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.

Cary Caye, shown on the left is one example of a linear shelf   reef.

After crossing the shelf, we travel over the barrier and turn landward.  South Water Caye, one of the cayes on the barrier, is depicted  on the  left.

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. 

The flight continues northward to Ambergris Caye past the small city of San Pedro continuing northward along the barrier (technically a fringing reef) to Rocky Point (at left) which is located only a couple of kilometers from the Belize-Mexico border.  From Rocky Point we turn southwesterly and fly over a part of the bay and mud mounds before landing at San Pedro Airstrip.