Back in the water!

I was able to start the weekend by enjoying the glorious weather we had on Friday (sunny and 27C even on the coast!!) by slipping under the waves into the silent underwater world.

I was training a couple of new students in the lab to count and measure eelgrass. Both had never done it before so it was a great new experience for them and gave them a taste of what it to come with this summer's field work in July and August.

The big white things on their arms are the slates with the underwater paper and a small pencil attached. These armbands are extremely convenient since they stay out of the way but close at hand for recording data and you are less likely to lose it! Writing underwater with huge mitts on is very challenging. Although the most challenging part sometimes can be reading it when your are back on the surface!

Recreational and Scientific diving are VERY different. Usually you have your hands full of stuff, catch bags with the various tools, armbands, quadrats (see next photo) and anything else you might need to collect your samples/data. So getting used to controlling your buoyancy while handling all these tools requires practice and this is why we had a practice day and we will have at least one more before the official sampling begins!

The quadrat is a marine ecologists' most used tools. It is a 3 sided square of a specific size that you use to delineate and standardize your sampling area. It is always helpful to have it in bright colours not typically found underwater so that you can easily see it. This one is in white and red electrical tape to contrast with the eelgrass and the bottom. The white areas also delineate a smaller area that can be used to collect subsamples if needed. It is a very simple but essential piece of sampling equipment. The two divers above were counting and measuring the eelgrass plants in the white subset. We are planning a lot of field work this summer. I will be sure to take a lot of pictures of us working and the various tools we use to do our work!!

We also got to test our newly repaired research vessel! It worked beautifully and is ready for another season of research. This vessel has a long history with me and I am preparing a post about it.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Easter on the road in Nova Scotia.

Okay so I recant what I said in my last post. March did come in like a lion (huge snow storm on March 1) and go out like a lamb... Easter weekend was sunny and upwards of 10 degrees Celsius! Diego and I decided to take the weekend and hit the road and explore some place in Nova Scotia that we have never been before. So we settled on Cape Sable Island. This is a small island off the southermost tip of Nova Scotia. Its really almost a sand bar for all its magnificent beaches.

 

Map from the Harbour Authority of Cape Sable Island

 

So why would we go to an island of many beaches in March you ask? It has everything to do with this little goose...

Image by Mike Baird

These are Brant Geese or Branta bernicula. They pass through the Maritimes on their way North at this time of year, so they only stay for a short time in March. I know, I am not a birder or ornithologist, so why am I so interested?...other than being a biology nerd that is... these geese have a very special diet; they eat the marine plant eelgrass (Zostera marina)! Which if you have been following my blog, know that I was studying this particular plant for my doctoral thesis and it continues to be the subject of my research. Click here for more information on eelgrass itself and here for information on its distribution. So you might be thinking that I must have seen a lot of these geese throughout all of my many years of research BUT in actual fact, I had never seen one. There was a disease outbreak in the 1930s that wiped 90% of the eelgrass beds on both sides of the North Atlantic that in most places took more than 30 years to recover! The consequence, a collapse in the population of Brant geese and those that remained changed their migratory route inland instead of up the coast to take advantage of food in farmers fields...which means they no longer come near Halifax. So this was my chance to see these amazing birds that act like cows, increasing the productivity of eelgrass beds by cropping the tops of the plants but leaving the roots and rhizomes intact!

So off we went with our binoculars, maps, hiking trail guides and food for the weekend to stay at a little cottage on the ocean. Did I say binoculars...? Arriving at Cape Sable Island Cottages after more than 2 hours in the car I realized that we left our binoculars at home. So I said; "How hard can it really be, there are supposed to be hundreds.". In the end we spent 2 days looking for this elusive goose and managed only to see them at a distance or flying overhead. I am obviously not a birder! Oh! but the beaches and marshes we saw looking for them, were totally worth it!

 Did I say it was 10 degrees Celsius? It was when you were out of the icy wind! As you can see in the photos, the beaches seem endless and the reason is because the tide was low and the tides here are influenced by the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tides in the world! Although the tidal range is not a large as the head of the Bay of Fundy (13-15 m), it is double (2-4 m) than near Halifax (1-2 m). So when combined with a pretty flat (or low slope) beach there is a lot of the beach that is exposed. We also spent some time enjoying the cottage, hiking and visiting the surrounding communities. 

Easter Sunday Sunrise.

 Morning coffee and afternoon wine in the warmth of the sun and sheltered from the icy wind by the cottage.

Rail trail through the historic Town of Shelburne. They are mallards...not Brant geese.

Overall, we had a wonderful Easter!! In addition to not seeing the geese close up, there were a number hiking trails and beaches that we didn't get to so we have lots of reasons to go back next year...but this time with binoculars!

Yes, we have matching boots...and I have a smiley face!

I hope you had a great Easter weekend!

***I am not being paid to advertise the cottages, they were just lovely, clean and had a great view and want you to know about them if you are ever down that way.

Hiatus OVER!

Obviously, things have been crazy busy for me to ignore you all since September and I have so much to tell you. The most important piece of news is that I AM DONE MY PhD!!

I successfully defended my thesis on Dec 7 at 10 am. The defense is an oral exam where you present your thesis to your committee, supervisor, an external examiner and because it is open to the public...an audience. My presentation lasted 20 minutes and the question period was only an hour!! I have been to defenses where it has lasted 2-3 hours! I was lucky, I had a great committee with interesting and thought provoking questions... it was actually FUN! Not too many people can say that about an oral exam! I also had great support from friends, colleagues and family. There were about 25 people in the audience and even my parents came for the defense and the celebration afterwards! Now we can look forward to even more fun at my convocation in the spring!

The best part of finishing up was my reward. We went to Mexico for 3 weeks over the holidays! We spent most of our time eating and snorkeling in a marine reserve in Puerto Morelos, a small town of only 3 streets parallel to the beach and separated from the main highway by a huge protected mangrove. As Frank Sinatra said it...This is my kind of Town... Every day that we were there we indulged in delicious food, happy hour, family and of course LOTS of snorkeling!

 Who can resist this assortment of sweets brought to your table by vendors that just walk up and down the beach selling their wares from a tray that they carry on their head!

 We had Arracherra, or skirt steak at least 5 times while we were there...if you like beef, this is to DIE FOR!

 

 We went to a restaurant that served authentic cuisine from the Yucatan region and had panuchos (the first of the 3 photos) which are fried tortillas with beans, some type of meat, pickled red onions, avocado and of course salsa. The second photo is of papadzules which are corn tortillas dipped in a pumpkin seed sauce then filled with hardboiled eggs, topped with more pumpkin seed sauce and a bit of tomato based sauce. Lastly, the soup is called sopa de lima. Lima is a type of citrus that is the size of a lemon but greenish and sweeter than either lemon or lime, it is sometimes called sweet lime. The soup has chicken and pieces of fried corn tortillas and is delicious!

We also ate at a lot of street vendors that were recommended by locals...Tacos, chile relleno (stuffed chillies), tamales and all kinds of other amazing street food! If in doubt, ask a taxi driver where he/she eats and you are guaranteed to get something good. When we showed up at one cart in Cancun we were surprised that there was actually two different ones...how did we know which one to eat at? When a truck load of police showed up to eat at the one cart, we knew that was the right one! It was delicious!!

 

The AMAZING thing about a marine reserve is that they actually work to protect large predatory fishes and other sensitive species. There was not a day that we did not see at least 10 or more barracudas that were as large or larger than me!!!! The above photo is of a school of 30!! The smallest one in the school was at least the length of my arm (or about 60 cm long!).

 This is a school of snappers (predatory fishes that are very tasty so on unprotected reefs you almost never see even one and here they were schooling by the hundreds!!!

 We also had the pleasure of seeing at least 2-3 turtles everyday with the largest one being about the size of a smart car!

 Sting rays (top photo) and spotted eagle rays (bottom photo) were VERY common, almost a daily occurrence and on some days more than one at a time!

 We saw a number of lobsters hanging out under coral heads which are very rare outside of marine reserves.

 We saw a lot of coral and the health of the reefs themselves was patchy. Some areas were in great shape while others were covered in algae (bottom photo). The reefs in the Caribbean have taken a beating with hurricanes, eutrophication (high nutrient levels in the water from run off and sewage) due to coastal development and climate change. The high nutrients stimulates algae growth that then either smothers the corals or prevents them from recolonizing and phytoplankton in the water shades the corals and can cause bleaching and loss due to lack of light.

The seagrass pictured here can help to act as a filter by taking up a lot of nutrients but we are putting more than it can handle so there is obviously enough for the algae too. The seagrass beds were extensive and healthy so the eutrophication has not yet started to affect them but more nutrients and the seagrass beds could disappear too since they are also sensitive to light reduction and overgrowth by algae.

 Another very common sigh was this beautiful lionfish. On one day we counted seeing 12. You might think wow, what a great fish to see but in fact, it is not native to the Caribbean. It is from the south Pacific and was likely introduced by people with marine aquariums that no longer wanted them so they released the fish into the ocean. This fish is a voracious predator and is affecting local fish populations because nothing eats them and they eat everything! There is an active bounty on these fish in the Playa del Carmen region of Mexico but sadly it is not enough of an incentive to fish them and since they are underwater, they are out of sight and out of mind. You can read about lionfish control and management measures in the US here. Hopefully this will be a coordinated effort among all Caribbean countries.

Of course we spent a lot of time with family over the tree weeks we were there. We did all of the typical Christmas and New Years traditions with all 30 family members that were visiting this year!! So that is it in a nutshell.

I am looking forward to catching up with all of you!

Update!

What a busy few months it has been!

Diego's parents arrived for a 2.5 month visit that was kicked off with Diego's convocation. That was a proud day. They loved Halifax in the summer and my parents got to come out and visit with all of us twice! It was a lovely visit. We even took them backcountry camping in Kejimkujik National Park. It was their first ever canoe adventure and we had to paddle two hours to get to our campsite. The site was glorious and the water even better. I spent most of my time swimming...and eating of course! Another highlight was tidal bore rafting along the Shubenacadie river...such fun for the whole family!

This is the wave as it approaches...

Here is is filling the boat up after dousing us in warm sandy water! All we did was laugh the whole time...except of course when the wave hit...even though it looks like it...it doesn't taste like chocolate milk! Highly recommended!

I also got to spend some time doing field work in Passamaquoddy Bay, New Brunswick last week for a Masters student I am co-supervising! We were island hoping for 4 days to sample different rockweed beds. The beds there are enormous because of the huge tidal range! (see below) The weather was a mixture of fog, blazing sun and heat and torrential downpour. Mostly it was glorious sun.

Interspersed with all of this I have been working hard to get my thesis done. I finished the last two publishable chapters since February for a total of 4. I have the first of 2 oral exams next Friday! The second one, my thesis defence will be in December. This will give me lots of time to make address any comments from my committee, submit my last 2 chapters for publication and write the bookends (general introduction and discussion) for the actual thesis. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! For now, it is back to getting ready for my exam!

Diego's Big Day!

Diego successfully defended his PhD Thesis today!!! He is now Dr. Diego in Biological Oceanography! His defense was 2 hours long and he did GREAT with all the questions. I am very proud of his success! One down, one more to go in the family! But now, it is time to celebrate!

More Good News!

In the early morning fog on what was a beautiful Fall day I quietly celebrated getting another thesis chapter done...well almost...I am waiting for comments back from my committee members before I submit it for publication! For those of you who may not be familiar with graduate school and how it works I will give you a quick overview.

Once you have been accepted into a Doctoral program and you have a project you have to select a committee of 2-3 people other than your supervisor who will be there to help guide you and evaluate your work throughout your program. You want to choose people with a range of expertise that you can draw on but that can offer you insightful comments on aspects that you are learning and that your supervisor may not be an expert in. Once you have selected your committee you have to defend your proposed project. After about a year of classes and literature review, you write up a 5-10 page document outlining your project, its goals, how you will do it and why it is important. Then you have an oral exam (Admission to Candidacy Exam or ATC) starting with a presentation of your proposal then you answer 2-3 rounds of questions from your committee and can take up to 3 hours. This is a pass/fail type of exam and if you pass you move on to actually being a PhD candidate and doing your research. If you fail, you start again with another proposal but if you do not pass the second time you are kicked out. You typically meet with your committee once a year to keep them updated on your progress but are able to see them anytime for particular issues or one on one discussions. One year before you finish your thesis you have a Preliminary Exam. This is an oral exam that prepares you for your thesis defense (another ~ 3 hr exam). This exam is based on one of your thesis chapters. This exam is designed to be on the broader topic of your thesis not some particular data you collected, it is supposed to put your work into the broader context of the field and it meant to evaluate your ability to see the bigger picture and synthesize your work. Again, it is an oral presentation with 2-3 rounds of questions from your committee and an new examiner from within the University but external to your committee. Another pass/fail event and if you fail twice you are out. The last hoop is the biggest, the thesis defense. This is your last (~3 hr) exam and the one with the most riding on it! You are there to defend the work you have done for the last 4 -8 years (average at Dalhousie is 5-6, they kick you out with or without a degree after 9). For this event you have another external examiner but this time they are an expert in the field from outside the University, for example Diego's is coming from France! After the thesis defense then you have a BIG party! :)

You are not required to publish your chapters as you go but it does make it easier in the end. Most students who don't publish as they go have a hard time doing so once they have completed and moved on to the next thing. It is also nice to have all those publications on your CV right away, you are more competitive for the positions that do come up.

Now that I have 2 down...just 2 more to go! On to chapter 3!

Finally Some Progress!!!

Friday was a GREAT day... After a long summer of hard work I finally finished Chapter 2 of my thesis!!! I also had my first chapter come out in print (you can view the abstract here) AND I finished the first week of teaching without a hitch! Diego is also progressing nicely! He has one chapter left to do revisions and his thesis will be off to his committee members...his defense...definitely before Christmas!

First and foremost I want to say Thanks to all of my friends nearby and in cyber space for your patience. It is hard but necessary to completely immerse myself in my work and I will need to keep at it for the next two chapters! I will keep you updated with my progress as I achieve "small" victories!

Of course it hasn't been all work. I do have to have some diversions to keep me from going absolutely crazy! Like my garden (the photos are from earlier this year)!

Kale
Our upside down tomatoes...they had white flies but still produced lots of cherry tomatoes.
Our herb garden was out of control! We also had lots of tomato plants everywhere! I made sauce with them for the winter.
We had lots of peas and the brussel sprouts are starting to form!
Our potato plants flowered...did you know the smell amazing!?! AND they made about 2 kg of potatoes! I planted red ones and they are delicious!
We also made a lot of delicious food...like this amazing Hawaiian Pizza! I made 3 batches of strawberry jam (Diego LOVES it on yogurt), 2 batches of strawberry-rhubarb and one batch of plum jam. They are all very tasty!
We had a couple of small side projects too (that are still in progress...). We were inspired to make our kitchen space more efficient so we magnetized our wooden cooking utensils! Now we have more counter space (no utensil holder) and they are right where we need them.
We also magnetized our existing spice jars to go on the side of the fridge and freed up some space on the shelf above the stove...it was a nightmare of crowded jars and spices were hard to find...not anymore!
Can you see the hanging wooden spoons? We drilled holes in our salsa spoons so we could hang them within reach...now they are no longer crowding up our drawer! Can you tell we have been spending too much time cooped up at home??!
The last item of note is my new found passion for vintage hairstyles! Diego bought me the above book for my birthday (end of Aug) and I have been doing vintage styles ever since!
I did this one on my b-day dinner out. I had victory rolls at the front, late 40's style. Many of them are time consuming and require patience BUT once you get the technique right then you can start making it more efficient.
This one is my favorite. It is a 30's style and the front has a finger wave. It is also one of the easiest to do! I usually do half at night (like foam curlers) and then sleep on it so it only takes 15 mins in the morning. Although, you do have to sleep in a kerchief! Diego loves the styles and laughs every time he sees me in a kerchief. I have yet to venture and try the beehive! I will let you know when I do!

Back to work! Ciao for now!