Far well ice cream Thursday and commuting 3h/day, hello Caribbean ocean!

Lunch restaurant with a view

Anna finally found some time to lift her nose from her thesis and we went hiking last weekend.  Aside from poring rain that decided to enrich most of the weekend, while the work week had perfect sunshine, it was pretty sweet to hang out with our friends Austin and Laura deep in the George Washington National Forest, Virginia. While the girls crawled up in the back of the car and drank wine me and Austin did the cooking in the rain (nothing to do with gender inequality). The next morning we found a prefect rain shelter with a fire pit and picnic tables and finally got to dry out by the fire during a long brunch. hello Caribbean ocean!

The hiking trail tended to turn into creeks...

Laura fascinated by the salamanders that were out and about  in the rain

When he gets big enough he will be spitting fire!

...but for now he need he need some tendering 

One of many river crossings

One of many ways to cross

Just another tree moose

Time sure is flying and I'm leaving for Puerto Rico tomorrow. It's going to be tough to leave my sheltered office environment and major events like ice cream Thursdays and long lunches in the sun with colleges. To easy myself into the idea of Caribbean fieldwork I have been following a live broadcast form the bottom of the Mexican Gulf where my NOAA colleagues from OER Okeanos Explorer are collecting ROV (remotely operated vehicle) data. At the moment they are investigating deep water wrecks and deep water corals sites and in a few weeks they will start a second expedition were they will investigate the biologically rich cold seep sites around the Deep Water Horizon wreck where I was mapping last fall. It's pretty amazing and highly addictive to watch, so I recommend to check it out.

No more fermented herring, I decided to treat my colleages
with homemade Swedish fat tuesday buns, aka Semlor.

Doing my best to fit in...

Another tough ice cream Thursday work day

I have to warn sensitive viewers that the next blog might contain some highly contagious pictures of palm trees and crystal clear waters. Don't worry,  in the end I will still spend most of the time in a dark computer room, a dark rocking computer room...

The essentials for work trip packed: tent, fins, snorkel, fishing rod, that should be all!