Category Archives: Internship Journeys

Work with the Coral Restoration Foundation

Volunteering with the Coral Restoration Foundation

One of the many perks to the internship with REEF are the opportunities to volunteer with other non-profit groups in the area. Of the volunteering I’ve done so far one organization stands out as a favorite which is the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF). I contacted CRF a while ago (even before I was in Key Largo) asking if I could be a volunteer. Turns out their Science and Education Director is none other than former REEF intern and OWUSS scholar recipient, Stephanie Roach!

Not having done anything like this before, on my first day out with CRF I had no idea what to expect. Jana and I met up with the CRF crew behind a warehouse early in the morning where we we’re introduced to the legend himself, Ken Nedimyer (Founder of CRF), Kevin (manager), Stephanie, and Ben (a long-time volunteer and now the most recent member of the CRF staff). The day begun early in the morning with loading tanks and gear on to the Dusky and once the boat was all geared up we piled in to Ken’s pick up and headed for the water! After a short ride out, Ken ties up to a small black mooring ball seemingly in the middle of nowhere. However, it was a whole other story when you entered the water. Sitting on the sandy bottom at about 30ft were rows and rows of coral “trees” blossoming with Staghorn coral. Yes, I said blossoming- I’m an admitted coral geek so this is allowed.

Coral Trees with hanging Acropora cervicornis (c) CRF

First thing in the water was a tour of the nursery which is home to about 25,000 coral fragments. Once the tour was over, it was back to business… Steph or Ken would select a tree and cut corals that were growing on wires attached to PVC pipes. The corals would rain down on Jana and myself as we scurried around the bottom collecting them. The first task is to clear off the algae growing on the wires and attach a numbered tag representing their genotype to each coral. So, one might think that in a sandy bottom with nothing but some PVC Pipe trees and wires with Coral there might not be a lot of wildlife, however, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While pulling off the algae swarms of fish appeared and loved the free snack we were providing them! We collected 10 coral fragments from 10 trees (IE 10 genotypes) for a total of 100 individual corals. All of the tree’s segments were mixed so that one bundle would have ten coral segments, one from each genotype. These were then bundled together in preparation for their transplantation into the wild!

Work in the Nursery

Once we had completed our work we surfaced, not-so-gracefully got back into the Dusky (corals in hand), and headed out towards the Wellwood Restoration site on Molasses Reef, where we dropped in and got to work! Stephanie once again took us under her wing and showed us the proper techniques for literally planting corals!!!

The 5 simple steps to planting coral

Site Selection
Lay out an oval of 10 corals (1 fragment from each genotype)
Clear the benthic till we hit bare rock (aka hammer away)
Attach coral with epoxy mixture
Nail in ID marker

Not too hard right? Well let’s not forget to maintain perfect buoyancy hovering only inches from the reef/live coral and the fact that you’re working with actual tools under the water. Oh, and remember to avoid the labyrinth of Fire coral! We repeated these steps for a total of 10 ovals, planting 100 corals over all!! It’s all in a day’s work. Who says Maine Biologist don’t work 9-5 jobs? We do, we just spend 4 of those hours under the water!!!

Since our first dives, we’ve been fortunate to go out on quite a few trips with CRF. One of the more noted ones was rather a last minute adventure- It was a quiet morning at the office when out of nowhere we get a call from Ben to be team leaders (We felt so special!). They had a rather large group show up which REEF had actually worked with earlier on some fish survey dives but CRF needed an extra couple of hands on deck to basically act as crowd control. But anytime out with CRF is a good time!

The work alone has been an unbelievable experience with highlights such as seeing a Goliath grouper swim through the coral trees and having a personal best dive time of 95mins on a single tank!! I also now officially hold a PADI Specialty certification in coral restoration! It is truly amazing work the CRF team is doing and I am so thankful to have the opportunity to witness it firsthand.

Happy Divers!!!

No more hand holding

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Anne B. and I finished the required Shannon Point Scientific diver training this week. We have been working on AAUS course work including sections such “Procedures for Scientific Diving”, “Dive planning” and “Diving under special conditions”. We have also been working on the DAN oxygen, first aid, and neurological exam courses, as well as the PADI rescue diver and nitrox courses. The cumulative written scientific diving final exam was twenty three pages. My favorite part of training has the pool rescue diver sessions and the NITROX coursework.

Now that we have gone through the material and done the in water training dives, Anne B. and I are good to go diving on our own! This week we did two more surveys on the same to sites as last week. I was a little nervous at first, but I realized that Anne and I are both good about keeping tabs on each other and we knew the sites pretty well from our surveys last week. Highlights from diving this week include, running into Big Joe (The 150+mm abalone named by Anne B.), seeing a dogfish (a small shark native to Washington), and finishing up both surveys. Our 1^st week solo was a success!

This week Nate hosted a Discover SCUBA class for the summer interns. Anne and I were able to help out with skills during the pool session. It was very cool to see my friends get excited about diving and see a few of them breath underwater for the first time!

Developing the abalone “search image”

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The 1^st week of abalone surveys was exciting. We did 6 training dives last week, working with Josh to setup and survey each site. Both sites are rocky reefs. It was a little over whelming looking for the abalone at first. When checking out abalone in the Shannon Pt. tanks, their distinguishing characteristics were obvious. But when down at the survey sites the diversity of the reef makes finding abalone a little more difficult. The abalone size at the sites range from less than 2 to over 15 cm. Most of the tagged abalone is on the smaller end of this scale. Abalone, rocks, and other shell fish are often covered in marine life including the pink coralline algae which makes everything seem to blend together. Additionally abalone like to live in cracks and rock overhangs. Josh trained Anne B. and I on the sites and also helped us develop the abalone “search image”. Josh would find an abalone and point it out to us so we could make our own mental image. He also showed us the best pace and strategy of abalone surveying. By distance the surveys are slow, but a lot of area is covered because it is necessary to check out all the nooks and crannies. Once Josh showed us a few abalone on site, Anne and I started finding them ourselves. Then we got addicted to surveying. Abalone surveys are fun because, 1) of the Easter egg hunt effect, and 2) they live under rock overhangs and in cracks so while looking for abalone you run into many other beautiful animals!

These sites are also home to kelp forests, another important ingredient for good abalone habitat. One of the sites is especially thick with kelp making minor entanglement frequent. However, at these sites kelp is also helpful. With current present while diving, kelp is a valuable and sturdy hand hold. I am excited to see these forests grow in the upcoming month.

We are continuing to survey the same sites this week. Josh has been replaced by Nate for our last few training dives. Once we are finished with our 13^th training dive Anne B. and I are on our own!

Thank you Christa Doughherty and Kailey Gabrian-Voorhees for taking wonderful pictures and coming out to the sites.

We’re Being Invaded!

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1^st Annual Broward County Lionfish Derby

This past weekend marked the 2^nd installment of the Summer Lionfish Derby Series which took place in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The event spread the whole of Friday evening and all day Saturday and was a huge success but we’ll get back to that… Friday June 29^th myself and the other interns making up the “J-Squad” (Jana, Jessi, and Joel) and Lad (Director of Special Projects) loaded up our rented Explorer and headed to Ft. Lauderdale. Our first stop was actually not Derby related; in fact it was Paul Humann house for the annual REEF Board Meeting. For those who don’t know, Paul Humann along with Ned DeLoach are the founding members of REEF and behind the numerous reef fish ID and critter books published over the years. So for a reef enthusiast such as myself, I might as well have been having lunch at George Clooney’s house! All the REEF Board members were incredibly nice and welcoming and it was such a wonderful experience to meet them and explore the beautiful exotic jungle of a back yard Paul calls home.

The REEF Board, Lad, Martha & The J-Squad (Joel, Jess (ME), Jessi, & Jana)!

Now, back on topic, the invasive Lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. miles) we’re introduced in the 1980’s via the aquarium trade and have since become the first invasive species to successfully established in Tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) waters. Their native range is the Indo-West Pacific (IWP) where populations are controlled by predation and parasitism. However, in the TWA Lionfish have no natural predators and are significantly less susceptible to parasites. On densely populated sites Lionfish can reach densities of over 200 adults/acre and cause serious damage to native reef habitats by non-selectively removing recreational, ecological, and commercially important species or reef fish and invertebrates. While there is no natural form of population control in the TWA, humans represent a predator of sorts and are at present the only form of control we have. In areas where removal efforts are sustained Lionfish densities can be significantly reduced and maintained to minimize their impact.

Progress of Lionfish invasion of Atlantic waters (2012 map as of March). For more information/background on the invasive Lionfish explore REEF’s Lionfish Project and Quick facts on the problem can be found on this one-page fact sheet from REEF, USGS, NOAA and the Simon Fraser University.

Unfortunately, the invasive Lionfish in the TWA is beyond eradication and solutions have moved into control and management of the problem. REEF is one of the organizations at the forefront of this movement and among many of their Lionfish Programs is their Derby Series. The first Lionfish Derby took place in 2009 in the Bahamas where in a single day they removed 1,408 Lionfish! These Derbies are designed to promote mass removal efforts and to date have removed 1,408 Lionfish in 2009, 2,587 in 2010, and 3,542 in 2011.

This past weekend marked the 2nd derby in the 2012 summer series. The derby was hosted at 15^th St. Fisheries in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and sponsored by REEF, Divers Direct, and Sea Grant. There were 12 teams registered for the event that brought in a total of 419 Lionfish! Cash prizes were awarded to the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place teams in three categories: Most Caught, Largest Lionfish, and Smallest Lionfish. Among the highlights of the day was seeing over 225 individual Lionfish come in from a single team and the largest Lionfish caught which measured in at a monstrous 411mm (16.2”)! Although there were many rules to the Derby the main ones were fairly simple: stay in US waters and each team had to have their catch on the dock by 5pm for check in. As the teams begun to come in that is when all the fun started…

Photos Left to Right: Contender for the Smallest LF, Lionfish Filled Cooler, One of my MANY Lionfish Filets in Progress.

The first team in was Brownies Team arriving around 3pm to the 15^th St. Fisheries dock. When teams arrive, their first stop is the check-in table where their time-in is recorded, they turn in their site map, and then head over to the scoring table were the counting begins! Now it is just not simple enough to have one table with one scorer, no, that would just be too easy. At each table there is a scorer, a recorder, fish cleaner, and several NSU students collecting samples. Take all that times it by 2 tables, handling 12 teams, and processing a total of 419 fish and things get a little messy (pun intended)!! I manned one of the scoring stations and in what little down time there was I jumped in to help with the cleaning process. In fact, this was my first time ever filleting a fish. One filet quickly turned into 40+ and it dawned on me that choosing a Lionfish as my first fish to filet was probably not the brightest idea but I’m happy to report no puncher wounds were sustained!

Overall I was so surprised by how many different uses there were for the Lionfish—we had the Chef of 15^th St. Fisheries cooking Ceviche, students collecting tissue samples, stomach content, and carcasses for parasite studies, and we even had one of the team’s members after the tails of the Lionfish for her Jewelry. So in the end there was very little evidence left of the invasive critters except for all the smiling faces of the crowd.

Getting ready for abalone surveys

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Last week we met with Josh who works for Puget Sound Restoration Fund. He is involved in hatchery efforts to raise juvenile abalone for outplanting. Josh and Dr. Dinnel discussed how they wanted prioritize the diving for this summer. They both seemed to think it was a good idea to focus on a few sites (instead of all six) to achieve repetitive surveys. Josh also taught Anne B. and I a few things about abalone. We start the abalone surveys this week!

We have been doing a variety of training dives. Last week Anne B. and I went on a snorkel so we could get a feel for the Straights. Nate also took us off Shannon Pt. beach as a checkup dive. On this dive we went to the salt water intake pipes to check on the CTD mooring.

Later in the week we practiced rescue diver skills in Rosario Bay in Deception Pass State Park.

We have been learning about the importance of tidal planning. Even with careful planning there is still a high degree of variability in the straights of the San Juan’s. Nate told us that tidal currents are often localized and factors like atmospheric pressure may affect the predicted exchange times. This local variation was very clear on our first boat dive. We jumped in next to a kelp forest off a rock wall along Burrows Island. There was a prominent current going one way and strong eddies close by that would take you the opposite direction. Staying oriented in visibility less than 5 feet and in dynamic current took focus and was also a lot of fun! Nate had us answer some questions at depth to see how we think underwater and then handed us a dive slate that said something like, “let’s see where this current takes us, stay together.” Even in poor viability there was so much to see including rock fish and a small (unidentified) fish that tried to clean Anne B. and my neopreme gloves.

Shannon Point Marine Center

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Hi, my name is Annie Thomson. I am a scientific diving intern at Shannon Point Marine Center, a Western Washington University lab located in Anacortes, WA. This summer I will primarily be working with Captain Nate Schwarck and Anne Benolklin. Nate is the dive safety officer and captain for the Shannon Pt. research vessels. Anne B. is a REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) intern who will be implementing scientific diving into her research project.

Nate, Anne B. and I have been working through the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) scientific diving skills and requirements this past week by practicing rescue diver skills in the local pool. The last task Nate gave Anne B. and I was an equipment swap while buddy breathing. We exchanged masks, BCDs, fins, and weight belts while passing off the reg every two breaths. This was one of my favorite exercises. As we pack packed gear I was reminded of the importance of accident prevention. Although I am grateful for these rescue skills I never want to have to use them. We have also been going through the DAN first aid course, learning about the history of scientific diving and getting ready for the abalone surveys coming up on the 10th of July.

Did I forget to mention abalone?!!!!!!

Pinto abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) is the focus of Anne’s REU project. She is working with Dr. Paul Dinnel (the abalone expert) to conduct survey work and also develop a lab experiment with abalone. We have been meeting with Dr. Dinnel over the past week to learn about the pinto abalone story here in WA state. Here’s what I know so far:

•The WA populations was severely overfished by sport fisherman starting in the early 1900’s causing abalone to diminish from the WA coastline.

• The abalone fishery was closed in 1994 and it was later determined that the pinto abalone population would not recover with out human intervention.

• Abalone are broadcast spawners which makes reproduction success difficult when individuals are far apart and low in numbers. Lack of reproduction due to low population density is termed as the “allee effect”. The naturally remaining abalone in the Puget Sound are old, consequently big and most likely too far away from other abalone to reproduce.

• There has been an attempt to reintroduce abalone back into WA waters by outplanting efforts starting back in 2009. The hope for outplanting is that abalone can be reintroduced into a coastal habitat in adult aggregations with densities high enough for successful reproduction.

• Last summer Jeff Hester (REU intern) and Jenna Walker (AAUS OWUSS intern) conducted surveys to obtain survival rates on the new outplants of spring 2011. Jenna and Jeff found that repetitive dives on the same site is essential for determining accurate survival rates because abalone are very cryptic animals.

Helping Dr. Dinnel and Anne B. carry out surveys on the previously outplanted abalone plots is one of my focuses for the summer. We will go back to the 2011 outplant sites to identify and measure the size of the abalone by the numbered id tags attached to the shell.

I am very excited to be at Shannon Pt. helping out with this project and developing a scientific diving tool set to help explore and better understand the underwater world of my home state.

As I took a Giant Stride…

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As I took a giant stride off the boat, I could feel the cold water rushing into my 7mm wetsuit. At a water temperature of only 48 degrees, the chill nearly took my breath away and I knew it was time for me to invest in a drysuit. However, my first experience with cold water diving, despite the chill, was nothing short of incredible! I soon forgot about the cold water as I descended down into the beautiful submerged kelp forest ecosystem where I discovered a Mecca of fish, plants and invertebrate creatures that my eyes had never seen before!
Looking up at my bubbles from below, I could see giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera that reached the surface, almost like an underwater rain forest canopy. I was mesmerized by this new world below the waves. The kelp grew upward clear to the surface as the sunlight filtered down into the nutrient rich waters below.
Cruising along at depth, I became captivated by the white spotted anemones, giant sunflower starfish and blue rockfish that congregate near the top of the giant kelp forest. I very much enjoyed this experience with the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) http://www.reef.org/. Learning how to identify a vast array of Central California fish and invertebrate species and putting this knowledge to use by recording data using REEF survey methodology was a fun and rewarding experience for me.

Most of our Roving Diver Fish Count survey dives were conducted in central California aboard the vessel Monterey Bay Express, although some of these REEF survey dives were also conducted from shore entry at Point Lobos State Reserve in Carmel http://www.pointlobos.org/diving and at the Breakwater dive site here in Monterey Bay. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting many new friends while diving my first week here in Monterey.
This great experience was made possible through my new affiliation with the Monterey Bay Aquarium as the recipient of the 2012 Our-World Underwater Diving Safety Internship. Before my internship at the Aquarium had “officially” started, I was already getting my feet wet by having the honor of being part of this exceptional team of dedicated, enthusiastic REEF divers and I am looking forward to many more dives and adventures to come, both above and below the water.
-Alison Watts – 2012 Summer Intern, Monterey Bay Aquarium – Our-World Underwater Scholarship Society
To learn more about the Monterey Bay Aquarium visit: www.montereybayaquarium.org

One fish, Two fish, Red fish… What’s THAT fish???

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Fish Survey Diving

REEF’s volunteer fish survey project begun in 1990 and has since accumulated over 160,500 surveys. The project (and REEF itself in a way) is built on the idea of the “citizen scientist”—everyday people who have a passion for the ocean can contribute to scientific research and marine management without having any formal training. In other words, the survey method was designed so anyone, not just a seasoned researcher, can get in the water and do a fish count. All they have to do is be able to identify one fish!

At first I was actually a little nervous about the whole “being able to ID one fish” concept because I spent the last two years of my life in the western Pacific and lets face it, I was usually more focused on the coral and nudibranchs… Turns out you pick up the IDs really REALLY quickly. After only a few survey dives I’m fairly confident on the most common sightings, so to keep things interesting I’ve given myself the task of finding a new species (unknown to me that is) on every dive and/or learn my gobies and blennies 🙂

Because survey dives are designed for anyone we practice the Roving Diver Technique which is basically get in the water and swim around—no line transect or quadrat to worry about—it’s very user friendly! My favorite aspect of the survey project is that it uses common names, not scientific, which for a student whose foreign language skills are completely absent it is nice not to have to learn Latin. Each survey records both the name and density of species IDed using abundance codes such as: S-Single (1), F-Few (2-10), M-Many (11-100), and A-Abundant (101+). Once the dive is completed the data is entered in an online database which is freely available to explore and has been used by students, researchers, and managers for scientific publications.

I think what I enjoy most about these survey dives it that it makes your time in the water a little more interactive by basically being an underwater scavenger hunt and what could be cooler than that!?! Now, one of the personal advantages to becoming an avid surveyor is working up the ladder to different fish ID experience levels. If you can ID one fish you’re at level 1 and can work your way up to the expert levels of 4 and 5 (over 35 surveys and passing the advance fish ID quiz). If one is lucky/dedicated enough to reach the advance levels they are invited to join the Advanced Assessment Team (AAT). Members of the AAT are eligible to participate in special regional monitoring projects such as the Vandenberg artificial reef in the Keys and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary off California. Not that I expect to reach this level of awesome by the time my tenure at REEF has ended but maybe eventually if only because the AAT gets all the cool T-shirts!

Peace Love and Sandy Feet

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Welcome to Key Largo and REEF

This being the first of many postings to come I thought I should introduce myself to kick things off… I grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and because of many family trips to the coast I’ve always had a love of the ocean. In 2009 I graduated from the University of NC at Wilmington with a BS in Marine Biology. During my time as an undergraduate I spent a semester studying abroad at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. This semester abroad was a turning point in my life when I got the opportunity to explore the Great Barrier Reef. Since then I’ve been hooked on corals! With this new love for coral reefs, I quickly found myself investing in the conservation and management side of reef science and have since been following my interest wherever it takes me including places like Curaçao, California and even Australia for a second time to pursue a Masters degree. What’s next? You guessed it, KEY LARGO!!!

First impression of Key Largo is that it is a large city with a small town feel. Everyone has been incredibly nice and welcoming while I settle in to the internship. The Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) has many projects available to us interns (ones already in the works and opportunities to set up new ones) and although only having just begun the Internship they have kept us busy busy busy!

For instance, orientation DAY 1- the other interns and I find ourselves at a dock waiting for one of the local head boats to return. At the dock also happened to be a NOAA researcher waiting for the same charter to come in. After a quick round of introductions we create an assembly line of sorts on the boat. The man with NOAA takes the weight and length of these giant Black Groupers then removes the otoliths and gonads. Once he is done he passes this huge SLIMY (seriously, I was covered in Grouper slime from elbow to thigh! But I’m not complaining about it), fish over to us and we remove the stomach. By day’s end we had handled a total of 120lbs of Black Grouper and removed five stomachs.

In the days to follow we learned all about REEF, both the in-office workings and the various projects we would be involved in such as their ongoing Fish Survey Project and the ins and outs of Lionfish (literally). And to cap the week off myself, Jana (fellow intern), and Lad (Special Projects Director) went out for the first dive and fish survey. Which went extremely well. Highlights included spotting an Eyed Flounder, Spotted Morey, and even a couple of common Snook (my first time ever seeing that one). Mid-dive, I found myself surrounded by a school of the beautiful Midnight Parrotfish… not too shabby of a way to end the week.

So that’s that for now. Enjoy the pics and there is plenty more to come from the Keys… Stay tuned!

Washington DC and the End of this Big Adventure (which is really the beginning of the next one…)

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My last stop this summer took me to Washington DC to culminate my internship by experiencing the National Park Service (NPS) from the standpoint of national policy-making. I left Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) one week into my new job for a visit to the big city–excited and nervous to spend 5 days in our nation’s capital. I visited DC once before, for a few days of intense museum-going. On this trip, my days would be filled with meetings at NPS headquarters, National Geographic, and the Smithsonian. It doesn’t get any better!

I arrived to absolutely fantastic weather in DC. After settling in to my hotel, I took the afternoon to re-visit my favorite museum in the city, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (of course) and take a walk along the National Mall. As evening fell, I took some night shots at the Washington Monument and National WWII Memorial. Unfortunately the Reflecting Pool was closed for reconstruction, so I couldn’t photograph that iconic view towards the Lincoln Memorial. The Washington Monument was still closed due to damages from the earthquake earlier in the year too, but it and all the other monuments along the National Mall were quite impressive flooded with light at night and made for fun photographing.

The next day, I headed to National Geographic to meet with photo editor Todd James who graciously agreed to meet with me and show me around. First we headed down to the engineering department to see some of the innovative ways that engineers and photographers team up to capture previously impossible images using new technology. After a tour of Nat Geo’s buildings and a look through the new photography exhibit by Brian Skerry, one of my favorite underwater photographers (the exhibit is called Ocean Soul, I highly recommend it if you are in the area: http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/exhibits/2011/10/05/ocean-soul/), we went back to Todd’s office where he gave me an inside look at his job as a photo editor for the magazine. From project proposals, to research, to sorting through tens of thousands of images, the job of a photo editor requires a diverse knowledge base and an aesthetic eye. I gained a much greater appreciation for the process through which photos end up on the pages of National Geographic. Like every other photographer, I dream of having my own images printed in this magazine someday, so it was extremely valuable to gain an inside perspective of the process. Todd was so generous with his time and answered all my questions with patience. Additionally, he was kind enough to review some of my images from this summer and offered some very encouraging and helpful advice for my portfolio development.

The following day was my big debut at NPS headquarters. I met up with Cliff McCreedy, Marine Resource Management Specialist in the Ocean and Coastal Resources Branch of the Water Resources Division. Cliff had scheduled a meeting for us at the Department of the Interior (DOI), but first, we set up a presentation I made for a lunchtime talk in one of the conference rooms, where I met Jonathan Putnam, International Cooperation Specialist for the NPS Office of International Affairs (http://www.nps.gov/oia/). Did you know that the NPS participates in international collaborations to aid in the creation and management of national parks around the world? I didn’t, but it just makes NPS that much more amazing to me!

Before we headed to the DOI, Cliff gave me an overview of the recent history of marine and aquatic natural resource management in the NPS. While active management of our marine and coastal resources has always been an official part of the National Park Service’s mandate, it was not until in the mid-2000s when increased management concerns led to the creation of a specific branch of the NPS dedicated solely to this purpose in the arena of marine and coastal natural resources. Much of the credit for establishing the Ocean and Coastal Resources Branch can be given to Gary Davis, who was instrumental in the formation of the Kelp Forest Monitoring Program at Channel Islands National Park. A marine ecologist, Gary understood the importance of establishing baseline knowledge of the ecological communities within the submerged lands of our parks, and long-term monitoring to study the health of these communities, and designed the national ocean program around those two foci.

Cliff and I headed to the DOI, a big, intimidating, granite building, and met up with Dr. Marcy Rockman, Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator for Cultural Resources, who would join us for this meeting. We went inside and met up with Dr. Stephanie Toothman, Associate Director for Cultural Resources, and Julia Washburn, Associate Director for Interpretation and Education, and all three women introduced themselves and their roles within the NPS. I can’t tell you how inspiring it was to meet these three incredibly successful and influential women who are working for the common good, really applying their talents, experience, and education towards a cause that is beneficial to everyone—preserving our heritage.

I shared my experiences from this summer, and discussed all of the incredible work being done by dive teams in the parks I visited. After the meeting, we quickly left the DOI and returned to NPS headquarters, and walked right in to a nearly full conference room! By the time everyone came in and got settled, there were at least 15 people from all different branches of the NPS (Interpretation, Cultural Resources, Natural Resources, Dive Safety, International Affairs, etc.) who had come to hear me share my experience this summer. I had put together a presentation with lots of photos, and talked about my personal highlights as well as the important conservation and preservation stories I learned in each of the parks, like the uphill battle against lionfish invasion in south Florida, or the incredible success of the Kelp Forest Monitoring Program in the Channel Islands. My audience was great, and I was so happy to meet several of them personally afterwards.

We had a chance to meet briefly with Beth Johnson, Deputy Associate Director for Natural Resource Stewardship and Science, as well. She was so friendly and heavily encouraged me to pursue work within the NPS – although it is not really something I need to be convinced of, I would be thrilled to work with NPS! I will be scanning the pages of usajobs.gov religiously from now on, that’s for sure!

The following day I had the chance to meet up with Anya Watson, 2005 Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society North American Rolex Scholar. She is currently working as a Dive Officer for the Smithsonian Scientific Diving Program, which coordinates staff divers in Smithsonian research and education projects around the world. She gave me a tour of the new Sant Ocean Hall at the National Museum of Natural History, and then we went to the National Museum of American History where we perused some of the maritime history exhibits and Anya showed me some of her favorites in the museum’s collection. She also showed me the dive locker, which is oddly enough on a lower level surrounded by paleontological specimens, like dinosaur bones!

Thank you so much to everyone who was so generous with their time this week—Todd James, Cliff McCreedy, Jonathan Putnam, Stephanie Toothman , Julia Washburn, Marcy Rockman, Beth Johnson, and Anya Watson, and everyone who took time out of their busy day to attend my lunchtime talk at the National Park Service!

After three months, I can’t believe my internship is ending. I already can see that this opportunity has irrevocably changed my life; and I am so excited to see how it all plays out. When I first decided to leave Mexico, I had no idea what lay ahead, if I would be able to find a job, apprehensive that I might end up somewhere I didn’t want to be, doing something I didn’t love. Thankfully, the opposite of that is true—this internship directly led me to my new job at WHOI, and a new life (at least for the next few months) in a place I love. I am so thankful to have reacquainted myself with the United States and explored so many potential new homes for the future, and to have created a network of friends and professional contacts on both coasts.

As I have known since the beginning of this internship, while the resources that the NPS works so hard to preserve are irreplaceable and wondrous, the true gem is the group of people tasked with protecting the future of these precious sites and resources. We have entrusted them with our heritage, and they work harder than any other group of people I have ever known to make the American people proud of that heritage. I am beyond proud to have worked with the National Park Service, and hope to continue to working with NPS in the future—I still have so much to learn, experience, and contribute in our National Parks!