Yesterday, I:

Did some troubleshooting regarding coral nurseries, thought about the Bahamas and regional difference a lot.

bottle nurseries are a quick, cheap, and effective way of giving branching coral a second shot

the day I forgot my fins we were making a coral nursery with a new material for the new heaven conservationists – monofilament. we used this in the bahamas but with a totally different technique.

I HADN’T SEEN ELKHORN CORAL HERE YET I WAS SO EXCITED YEE

Forgot my fins. 

I forgot my fins. I am a “professional diver” at this point and I forgot my fins. Go team. I considered diving without fins for a second, but when I thought in terms of risk management and decided to not submerge myself in 11m of seawater with decent current and no fins. Adult decision-making, folks.

OKAY, so I lied a little – the
“yesterday” of this post is a few days ago. my real yesterday, I went to chumpon pinnacles.

it was an amazing dive, with schools of barracuda frequenting this mid-ocean pinnacle

these longfin bannerfish munch on one of many jellyfish. I am not a big fan of jellyfish.

Got stuck in some decent rain, which has continued on to today. Lo, we are hanging in the living room watching Pirates of the Caribbean.

here’s why

one got wrapped around my first stage and nicked my neck – don’t worry! I’m fine (if pissed off)

Said goodbye to my friend Kaitlin, who is a ridiculous and awesome Canadian conservation bio babe. She’s moving to Vancouver and I can’t wait to see her in the PNW.

undercover and underwater casanova Mauricio alias “MoMo” tried to snag Kaitlin before she left

she was too flattered to respond. Kaitlin, the canadian conservationist, is kinda like your kooky aunt. She shipped off on Thursday after a goodbye dinner with a killer view.

wait – she said yes!

Kaitlin, the canadian conservationist, is kinda like your kooky aunt. She shipped off on Thursday after a goodbye dinner with a killer view.

shark island, koh phagnan, koh samui

Checked in on an artificial reef structure I’m welding, which is pretty damn exciting. (check out pictures here.)

yesterday’s second dive took us to the HMS Sattakut – a wreck!

a lil guy getting defensive.

bad visibility but a cool structure.

many people justify sinking wrecks as attractions and habitat. wrecks can make bad substrate for hard corals, though.

Was thinking forward a lot, which can set me a little on edge. Booking tickets for Brunei made me want to plan my way to March…which maybe I should do. I feel like I could stay here for so much longer; the two weeks I spent in the IDC course were a necessary chore, and I missed out on the actual practice (and fun/community/company) of conservation work. There’s a lot more on the horizon though, and that gets my heart pumping.

Today was a wonderfully rainy day. The darkness reminds me of Portland, of how lucky I was to be there for four years, no matter what. I hear the rain battering the roof of the Red Line as the train pulls into 242nd St. It reminds me that I’m lucky, too, to be bundled up in a living room where I can recover old habits and dig deeper into research over pizza and tea. I would take a lifetime of rainy days and D’Angelo, I think.  Here’s a fluffy lil’ post for you.There’s some more research-heavy posts on the way, so brace yourselves.

like, seriously rainy

good thing we were already ocean-damp…we look great.

Sounds of the deluge all around, 

Love,

Rennie