Scientists, a Windsurfer, a Sunset, and a Turtle

There won't be much of a narrative to this blog post. I'm just putting up some cool, recent pictures that have been sitting on my computer. The first is a group photo of the Marine Biodiversity Lab at VIMS.



From left:
1) Matt Whalen, a recent William and Mary grad who has been working as a tech in our lab for a year and will be starting as a grad student in the fall. He'll be taking my office and my apartment when I leave, so we joke that he's stealing my life.
2) Jon Lefcheck, a rising junior at Colby College who has been working with us this summer on a Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) Fellowship. He might end up being a grad student here, too; I started as an REU back in 2001 (time flies).
3) Will Tarantino, a masters student in the lab. He's doing some kind of complex mathematical modeling work that the rest of us don't understand, and he spends a lot of time out in California at UC Davis. Will was on the William and Mary track team and he's a ridiculously fast runner. When he and Matt were fighting for my office the other day, Will proposed that they settle the grievance with a footrace. Matt wisely refused.
4) Althea Moore, a masters student in our lab who is just starting her second year. She's brilliant and gorgeous.
5) J. Paul Richardson, our lab manager. He is the man, basically. Plus he windsurfs and occasionally blogs.
6) Rachael Blake, a PhD student who will take over the "senior grad student" role when I leave. She's doing a really cool project studying the influence of shoreline development and global warming on underwater eelgrass beds.
7) Me.
8) J. Emmett Duffy, PhD. He's super smart and pretty famous in the world of ecology and marine biology, plus he's a good guy to work for. He likes some of the same weird music that I do, like the French band "Air".

The next picture is a big snapping turtle that we intercepted crossing the road last month. We put her in a cardboard box and carried her back to the pond.



Next up is a picture of folks from our lab and some other friends at Rodanthe Watersports and Campground in the Outer Banks two weeks ago. We had a great Saturday of beach play, windsurfing, and carousing, but we got chased out early Sunday by morning rainsqualls and reports of an incoming tropical storm.



This picture is me longboard windsurfing on the Pamlico Sounds in front of the campground at sunset. If you're a windsurfer who has never been to the obx, you're missing out.



And finally, just to wrap it up, here's the sunset itself.