Hamanasi is celebrating Oceans Week this week from June 1st (World Reef Day) to June 8th (World Oceans Day). These international awareness days offer a chance for us to share what we know about protecting our oceans, and to be inspired and learn from others around the world who are working toward the same goal. Our choices matter, and together we can preserve our reefs and oceans for generations to come.
Oceans Week Tips of the Day
Each day during Oceans Week the Hamanasi Green Team will offer tips for how we can all take action to preserve our delicate ocean ecosystems. Guests will recognize that these tips are written on a leaf from Hamanasi’s namesake, the Hamans tree.
We have a week of activities planned – both educational and hands-on actions to protect our oceans and reefs. See the schedule below and check back as we update this post as the events take place.
See images from the South Water Caye cleanup below. One of our Green Team participants was our Maintenance Quality Controller, Chris Che. During the cleanup Chris mentioned that he had lived his whole life in Belize, but had never been to the Belize Barrier Reef. Chris said he was “amazed at what he saw, inspired by the beauty, and more motivated than ever to continue protecting what we have”. We thought that was the perfect expression of what we can all hope to get from of World Oceans Week!
Use Only Reef Safe Sunscreen at Hamanasi
Since 2019 Hamanasi has allowed only reef safe sunscreen on our boats and tours. Learn why and what makes a sunscreen reef-safe in this blog post
Oceans Week 2021: Lionfish Spearfishing Contest
What does hunting lionfish have to do with conserving oceans? A lot!
We had competitions for both staff and guests. In the staff competition, the winner was Garif or “Big Daddy” as many know him. Runner up was Evan. In the guest competition, our winner was Richard Ladd and runner up was Eduardo Quiérelo.
Check out these great photos of our Artists for Oceans Paint and Sip. Shelly instructed guests how to mix colors and other painting techniques. Meanwhile Areli, our Regenerative Ambassador, relayed the significance of each painting and the related conservation tips. A big shout out to Hamanasi guests Mandy Andrews, Elizabeth McCalley & Cheryl Ladd who created these beautiful paintings!
Our first movie night at Hamanasi was officially a big hit! It turns out that under the stars on the beach at Hamanasi is a great place to watch a movie, and the perfect setting to learn more about our oceans, with the gentle soundtrack of the Caribbean sea in the background!
Ms Shanda Sainsbury, who is the Stann Creek District representative for Oceana Belize, made a presentation focused on the importance of sustainable fisheries and how it affects the tourism industry. In attendance were waitstaff, purchasing department and marine guides. Shanda focused particularly on Oceana’s Fish Right, Eat Right initiative, a local Belizean certification program for sustainable seafood. Hamanasi is a member of Fish Right, Eat Right for sourcing all of our seafood for our restaurant.
For the last activity for Oceans Week we held a beach cleanup of the community area next to the church grounds in Hopkins Village. To add a little intrigue we made it a competition, and we had a 3 way tie of Hamanasi staff members, Kim from our Restaurant, Cordelia from Housekeeping, and Erlin from Maintenance. All 3 won dinner for 2 at Singanga Restaurant. In total, all the participants removed 38 bags and nearly 100 lbs of garbage from the community beach area. A great effort for everyone to be proud of, but at the same time, it’s yet another wake up call that we need to find more solutions to preventing trash from entering our oceans and beaches in the first place.
