And so, the field season begins...

Another field season on the lovely Catalina Island has officially begun. Actually, it began over a week ago... and I'm just now getting to my first blog. More will come as we settle into a routine, but it has been SO busy that it has been difficult to find the time to write.

This year, I brought a GoPro... I will eventually rig it up to take fun field pictures like attach it to the plankton net and have the divers take movies of our collection process. Yes, this has been done before, but it's a new season and it's fun do document every year we are out here. This is my first time using a GoPro... it did give a great (and kind of weird) view of us on the boat today. We went out for a plankton tow only - no diving today. We don't dive on the weekends because of the boat traffic due to the mass exodus of weekenders leaving the island and the increased boat traffic. Doing a plankton tow is o.k. though. Today we were attempting to see if we could find more forams by doing multiple discrete tows. We only have one open/close net so we spent a few hours on the water. And had a bit of down time as you can see... It was a great day. I also took a few pics of the lab we work in. Here are a few of my favorites.