I arrived in Tassie yesterday, and was lucky enough to spend the night with Dr. Craig Sanderson and his wonderful family.  Dr. Sanderson researches the longspined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) and its effect on giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) in Tasmania, along with Dr. Scott Ling, who did his dissertation on the topic.  They both work […]

Hey folks, so remember how I was volunteering for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s office back in December?  I still am.  I’m editing and uploading the images I took for NMS that week to the SIMoN website, which is an unbelievable resource if you don’t know about it already.  Thanks largely to Chad King and […]

Sue Crowe (of Tabata) and David Crowe are my incredible hosts while I’m here in Sydney.  Today Sue and David, along with their dogs Fraggle and Sprocket, took me for a hike on Long Reef Beach, and the Sydney area coastline blew my mind.  We then ate Australian pie, which also blew my mind.

We went diving at Shelly’s Beach in Manly today.  Sydney diving is great!  We saw a big ‘ol grouper, and lots of bright amber kelp (kelp excites me, I’m a big fan), and about a gabillion wobbegong sharks…I was totally thrilled at my first one and pitched a fit underwater when I saw it.  Janet […]

Spent most of the day at the Sydney Aquarium with Maija Honkavaara, Programme Coordinator for the Sydney Aquarium Conservation Fund.  Maija showed me around and talked about the myriad local conservation programs the Aquarium’s involved in, including seahorse reintroduction, gray nurse shark conservation, and dugong rehabilitation.  I had an amazing day, especially because I got […]