A New Buoy Found with an Added “Bonus” – Revolting Sea Pork

Some ocean creatures have names that are very blunt and kinda just perfect. I’m thinking sea cucumber (which, yes, looks suspiciously like a cucumber that lives on the sea floor), blobfish (the sad sack of the fish world) and the sea squirt (which does exactly what it sounds like).

And when the guys at Rocky Point Permit Camp found a new buoy washed up on the beach on North NORTH Ambergris Caye – an absolute beauty wrapped in an old rope net – I was pretty excited. Until I noticed that something DISGUSTING was attached to the bottom.

Now please note…I’ve found/seen odd things on the beach. Like a VERY WEIRD headless angular rough shark and sailors eyeballs (it’s an algae not an actual eye). I’ve seen a Russian satellite piece on our beach. But this…

A big, fleshy, organ-like mass was fused to the bottom – heavy, moist, and uncomfortably ALIVE LOOKING even though it wasn’t…or was it?

A bit like the Sarlacc in one of the Star Wars movies (also nightmare inducing)

A section was torn away so you could peer inside, and what was exposed looked disturbingly like meat. It seemed alien, right out of a horror movie, something you half-expected for the valves to pulse or gasp if you stared at it too long. The smell was faintly fishy and it was already bringing in flies.

The best way I can describe it? Like a Christmas ham left out in the sand, a spiced, processed slab riddled with shards of shell and bone – only this one looked as if it might still be breathing.

It really gave me the creeps – the “cold seed” as they say in Belize. Belizean Kriol for “goose bumps”. I posted it on Facebook to see if anyone had any ideas and I think I now know what it is. I mean…other than absolutely revolting.

Here she is…right up close.

And here’s what I learned: Sea pork is a type of colonial tunicate (a filter-feeding marine invertebrate – a little bit like corals) made up of many tiny creatures that live together in a mass attached to hard surfaces under water. It looks like a fleshy, rubbery blob or slab (barf), often pale or lightly colored, and when washed ashore it can seem organ-like, smooth or slippery, even heavy. Although its appearance can be creepy, it’s harmless to humans and plays a role in the ocean by filtering water and catching tiny food particles.

There isn’t a ton of great information or pictures online. I don’t even know who named it – though I want to give her or him a shout-out. Spot on!

But I find it very very interesting. So I share it with you. You are welcome.

I’m heading up to the camp this morning and will let you know what it looks like 5 days later. I’m going to guess that sea pork does NOT get better with age.