13th June
This hasn't been updated much recently because the network where I was staying in Rhode Island wouldn't let me upload the website, for reasons that are beyond me. I'm in New York now, on my way back to San Diego for a scientific diving course which will take up the next two weeks and which sounds like a lot of fun. Rhode Island has been good so far, although it's a very small place, tucked away. Lots of people go on holiday there in summer but not a lot happens there for the rest of the year. Anyway, I haven't taken many pictures yet, but here's a skunk that I found skulking around the university buildings. One thing that RI does seem to do very well at is wildlife - I've seen chipmunks, raccoons, lots of birds, lots of skunks, endless squirrels and a snapping turtle.
24th June
Lots of things have been going on in the past 10 days. I came back to La Jolla for a scientific diving course, the qualification needed to be able to scuba dive as part of my job as a scientist. I haven't invented any experiments which require this yet, but I'm hoping that some will occur to me soon. It's been a huge amount of fun, even though the days have been pretty long. It's a two week course so I'm just over half way now. On Friday we were scooting around under the pier at the end of a dive and we saw a giant sea bass (giant is very appropriately part of its name), a huge fish about 5 feet long. This was very exciting, not only because of its size but because they are critically endangered. Today we were practising taking data by counting garibaldi, a bright orange sort of fish that gets up to about 25 cm long. Even I can count such obvious fish. We laid out measuring tapes along the bottom (anchored at either end to bits of kelp) and swam back along the lines, counting fish as we went. It'll be the first fish survey of many - that's what I'll be helping with all summer in Curacao.
And at the weekend I did a 10 km race, conveniently in the middle of a heatwave (far too hot even though it was 7:30am when it started). So it was a bit of a struggle, but I got to the end and came 36th of out 1000. It was an all-female race and so there was lots of pink around and a very exciting toy duck for everyone.
Some of the people on the scientific diving course, waiting around on poolside at the start of one of the pool sessions. I'm the one not looking at the camera.
And below... a very confused diver. They made us practise scuba pool entries off the springboard. This is me, in case you were wondering.
Some of the girlie race paraphenalia. I've never had a race number with my name on it before. And the white thing at the top left is a sponge.
Isn't the duck cute?
Awww...
28th June
I finally remembered to take my camera on the last two dives of the course, so here are some photos. It was all good fun, but I'm feeling pretty sleep-deprived now. However, I am now officially allowed to go out and get wooshed about in surge, drop tape measures, count fish, lift heavy things off the bottom of the ocean and not get lost, all in the name of science.
A sea star (above), and below a male Garibaldi protecting his garden. We spent 3 dives doing surveys of these fish, and even I can identify them because they look just like giant goldfish. The males tend a garden of algae (that's the red stuff by the fish) and attract females to come along and lay their eggs in the garden (that's the grey stuff in the middle of the garden). And then the males defend their gardens until the baby fish hatch. They get agitated when you get to close, and zoom around trying to persuade you to go away.
A boat launching from Scripps pier (the boats are stored on top and there's a large winch to get them down). The boats are like the one on the left and my dive buddy on the last dive took the photo below of me.
Below, a lobster peering out from underneath a rock.
I think that the one below is a type of rockfish. It was really well disguised from above, just sitting on the rock underneath it. I caught him on camera from the side though.
