Ok, I really need to start doing a better job. I mean really, how can I be better at posting during my busy field season than my slow season? It probably has to do with not taking any cool pictures while I am cutting open scallops in the lab and punching numbers into the computer. That said, it has been a pretty exciting off-season for me. I started presenting my research on scallops in Codium to pretty good reviews at the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation meeting in Portland, Oregon in November. Portland is a pretty cool city and we were lucky to have nice weather for essentially the whole week there. While there I was able to interact with Dr Bob Orth, a noted seagrass biologist who has recently demonstrated great success in restoring eelgrass meadows via seed dispersal. Because of their success with seagrasses, a group at VIMS wants to try to bring back a commercially important associated epifauna, and one that is dear to my heart, the bay scallop. So we had talked about their restoration efforts compared with those in New York, and I was able to make a very valuable connection. Oh, and I won an award for the 2nd best student presentation!
Then, for New Years, I was able to vacation in beautiful Kadavu, Fiji, for 3 weeks. Just scuba diving. Relaxing. Kayaking. Relaxing. Hiking. Oh, and relaxing. I went with a bunch of Southampton College (now defunct) of LIU alums, and an old professor and friend of mine. We stayed at the Matava Eco-Adventure Resort, dedicated to diving and fishing. I did somewhere in the ball park of 35 dives (although the exact number right now is escaping me), and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I ever have the opportunity. It was an amazing trip, and pictures will follow.
It was hard to adjust back to labwork when I returned from this trip, but I starting catching up, including working on 2 new manuscripts about our restoration work, since the results are very, very promising. And then we left for the Benthic Ecology Meeting hosted at UNCW. It was a great time, I gave another presentation, this time on my work with scallop recruitment. Again, a lot of positive feedback, which is always nice, and many more connections.
Anyway, I promise that I will make a better effort to post more often.