Our World – Underwater Scholarship Society in North America

So Alaska is beautiful.  I got to spend a lot of the weekend outdoors — it was a balmy 45 degrees.  Thanks Ori for taking me cross-country skiing, and thanks Homer Spit for one of my best beach walks ever.
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Hey all!  For anyone following in the Homer Area, please feel free to come to tomorrow’s presentation:
Please Join the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve
for our next
Brown Bag Lunch Seminar
March 18, 2010
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center Auditorium

Conservation Photography

Presenter: Myfanwy Rowlands
2009 Rolex Scholar of the Our World-Underwater Scholarship [...]

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I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days across the bay at the Kasitsna Bay Laboratory (a UAF/NOAA facility) with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ scientific diving class, led by the venerable Brenda Konar.  The Lab is an ideal research location — I was impressed with what’s being done there, and intrigued by the [...]

Today I got to go up flying with Jose de Creeft, a local pilot who does quite a bit of survey work for the Fish & Wildlife Service as well as the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve.  It was amazing!  We were tracking sea otters using radiotelemetry, which is no easy task, but Jose is just [...]

Hey-o… it’s been blizzarding for the past few days, but today was lovely.  The sun set over a huge cloud bank — I snuck out for a walk to get some pictures of it.  By the time I got back I could not feel my legs.
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I’m staying at the volunteer bunkhouse for the Kachemak Bay [...]

I’m in Homer!  Homer, Alaska, that is.  I’ll be volunteering with these guys for the next few weeks:
Kachemak Bay Research Reserve
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The drawing above was illustrated by Catie Bursch, one of Kachemak Bay Research Reserve’s Marine Educators.  Today Catie and I went on an excursion looking for materials for the new exhibit at the Islands and [...]

Okay.  So it’s my last day in South Africa (boo), but at least we made it a red letter one: I dove today with Mark Addison of Blue Wilderness, and it was AMAZING.  To tick off the list, we started the day swimming with dolphins, then dove down to Cathedral Cave and visited the ragged-toothed [...]

I’ve just arrived here in Rocky Bay, outside of Durban, South Africa,  to dive with Mark and Gail Addison of Blue Wilderness.  Mark and Gail have been running this unique marine ecotourism operation for 15 years, and the pioneering efforts they’ve made in support of the natural history of the coast for filming, photography and [...]

Steve Benjamin (Animal Ocean) has been helping me improve my freediving skills — when we went out on the boat today, I was able to dive down to about 13 meters, where these catsharks were aggregating.  Catsharks are beautiful, and later that day we found one on the sand that was no bigger than Steve’s [...]

Today the swell was up, so Steve Benjamin (Animal Ocean) and I took a group of professional photographers out chasing the big wave surfers at Sunset Reef, a surf spot here in Cape Town with a reputation almost as deadly as Dungeons.  We were out there for half the day, and I was absolutely blown [...]