Spotted Drum Expeditions

02/01/2016

Happy 2016 from us at Spotted Drum Expeditions! We wish you an upcoming year full of fun, friendship, and adventure!

13/12/2015

Checking out the moon jellyfish during our safety stop last week!

07/12/2015

The view from our office this morning -- happy Monday!

26/11/2015

This year, we are thankful for new friends, amazing dives, and the amazing ecosystem services our reefs and cenotes provide us every day -- Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the U.S.!

22/11/2015

Are you signed up for our newsletter? We'll be sending one out next week -- sign up on our website (sd-expeditions.com) to receive it!

Our newsletters include Spotted Drum updates, photos, as well as information about some new programs, projects, and courses we'll have for both winter and summer (before we post it here!)!

18/11/2015

It is the happiest time of the year -- bull shark season! We had our first official dive of the year with them yesterday. We'll be doing a locals' workshop & dives with the bull sharks soon -- stay tuned!

15/11/2015

We will be interested to check out this artificial reef when it is finished next month outside of Puerto Morelos! Artificial reefs can be effective ways to provide substrate for growing reefs and coral larvae but we need to also be concerned about water quality in the area, too, in order to protect our reefs most effectively.

(P.S. Check out minute 1:32 for a familiar face!)

The largest artificial coral reef in the world will be located in front of El Dorado Royale, Casitas and Generations Riviera Maya, it will be considered a wo...

11/11/2015

Check out the round black fish with yellow spots in this video -- that is one of our favorite juvenile fish, the juvenile Smooth Trunkfish! At this stage, you can barely see their fins and they just seem to hover up and down in patches of coral.

09/11/2015

Whitespotted filefish close-up! This individual is in the orange phase, hence the lack of white spots :)

04/11/2015

Here we go! Dates, program descriptions, and all the details about this summer's Coral Reef Camps are online now! Check out the website and let us know if there are any questions. Applications are due January 5, 2016 for priority consideration (except for any alumni, you don't need to fill out an app again, just drop us an email!

02/11/2015

Rainbow parrotfish grazing in Cozumel! This is a species we're always happy to see as they are super important grazers of algae on the reefs here -- their teeth are fused into a beak-like shape and they use it to scrape and eat algae off of coral, which keeps the algae population in check and gives coral larvae a chance to settle and grow.

Here you can see them scraping at coral to get at the algae -- they end up eating a bit of coral and rock too, which is broken down by specialized plates in their throat and leaves their body as sand (most divers have seen all species of parrotfish pooping a stream of sand -- estimates suggest that parrotfish create upward of 800 pounds of sand a year)!

29/10/2015

Summer 2015 reunion! Yesterday, we got a chance to reunite with Sarina and Jolie for two gorgeous dives in Cozumel -- thanks so much for letting us join you, we had an amazing time!