Coastal Environmental Oceanography (CEO) Day 1

OK, so the class we took was called Coastal Environmental Oceanography. A better name probably would have been "A Bio/Geo/Chemical Look at Chincoteague and the FL Keys", but...whatever. The class was taught by Dr. Cornell, the same professor as the Curacao class back in January. I've gotten to know him pretty well over the past year, and he has actually become a pretty good friend (Teddy was already friends with him). He's a great professor, so we knew the class would be amazing.

On our first official day of class, we put in the kayaks at Memorial Park in Chincoteague, VA and paddled across the Bay to Horse Marsh Beach. Look at Teddy paddling like his life depended on it. So cute. :D

A little past Horse Marsh was a little spit of land that was deemed "Eagle Point", for obvious reasons. There were tons of very large, dead horseshoe crabs all over the beach (probably due to a recent storm).
Do you see the eagle??

This is Teddy and a cool guy named Dave seining offshore.

It started raining while we were finishing up at Eagle Point, so we packed everything up and headed back across the channel to Memorial Park, and then back to the Marine Science Consortium. Each evening, we did lab work for a few hours.

Since I was the only one with a waterproof camera, I was kind-of the (un)Official Photographer for the class. I think I have probably close to 1,200 pictures; however, most of them look similar to this:

Since this was a scientific class, most of the pictures I took were for some purpose: measuring and documenting fish species, plant distribution, or the geology of the beaches. For that reason, I have a LOT of fairly uninteresting pictures (at least to the casual viewer. I rather enjoy them, though). And, since I was the (un)Official Photographer, I haven't seen a single picture of myself from that trip, besides the first one that I posted in this entry of me and Teddy in the kayaks (which I took, of course). I know Dr. C has a few of Teddy and I together, so hopefully I can get my hands on those soon.

OK, enough about that for now. In other news, my mom is having surgery on her foot right now to fix the damage that was done when she had Guillain-Barre Syndrome a few years ago. I know she was really nervous this morning, and I didn't get to talk to her (she had to be at the hospital verrry early), but I know she'll do just fine. I was planning on going over to see her Friday evening after work, but now I'm probably babysitting for Dr. Cornell (its he and his wifes' 10th anniversary and he wants to take her out for a surprise dinner, awww), so I probably won't be able to get over there until my day off on Sunday. At least my aunt and my dad are both there to wait on her hand-and-foot. ;D

In other, OTHER news, Teddy and I are making our first 'grownup' purchase coming up here very shortly..... we're getting SCOOTERS!! Here's the one I'm getting (in white), and the one Teddy's getting (in black). We are very, very excited. We have both always wanted scooters, and we're at a place in life where it makes sense to have them. So, hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll have them... yay!!