Bubbles in the Bathtub

They held a science day recently at my daughter's school and I volunteered to go in and talk to the kids. The teachers had gotten ahold of some animal parts and had a short outline for the volunteering parents to follow. They were excited to find that they had an actual marine biologist in their midst. I "borrowed" a couple of live animals from one of the classrooms and worked that in to my talk.

And as Matthew is so fond of recognizing, took advantage of the awesome network here in North Carolina. Matthew was kind enough to lend me some turtle parts, and seeing as he was still in Greece at the time, Wendy Cluse was even kinder and offered to collect the items and bring them to me halfway between Beaufort and Durham. All in all the day was a huge success, made all the better with a little help from my friends.

Note the fine Africa swag given to me by Angela Formia. This is the t-shirt that was designed for and sold at the recent African meeting at the start of the sea turtle symposium in Crete.

And of course I would not want to neglect the fine Oman swag that Manjula brought to the symposium for me.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought I'd go ahead and embarrass myself to pre-empt anyone else doing it for me.

For those that haven't heard yet, I am currently president-elect of the International Sea Turtle Society (ISTS). I officially become president on May 1st, the primary upshot being that I am responsible for organizing the next (2007) sea turtle symposium.

There is a small amount of pomp and circumstance associated with passing the mantle from one president to the next. One is the jacket, which I will get in to later. Another is the presidential trowel which is typically passed from the outgoing president (Dimitris) to the incoming president (me) at the banquet at the annual symposium. I don't recall at which symposium the trowel came in to being, but the intent was to help the responsible president shovel their themselves out of "trouble". There may have been a pair of boots at one time as well :)

In any case, I digress. I'll see if I can find the full history of the trowel.

This is about the dance. When Dimitris brought me up to pass the trowel he invited me to take part in a traditional Greek dance with him, along to a video clip from Zorba the Greek.

Having never attempted this particular dance before I insisted the Dimitris help me get started.

Somewhere along the line Dimitris disappeared and I was left to carry on alone (eek).

Hopefully I didn't embarrass myself too badly. I understand that there is also some video of the event floating around out there, which I am sure will appear here eventually!

Posted by Michael Coyne at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In addition to the great meeting and good times at the sea turtle symposium in Greece I scored some great swag. Hoyt Peckham gave me a great proCaguama shirt.

Thanks Hoyt!

I heard raves about the ladies version, but did not get to see one (Hoyt, my wife wants one too!).

Posted by Michael Coyne at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last full day of the symposium was marked by a vicious African sand storm. It came roaring in about midday and lasted until well in to the evening. I don't know what it really was, but winds must have been gusting to close to 50 mph.

Here's what it looked like the first day...

And during the sand storm...

Sorry, not quite the same shot, but there was no way I was taking my camera out in to the storm.

The symposium has officially ended, but I'm hoping to post some wrap-up stories over the next few days...

Posted by Michael Coyne at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting side effect of the sand storm experienced on the Friday of the Symposium were some intermittent power problems. It started in the morning with a power outage at the beginning of Matthew Witt's talk on LEATHERBACK TURTLES, JELLYFISH AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE NORTHWEST ATLANTIC: CURRENT SITUATION AND POSSIBLE FUTURE SCENARIOS. Of course that meant everything shut down and the computer system had to be rebooted, etc. But Matthew handled the interruption without problem.

During the plenary in the afternoon the power went out a couple of times, leaving the session in complete darkness and leading to several comic situations.

Posted by Michael Coyne at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)