My internship may have ended, but the show of marine awesomeness must go on!

The Ikka Carbonate Columns, Ikka Fjord, Greenland - the coolest underwater geological structures ever. They form from underwater seeps of Carbonate to form a mineral called Ikaite, which form these sweet pinnacles. But they are disappearing fast, most likely as a result of ocean acidification. The pinnacles are essentially dissolving as the surrounding ocean becomes more neutral, so withing a few decades these will be gone.

Put it in full screen, HD. The action starts around 2:00 if you are lazy.

Definitely on my list of top 5 places to dive.

Well two months have passed...I leave for Washington tomorrow bright 'n early. It has been an incredible experience to intern down here in Eleuthera seeing some amazing animals, beaches, and people. In the course of my internship I transferred one thousand juvenile Cobia from three tubs to a huge fish cage two miles offshore, gathered data on reef fish and invasive lionfish populations, logged exactly 50 dives to give me a grand total of 96 (four short of professional ranking), swam in some of the most absurdly blue water I have ever seen (better than any photo), eaten my share of delicious conch fritters and the special Eleutheran Mac 'N Cheese, spotted sharks and eagle rays, punched an over-inquisitive grouper and barracuda on the same dive, and met some amazing people.

   Things I am looking forwards to when I get back home:

• Air conditioning. I cannot stress this enough
• Junk food (BBQ, pizza, greek food, french fries...)
• getting ready for college
• seeing my family!
• many others...

Things I am not looking forwards to leaving:

• Almost daily dives
• a dorm that is about 10 feet from the ocean
• the water...
• amazingly friendly locals
•  Eleuthera in general...

It has been an incredible experience that I am glad to have taken a part in...I apologize for the infrequent blog updates, sometimes the daily ""grind" here seems not worth reporting, but looking back there is so much I could have written about. The blog will revert back to just a general blog about some of my thoughts on various marine topics...feel free to unsubscribe.

I look forwards to being back home!

HDR of boat and Conch shell midden

mangroves growing on a conch midden

Cassiopea Upside-Down Jellyfish

Just some more random pictures I've been taking

Also, a film crew from Sweden has just arrived to film a documentary on sharks, which our shark team here will be a part of. One of the most famous names in environmental photojournalism, Mattias Klum, will be joining them - I really hope I can talk with him! Check out his website: http://www.mattiasklum.com/home

I've been busy this past week taking care of some new critters in the wetlab - Rotifers.

Courtesy UBC - those spheres by the tail are eggs.

These guys are microscopic plankton that we are attempting to culture so we can feed baby Cobia and Mahi Mahi this fall. We have approximately 200 million of these guys in our tanks right now and we have to provide an estimate count of their numbers everyday, a very tiresome task.

Cooling down a car engine, Bahamian style

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Our rotifers waiting to be put in tubs

finally we got them through security

Our Rotifers were shipped from the University of Miami so we had to go to the Rock Sound Airport to engage in some bureaucratic labyrinths before we could take them back to our lab.











Also, this is my last week here - although I am excited to be going home it will really be quite sad to leave. I'm just trying to soak it all in at this point.

New blog I created with some of my favorite photos I've ever taken - not really Eleuthera related, just thought some people might be interested.

oceanusandtethys.tumblr.com

Great morning dive today, saw a huge spotted eagle ray that glided ten feet away from me and a couple of reef sharks. Also broke my depth record, from a previous 109 feet to 112 feet at the wall only a few hundred feet from the cage. It's really amazing there, the seafloor just drops into the deep blue.

Two quick videos i took when I had to do surface support for some divers (surface support means I sit on the boat and make sure it doesn't float away/make sure all the divers are ok) I apologize for the bad underwater shots, I couldn't quite reach far enough the keep the camera in the water all the time.