nets that are put in the waters off the beaches in NSW and Queensland. Initially it didn’t occur to me that they were a culling program, I thought they were put there with the in-tention to keep the beaches safer. But in reality the nets are there to kill sharks to discourage sharks in the area! Not many people know that they are only a few meters under the surface, not down to the seabed, and are moved from beach to beach only during the summer months. That in fact they catch many animals such as turtles, rays, dolphins, and actually 40% of sharks caught are on the inside of the nets, caught when leaving the beaches….. when they hav-en’t attacked anyone! A new program started up recently in Western Australia (2013) where the Government started a baited drumline culling program, apparently only target-ing larger sharks (great White and Tiger sharks - the great White Shark is actually listed as ‘Vulnerable’ on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species since 2000, and Australia are signed up to protect these species). This program was established without any consultation with known shark expects or scientists, and was just a knee jerk reaction to public and media pressure. Many people don’t know that even though they use big hooks that are only supposed to lure the larger sharks, often smaller sharks would bite, and even once removed they would have probably damaged their jaw so much they would find it difficult to feed and probably die anyway.

So why all the hate and disrespect for such an amazing, beautiful, and essential animal? I have to say media has a lot to answer for, creating fear and misunderstanding to sell more newspapers, or have higher grossing films at the Box Office. Even the ever increasingly famous annu-al Shark Week hosted by the Discovery Channel focuses on shark attacks, and scary stories of sharks – when they are supposed to be educating people and raising aware-ness on the plight of sharks. Whenever I watch the type of programs where they interview a person who has had a too close shark encounter they often express thoughts of ‘it was our fault’, ‘I was in their habitat’, and at the end of the day show a profound respect for the animal. The most famous example of this is Rodney Fox, a South Australian man who was bitten by a great White Shark back in 1963. He was lucky to survive after a bite around his chest whilst he was spearfishing, where he received 462 stitches. Fox went on to build the first underwater observation cage to dive with Great White’s, and has now dedicated his life to studying the animal, taking people out to see them in their habitat, and being one of the main Australian shark con-servationists.

A lot of people talk about increased shark attacks around the world, and often the fear response is we need to do something about it; mainly culling the shark populations. But it is my wish that people stop for a minute and think why there might be increased encounters. How about more people living at the coast? Recent statistics state ‘about 44 percent of the world’s population lives within 150 kilometres of the sea’, in turn leading to more people uti-lizing the coastal area for pleasure activities in the marine world, i.e. swimming, kayaking, surfing. The rise of the popular culture-sport of surfing has definitely put people in harm’s way, by looking like a main prey item of larger

sharks, a seal, and being in the surf zone which is where sharks hunt their prey to ambush them. I also want people to think about the number of these encounters and how many actually end in a fatality (which is horrendous and I sympathise with the family and friends of these unfor-tunate few)? But think about the biology of sharks, some have evolved over millions of years to become extremely effective killing machines, that could quite easily kill us if they wanted to, but often it is mistaken identity or investi-gating something large and unusual in their world further using the only tool available to them – their mouth.

I could go on to quote many facts of ‘you are more likely to be hit by a bus than bitten by a shark’, or ‘die from a falling coconut’, or ‘be squashed by a falling vending machine’! The more up to date fact at the moment is ‘more people have died from selfie-stick related accidents than shark at-tacks’ (12:8 this year). But at the end of the day it is the fear of the unknown, the misunderstood, or people who just don’t know enough or who have not experienced these creatures first hand to understand how stunningly beauti-ful they are, how graceful they are, and how essential they are in marine environment that we should be protecting them not villainising and killing them.

So what can we do as marine conservations to protect sharks and keep them on this planet? Get educated, if you don’t know enough yourself then read about them – about the different shark species, behaviours, why they are need-ed (try and use reliable or unbiased sources – not the me-dia!). Maybe go to community or science events in your area that talk about sharks. Help educate others, spread the message to family and friends about how important sharks are or the rules you need to follow when it comes to them. Never get in the water in a known shark habitat at dawn or dusk as these are typical feeding times. Know that when you are entering the sea you are entering their world, be-cause it is their ocean not our swimming pool – respect that and them. And finally, get involved in campaigns such as Project Aware’s Finathon, support shark conservation groups on Facebook and social media. I believe one of the key ways to protecting sharks, the marine environment, and in fact the whole natural environment is education – how can people protect, conserve or care for things if they don’t know it’s there, or understand its importance. Let’s stop hiding behind ignorance.

When it comes to sharks I think there will always be fear, and I do think to a certain degree a small amount can be healthy, but as long as the respect is there too. My moto for sharks is: Respect, Protect, Conserve! I hope this article has given some of you food for thought and encouraged you to join me in standing up for such an important, beau-tiful animal that cannot speak for itself and needs our help.

10 •Pez Maya Magazine •2015

Ogling the Ospreys

Birds of prey always catch peoples eye, so it`s no wonder most who come through Pez Maya will remember our most iconic bird, the Os-prey. Ospreys are hunting birds, specialized for fishing. They are often spotted on tall palm trees or manmade perches, along the beach or the mangroves, resting or watching closely for any sightings of their prey in the water.

But why are they so noteworthy? Surely it’s just bird nerds like us who want to hear about this guy. Well there are a few reasons. Their hunting success is certainly one of them. Os-preys hunt by soaring along the coast looking for their fish, flapping to hold position before plunging into the water. Sometimes they can reach speeds of up to 80mph, which anyone can understand is pretty damn fast! Then they find a nice secluded spot to settle down with their meal and shred it. Occasionally ditching the carcass outside our huts … well sharing is caring!

What`s impressive about their hunting tactics is their success rate. Most experienced fisher-men consider themselves as having a pretty successful catch rate. These birds have an aver-age success rate of 75%, compared with 25% of the average human with a hook and line. A few physiological features help this. Unlike other birds of prey, which have three front toes and one back toe, the Osprey has the same number of toes with the exception that one front toe is reversible. This helps them to use their feet a lot more effectively to clamp the fish. Addi-tionally this allows them to turn their prey to face forwards as they fly, aiding in aerodynam-ics and keeping their energy spending down. As well as the claws, their feet have sharp barb-like scales, oily feathers (which they can shake dry) to prevent getting bogged down in the water and vision that has been recorded as being eight time more precise than the human eye. Still feel like we are the most evolved?

By Sam Wilson


One last interesting fact about these curious looking hunt-ers, is their mating habits. Firstly the female must choose a male, which is based on his nest. This nest can be made of many objects, including hula hoops, rag dolls and toy boats…. Not to mention that it can way up to half a tonne! Once chosen, the Osprey pair will usually mate for life (Awww…), however if the pair mate unsuccessfully then they will “divorce”. Apparently couples counselling isn`t popular with these raptors. During the nesting period, the male will feed himself and his partner while she incubates. Occasionally he will take over to allow her to hunt, how generous of him!

Generally the young leave the nest once they have been fly-ing for a month. If they don’t leave, the parents stop feeding them to motivate them. At three years old, most Ospreys will return to their original nesting region to begin their own family.

So there you have it! The reason Ospreys are deserving of a little more appreciation, so give them a salute next time you see them, maybe they`ll drop you a fish carcass as a reward!


Marine M. Vasseur

Creatures of Pez Maya Buteogallus urubitinga

This is a Great Black Hawk. He is a large raptor that lives in the Neotropics. The adults have a black coloration with a white tail, but this guy is a juvenile. We can tell thanks to his browni-sh pattern and the abundant yellow stripes. He feeds primarily on ro-dents, fish, reptiles, crabs and other birds.

This little fellow got lost and came into our office one after-noon. Our Science Officer had to help him go out again.

It`s likely this little guy had been recently kicked out of the nest or simply left by the parents to encourage it to leave.


Andy Ez

Clouds (2011)All images are © Alejandro Durán 2015. All Rights Reserved

The great

pacific

garbage

patch

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the name of an area in the central North Pacific Ocean that is a very large collection of marine debris. It is a complex soup of micro-plastics (small pieces of plastic between 1 and 5 mm in size) that have travelled great distances through the ocean and have been trapped by currents in the North Pacific Gyre.

By Adam Dugmore


“An ocean gyre is a system of circular ocean currents formed by the Earth’s wind patterns and the forces created

by the rotation of the planet”

Approximately 80% of marine debris enters from a land based source (3 met-ric tonnes of plastic enters the Ocean every 15 seconds.). The ocean is down-stream from everything, every storm drain, stream, river, waterway – all are transporting rubbish into the world’s seas and oceans. Did you know that one third of plastic pollution comes from the beverage industry – bottles, lids, straws, containers, etc?

A lot of the marine debris sinks into the depths of the ocean, but the remainder float on ocean currents and are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces creating micro-plastics. The cur-rents creating the North Pacific Garbage Patch is the North Pacific gyre that draws in trash float-ing in the water, and then their swirling motion traps the trash in one large area. The size of the patch is determined by sampling and estimates have come in at 700,000 square kilometres, about the size of Texas, to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres - 0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pa-cific Ocean!!!

How does all of this

affect us ?

All of the trash that is gathered in this area can affect all of us in a great way, to do this we first have to look at what effects it is having on the environment.

The process we must look at is called bioaccumulation. To start, the smallest ocean organisms (e.g. plankton) feed on these micro-plastics by accident as they filter the water around them. Small fish then consume these plank-ton, and are in turn predated upon by larger fish or even higher predators such as sharks. Throughout each lev-el the amount of plastic that the more dominant organism is consuming will increase each time you go up the food chain, resulting in large fish with a large quantity of plastics / toxins with-in their bodies. And yes, this includes us eventually if you eat fish!

Sometimes marine animals are in-volved in cases of mistaken identity, thinking the plastic pieces are their prey – such as turtles eating jellyfish / plastic bags, or birds feeding their

young with bottle tops or brightly co-loured plastic. Colourful plastics are much easier to spot, and to birds that have simply evolved to register colours in the ocean as food, this can be deadly. Red appears to be the most attractive colour, which is no surprise as even we have evolved the ability to see red sim-ply in response to knowing when cer-tain fruits are ok to eat.

Over 100, 000 marine creatures incl. turtles, seals, whales, dolphins, fish, penguins etc die every year from in-

gestion or entanglement in debris.Over 1 million seabirds die from in-gesting plastic pollution every year. This Laysan Albatross was fed the plas-

tic by it’s parents.

What’s being done to

combat this problem?

Stopping it at the source. Many Gov-ernments around the world are putting a large focus on recycling programs, trying to reduce the amount of plastic ending up in the oceans. Or trying to establish cash for container programs which incentivise people to return their plastic bottles, cans etc for mon-ey. Concerned citizens are establishing beach clean-up groups that conduct beach clean’s weekly to remove the trash from the beach before it is washed into the ocean. But this alone will not solve the problem. There needs to be more funding for innovation, design, and education programs that focus on reduction, recycling and clean up.

Recently an amazing initiative has come to light that could help if not combat the problem with the North Pacific Garbage Patch. It is an oceans clean-up project that is based around developing a set of stations that will collect the suspended micro-plastics and move it to an area where it can be sorted and sent off for recycling or waste storage. The Ocean Cleanup Ar-ray project is based around a 3 prong

approach: Extraction, Prevention and Interception. The idea is to stop waste from entering the water in the first place, but at the same time to remove the problem that is already there.

The extraction operation is not only the stations in the ocean, but also encour-aging regular coastal clean-ups on land organised by groups such as the Ocean Conservancy with the help of local vol-unteers taking the responsibility upon themselves. Prevention is about mak-ing the plastic pollution problem more public and to create a global aware-ness campaign on the impact of ocean waste. ‘By making it more visible we are hoping it makes more people stand up and try to make a difference’.

The final step is inter-vention. In this process they are going to use the same designs for the ocean arrays and place them on rivers. This will stop the trash from ever entering the sea. These will be most effective near heavily industrial-ized areas where there is more likely to be plastic and other rubbish enter-ing the waterways. For more information on this project look at their website: www.theocean-cleanup.com

What you can do to help? Reduce!

Whether we catch this waste in the ocean, the rivers or simply recycle it, arguably the greatest issue is our own consumption. Do we really need all this plastic to live? You can do some-thing about it. Why not pressure com-panies into making glass bottles of coke rather than plastic? Why wrap anything in cling film when you can use tin foil that can be recycled easily? Any little thing you can do will help, things like: support shops that don’t use plastic bags or charge for them, or take your own bag for life bags. When you are out having food and drink don’t use a straw to drink with, don’t use plastic cutlery, and take a Keep Cup for take away coffees. Try getting involved in initiatives like ‘Plastic Free July’. Just these small things can make a very big difference. Think about the fact that there are over 7 billion of us on this planet, what if we all recycled? What if we all used less plastic? Now do these things seem so small? Come on make an effort, I think we owe this world that much.


Be a hero, Become a Rescue Diver

The PADI Rescue Diver course is arguably one of the most important courses divers of all levels will take. It’s the first course in recreational diver training that is other person-oriented, meaning the vast majority of the course is about helping, as well as being generally more aware of, other divers. At this level divers are confident with skills, equipment and the environment which allows them to begin focusing on more than just themselves.

The Rescue Diver course not only prepares you to deal with emergencies, minor and major, but teaches you how to see the warning signs of potential problems so that you can act appropriately to stop a situation before it even occurs. Through knowledge development and various rescue exercises you learn how to assess a variety of situations and respond appropriately to each.

Some of the skills introduced cover the following:

• Self-rescue• Recognizing and managing stress in other divers• Emergency management and equipment• Rescuing panicked divers• Rescuing unresponsive divers

At the end of the course your skills are assessed in the form of a rescue scenario where all of your skills and knowledge come in to play to respond appropriately to a given situation.

This course is often referred to by many divers as the most challenging, the most rewarding and fun course they have ever taken! Even the Instructors look forward to these courses as they are a lot more interactive, and usually allow you to really test your students.

So that is the PADI Rescue Diver course in short, but the Rescue course at Pez Maya is a whole different story. Due to the fact that we have long term volunteers and are able to spend prolonged periods of time with our students we can devote extraordinary amounts of time and effort into perfecting knowledge and skills.

Even after the course is complete we have the oppor-tunity to continue presenting scenarios at random and see how our students respond to surprise situations, which is one of the most rewarding parts as an Instruc-tor as we get to see all of our students’ hard work in action.

Padi

Cou

rse

By Eugene Beery


In the 1940’s the SCUBA regulator was invent-ed and opened up the option for more and more people to explore the oceans. Initially diving was a sport for fit young men or a job for deep sea Navy divers. As research developed the recreational dive planner (RDP) diving became a recreational sport available for almost everyone. Today thousands of people have taken courses to allow them to dive for recreational purposes and explore oceans, lakes and rivers all over the world.

Whether you are a diver or not, most people will have heard of the term ‘the bends’. For some of you stories of deep sea divers surfacing with chronic joint pain may have been enough to deter you from giving SCUBA diving a go, but for many others the beauty of the underwater world was something you could not miss out on.

The bends is another term for decompression sick-ness (DCS). Nitrogen is the primary gas concerned with DCS: a condition whereby bubbles enter the bloodstream and tissues causing blockages in cir-culation. These bubbles can occur anywhere in the body and for this reason can produce a wide va-riety of symptoms. DCS can occur if you stay at depth for longer than the recommended time as your body takes on too much nitrogen for it to be eliminated safely before the end of the dive. An-other dangerous condition is lung over expansion injuries such as a collapsed lung. These typically occur due to the diver either ascending too quickly or holding their breath whilst ascending. A combi-nation these conditions are referred to as decom-pression illness (DCI).

It’s important to note that most dive related inju-ries occur due to diver error. The importance of good dive training can’t be disputed. During the entry level PADI Open Water Course all students practice emergency skills and how to plan multiple dives within safe limits using either the recreation-al dive planner or a dive computer. What can’t be stressed enough when deciding where to take your course or where to enjoy some guided fun dives is picking someone you feel comfortable with and diving with a buddy you trust. Certainly going with the cheapest option is not always the best idea.

Of course avoiding DCS is not always possible. There is always a small element of risk involved but that risk can be reduced by following the guidelines in the box opposite and by not diving in situations outside of your experience level.

Keep yourself fit and healthy, as long as you stick with your training and respect your limitations, there`s an endlessly exciting and easily accessible world just a short dive away.

The Bends

To avoid DCI all divers should do the following:

- Dive with a reputable shop that you feel comfortable with.- Plan your dives using the RDP and dive with a timing device and depth gauge to ensure you stick to your plan. Alternatively you may dive with a dive computer which will alert you if you need to ascend and help you monitor your safety stop.- Plan a contingency for your dive too. If you don’t have a dive computer you must plan what to do if you accidently exceed your maximum depth or time, use the RDP to do this.- Remember a safety stop on every dive – waiting at 5 meters for 3 minutes gives the body extra time to release nitrogen safely.- Watch your pressure gauge frequently so you don’t risk running out of air. - Remember the safe ascent rate of 18 meters per minute.- Don’t push your limits. Your maximum duration at 18 meters is 56 minutes but you should never plan to dive this closely to your maximum no decompression limit.

By Kerry Passingham


The wonderful world of regulators

Most of us will know from our PADI Open Water course, one of the great lines in the video, ‘You inhale, and the air flows with a reassuring hiss from your regulator, and for the first time, you breathe underwater’. This is a great experience if it’s your first ever dive or 600th dive, however, the feeling of when you hear that hiss on land is not quite the same experience.

We are going to go through some of the frequent problems that can occur with your equipment; what to look out for, what the problem is, how you can fix it, and more importantly can I continue with my dive!?

Leaking somewhere along the hose, a small chain of bubbles usu-

ally, or can be a bulge in the rubber casing.

Problem. This is wear and tear of the hoses, over time the hose

flexes so much and develops a weakened area, this is where the air

will leak through to the outer layer of the hose.

Fix with a new hose! Ensure you replace with the correct hose as

some of them differ quite a bit.

Continue diving? This is a bit of a judgement call, dependent on

the size of leak. If it is the LP hose you should end the dive to re-

place the hose immediately.

Leaking at either end of your hoses – any of the hoses. Usually constant stream of tiny

bubbles.

Problem will be that the O-ring will be dirty, worn or cracked. Or if the regulator has been

serviced recently, it could be that the hose isn’t tightened enough, which can also lead to a

blown O-ring, which will result in similar situations as stated above.

Fix. Remove the hose from the first stage or whatever is attached at the other end, inspect

the O-ring, replace if needed and replace nice and tightly: not too much, but not finger

tight!

Continue diving? Since most of these will be small leaks, you should be safe to contin-

ue with your dive. However, if it is on your Low Pressure (LP) hose you might think of

finishing the dive early as this will leak more than the other hoses, but can still enjoy the

dive, just watch your air a bit more.

Leaking at regulator yoke between the tank valve; Tiny bubbles to huge!

Problem is most likely the tank O-ring, look for damage, cracks and tears in the O-ring. If the

O-ring wasn’t in place when you turned the tank on, or the yoke was not tightened enough, it

can blow the O-ring which most people in a 100m radius will be able to hear!

Fix. If a blown O-ring or any damage noticed, replace the O-ring and apply a small amount

of silicon to ensure it makes a nice seal.

Continue diving? Of course! Most dive operations will carry spare O-rings, it’s a very fre-

quent problem.

By Jim Clark


Leaking first stage, somewhere along the seams of the first stage

housing, and can range from a few bubbles to a steady stream.

Problem is that the first stage might not be assembled correctly

or just wear and tear.

Fix, unfortunately needs a technician to take it apart to see what

needs fixing/replacing.

Continue diving? The issue shouldn’t get any worse during the

dive. If noticed before the dive, try a different regulator and

jump straight in!

So there you have it, a short list of what can be done for your regulator the next time you hear the dreaded hissing

sound around your regulator and tank. Always remember to look after your equipment, washing your regulator

after every dive will reduce any build-up of dirt, and proper care will increase its lifetime. You now know what to

listen out for, and what to do to make sure you can still go on the next dive!

Leaking from the SPG (submerged pressure

guage) connection to the hose, small bub-

bles but can be quite a lot them.

Problem. Dirt accumulation inside the hose,

O-rings on the spool damaged/cracked etc.

Fix by removing the SPG and cleaning up

the thread of the hose and any dirt you see.

Replace the O-rings on the spool if needed,

or a small amount of silicon will help to

make that seal. A bit more technical but give

it a try!

Continue diving? It can sometimes sound

and look a lot worse and make you want to

finish the dive, if it is a high pressure hose;

there is a lot of pressure but small volume,

so you won’t be losing a lot of air, but make

sure you watch your gauge!

Leaking from your second stages (again!), but a

constant hiss; even after purging the regulators,

that hiss is persisting.

Problem. A very common problem, and it occurs

due to the fact that most people are diving some-

where from a beautiful beach – sand, as well as

dirt, grit or corrosion will cause the regulators not

to seal properly.

Fix this problem by cleaning the second stages.

this can be done by purging the regulators while

swirling them in water, it can dislodge any for-

eign materials that might be causing the problem.

If still on land, you can open up the second stage

to clean properly, just make sure you keep all the

pieces and put them back in the correct order.

Continue diving? Cleaning them on land or swirl-

ing them can reduce the leak, but it might need

to be looked at more closely by a technician to

replace seats inside the second stages.

Leaking from your second stages due to issues with your

intermediate pressure; Either one or both of them, a slow

hiss that will stop after purging the regulator, but then

start up again a few seconds later.

Problem. The intermediate pressure in your first stage is

not staying at a constant level, this excess pressure caus-

es your second stages to release the pressure with a hiss.

Fix with a technician: they will need to open up the first

stage to assess if parts need to be replaced to create the

seals needed for the regulator to work efficiently.

Continue diving? As you breathe from the regulator, this

reduces the intermediate pressure and will temporarily

stop the leak, so it is still safe to dive with. However, the

problem will not go away anytime soon, so go get those

precious regulators serviced and give them the love they

deserve!

The Bravest Race is a five kilometer obstacle course through a sub-tropical forest organised by Xplor Adventure Park. Littered with cenotes and underground caverns, it was going to be a long hard and demanding race for every-one involved.

The Pez Maya staff and vol-unteers chose to do this race as one of our main Challenges of the year to raise money for charity via our GVI Charita-ble Trust.

Swimming, running, climbing, being chased by foul monsters, crawling through very tight spaces and jumping off high cliffs into water, no matter what you were scared of this race could send a shiver down your spine.

We gathered at the start point as a team and decided that it would take everyone to bat-tle through all the obsta-cle’s and evade the chasers who would pick off lone run-ners with ease.

As we prepared for the race with a warm up, excitement was high and as the horn sounded for the start we almost gid-dily began in a mad rush of anticipation.

Like bullets from a gun we all shot off to the first hur-dle, which was literally a set of hurdles that increased in size.

There were 30 different chal-

lenges to navigate, we start-ed at a steady pace cruising the first few sections, easing our way into the course, but as time went on the constant running on uneven ground and climbing up and over obsta-cles began to take its toll on the team, but we remained to-gether and as a unit we helped each other get through the obstacles.

All of this may have been too much for our team if we weren’t urged on by the thoughts of our amazing chosen charity Save the Children.

They needed our help to ob-tain such basics as mopping supplies and educational ma-terials like pens and paper, books and paint for the under-privileged children who often had very little home life or no home life at all.

The fact that they needed our help just to supply these small amenities really drove us on during the fundraising and throughout the race.

In total we raised just over our target goal of £500.00 and with the help of friends, family and previous Pez Maya volunteers we reached a total of £503.84.

At the end of the day this whole event was not about the race and all the enjoyment we got out of it, it was about the Save the Children Charity and how we can make a small difference to some children’s

lives, as well as to make the lives of the wonderful people that commit to this charity on a daily basis a little eas-ier.At the end of the race we all crossed the line as a group, as a team and as conquerors of the mighty assault course.

This marked the end of all our hard work, the training, the fundraising, the organizing and finally the race.

We all received our medals for finishing and then after washing the worst of the mud from our soaked body’s regaled each other with tales of our exploits during the different sections and obstacles, how we had evaded chasers and jumped off 5 meter high cliffs.

With everyone very tired but elated the day was done and everyone parted ways for the night, but we will probably never forget that day and the cause that we battled for.

By Craig Jessop

If you want to support the GVI Charitable Trust for

our partners here or anywhere around the world go to: http://gvi.org/

The Story of

Empanada second part

Empanada was gobsmacked,he just thought they were weeds,but now he’d discoveredit meets many needs!

“If you want to know more,and I see that you do,you should go out to seaand experience the new!”

“Never forget who paid you this heed, I’ve broadened your mind, credit me for the deed.”

Empanada looked out,afraid but excited,Was he at all ready?His heart beat delighted.

“Look, I get that you’re ner-vous, you’re feeling unsure,but that feeling will fadewhen you swim the ocean floor.”

“I’ve counselled many young fish, every nerve did I soothe,there’s just something about me, that inspires a move.”

“So take all my wisdom,and spread the good word–He could have gone on,but enough he had heard.

Empanada knew thathe needed more he could learn, or at the very least,to get away from the Tern!

He felt a knot in his gut,but a surge in his strength,He would swim out to sea,he would go any length!

Empanada had heard storiesof a bird on the shore,great, large and wisefrom him he’d learn more.

He swam under the bridge,and unto the breach, search-ing for the finest of birds,perched on the beach.

After hours of searching,and nothing unique there in sight, he approached a small bird, black of beak, chest of white.

As Empanada drew near,the bird puffed out it’s chest,he thought this was weird,he was not that impressed.

“Hello and welcome,I am the Crow in the Know! If there’s anything you need,My insight I’ll show.”

Empanada, confused,furrowed his brow, there was something quite obvious he had to say now.

“I’m sorry to tell you,but a crow you are not,I came from the Mangroves,I’ve seen Least Terns a whole lot.”

“Dude, just be cool!”Amused he was not,“You’ve gotta know what to market, not be accurate with what.”

“So ‘Crow in the Know’isn’t exactly the truth,but ‘Least Tern in the Learn’ isn’t catchy or couth.”

“So ask me a questionor get out of my way,I have breeding to dowhat I don’t have’s all day.”

Afraid of his temper,though not of his size,he plucked up his courage, he raised up his eyes.

“I’ve come to learn moreabout this life that I’m in,I know about the Man-groves, but little of the ecosystem.”

“What about the sea?Like what’s that over there?” He giggled and he laughed, “It’s like the ocean has hair.”

“It has many uses though it doesn’t smell great.Turtles can hide below it,it’s called Sargassum, mate.

“It can be very annoying,especially near the shore,When you try and swim through it, you’re confronted by more.”

“But it helps makes the beach as do plenty of corals. Never think things are useless, just one of my morals.”

“So it’s just a plantthat lies on top of the sea,what about the onesat the bottom I see?”

“Ah yes, the seagrass,I know plenty of that;there’s the Manatee that’s thin,and the Turtle Grass that’s fat.”

“That’s a weird way round,you’d think the Turtle Grass was thinner.” “No,” the ‘Crow’ exhaled, “The bigger one’s his dinner.”

“So that’s all seagrass is?Some marine animal’s food?”“Ah the young, so simple and crude.”

“The roots stabilize the seabedand slow down rushing tides,It’s done more to protect the Mangroves than you might be-lieve, besides.”

“It also stores carbon,Just like shells and the sand,it’s way better storagethan the trees on the land.”

“So seagrass is niftyfor a myriad of stuff,I could go on forever,but I think that’s enough.”

By Steffanie Ransom


The PezPuzzler


pez maya magazine vol. 1, issue 3

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