A view from dinner the other night. It was one of those quintessential Hawaiian shots that I couldn't pass up, as cliche and touristy as it may be...

The other day, I received a package in the mail with the following book! I had forgotten that a while ago I was asked to edit this children's book about Octopuses.  Lo and behold, open the book and there is a lovely acknowledgement with my name.  It is a good book filled with educational information about the wonderful and exciting octopus.

Now that I have finally decided to take the plunge and move off of Coconut (AHHH!!!) I am feeling nostalgic for all of the wonderful things about it.  Obviously, I will still be working out there since I am not finished with my PhD, but working out there and living there are two very different things. In fact, I am depending on that since it turns out living on Coconut did not do much with regards to my productivity.  The other day I finally decided to join the Ukulele practice that happens on Coconut on Wednesday evenings.  They are all so good! I still have no idea what I am doing and my finger tips are numb from only one practice, but I'm sure I'll get there someday... Right now I'm just happy I finally decided to go.  Of course it's only after I decide to move off.

I only have one octopus in the tank at the moment. I actually went out to catch some the other night because I went the the Family Aquarium Night where I was an octopus "expert."  I hate to say it, but it has been so nice not having a bunch of octopuses to keep alive... I knew they took time out of my day and money out of my paycheck, but I thought I would miss them more. I suppose five years with octopuses is enough for a while though.  While I was cleaning the tank the other day, I found a bubble algae in the shape of a heart. They had taken over the tank while I was in the Azores.  They are pretty spectacular looking. I remember when I first saw them I thought they were beautiful green marbles that had fallen in the tank, but really they are just single celled swollen algae.

Here I am at the Family Aquarium night with one of the rock tako.  I'd say it was a successful evening, but definitely exhausting. All of the kids had great questions.

New shoes from Steven--octopuses, mermaids and space. What more could you ask for?

Christie Wilcox is one of the researchers on Coconut Island and she also happens to be an awesome Science Blogger! Here is her latest about Mark Royer, one of my house mates on Coconut. So many Coconutters in the news :) Yay Science!

Back in Hawaii

As of Saturday evening, I am back in Hawaii. After the Azores, I was lucky enough to go home to DC for a week and spend some much needed relaxation time with my family.  It was lovely, as usual, with the added bonus of seeing my sister four months pregnant!

But now it is back to work! Coconut is still overwhelmed with construction, but up amongst it is a gorgeous orchid growing in our "yard."

Last night I was treated to a spectacular sunset outside of Steven's window. The colors kept changing... just breathtaking. Here is my phone's sad attempt to capture the moment.

Also, check out this awesome stomatopod (mantis shrimp) we saw at the National Zoo! What the heck is in its mouth?! We thought maybe eggs, but I thought they would brood their eggs like lobsters, back behind their legs. OK, guess what? I forgot about the internet... I just looked it up and, YES, it appears these are definitely stomatopod eggs. WHOA! I feel so lucky we got to see them!

New bonus at the National Zoo, they added an OCTOPUS to their Carousel animals! Alright, that is probably enough exclamation points for this blog post.

Azores Day 6

Well, poo. I wrote this once before, let's see if it decides to save this time. I have a free half hour of internet before I have to shell out money. I am currently in the Lisbon airport waiting for my next flight to Newark. Yesterday was my last day in the Azores and it was appropriately rainy and gross. Although, not terribly gross, and I have an appreciation that it must rain sometimes to sustain the beautiful lush greenery on the island.

The last of the cephalopod talks were yesterday and I think I have made myself known as a cephalopod biologist. I attended every cephalopod themed talk (except those that occurred in a different symposium, concurrent with the one I was in) and made sure to make some introductions.  I didn't talk to as many people as I probably should have, but I did feel as though I learned a lot. There was a dinner for the cephalopod people on Thursday night which I regretfully missed... I had not written down the name of the restaurant and didn't manage to find anyone with the information.  So, that was a bummer. But perhaps if I end up writing to any of these people in the future, they might be able to remember my face from the crowd. Also, thanks to Steven, I got a lot of attention due to my amazing tentacle bling.

I am very motivated now to get back and finish up--I WILL FINISH MY PHD! I feel some inspiration to move on to new and exciting things. It is going to be hard, but I think I have a clearer picture of what I need to do now. Also, after watching everyone else's talks, I am pretty sure the next talk I do will be much better.  

I had to leave before the conference dinner so that I could catch my flight, but I think it is alright since I am pretty sure that is when they give out awards to student speakers. I know I didn't get one.  They were very disorganized at the start of the conference and I am suspicious that they forgot to have the two evaluators that were supposed to be there. Even so, I didn't do my best and hopefully I will have another opportunity to prove myself in a conference setting.

I bought some goodies on my way out to bring back some souvenirs from the beautiful Azores. I bought a couple tins of packaged fish, one thing of sardines and one of calamari! I couldn't decide if they would take them away since they had liquid inside, but I thought since they were packaged and had never been opened it might be alright. I was wrong, of course. Oh well, I took a picture of them and decided to move on. It was really the packaging that was the best part about it. Oh poo, I should have kept the packaging, they threw it out anyway. Well, my brain clearly wasn't working at that point. I really didn't want to check my bag, so I just said skip it. The wrote down my name and I felt like some  kind of truant. 

I think I am about to run out of internet so I'm just going to finish this up. It was such an incredible experience and I especially loved meeting new people, both from the Azores and from the Conference. I hope to get the opportunity to go back some day.

Azores Day 5

Today was the first of the Cephalopod Symposia days. We began with some talks to commemorate Malcolm Clarke, one of the key proponents of cephalopod research.  He recently passed away, and this conference is being held in his honor. I tried to take a picture of Paul Rodhouse (!!!--the extant author of Cepahlopods: ecology and fisheries) holding a large squid beak, but it is difficult to see. He's holding it though... 

 At lunch, I decided to take a walk since I realized tomorrow is my last day here :( I made it back to the bell-tower and this time it was open for me to climb up.  Along the way, I passed by the museum, but it was closed.

 Most of the streets are cobblestone and I am so impressed with all of the beautiful patterns that are built into the streets. I am also impressed with the women who seem capable of walking in heels on the cobblestone.

The view from the steps of the bell-tower before climbing up.

  To climb up to the top of the bell-tower, I had to sneak around to the back where there was a little door open. Inside, it was dark and there was a narrow stone staircase that appeared like it would collapse at any moment into a crumbling pile of dust.

 At the top, there was a winding staircase that lead to the top of the tower. I barely fit. I couldn't imagine any one of a different body type squeezing up that thing.

 Here I am at the top. My foot is there for reference so you can see how ridiculously tight that little staircase was.

 But the view was worth it.

 I quickly made it down the steps and walked back through town to get back to the conference on time. I can't believe that it's almost over! It's been so thrilling. I am reveling in the high concentration of nerdery.

Yay, Ginger! This is Madalena's adorable and super friendly cat, Ginger :)

Day 4

Yesterday, I went diving! We met in the morning at the University, which reminded me that I haven't posted pictures of the University. As with the rest of the island, it is covered in the ubiquitous hydrangeas. It is small, but lovely.

 Below is Nicole on the left and Bec on the right, my dive buddies.

 The dive shop was pretty slammed with all of the people from the conference so we went in one of the whale watching boats.

Below is the prison--pretty nice place to be in jail, I would imagine.  A view of the ocean and everything.

This is our first dive spot, right in front of that giant rock.

I wanted to take a picture of myself to prove that I was actually diving too :) And then we started to see octopuses! Here was our first encounter...

  Below is a nudibranch!!! But, my camera decided to be poopy and unfocused... You can kind of tell that it's awesome though

 More octopus love. Our dive master was playing with it and the octopus kept reaching out his arms to follow his hand.

Can you spot the flounder?

 Camo-fish!

 Another camo-fish--red this time

 Unfocused sponges

 Fire worms!

 Sea cucumber

 I loved all of this sea leaf blue lined algae (I doubt that is the real name...)

 This last octopus was one I found at the end of the dive. I was very proud of myself.

 On our dive, there were people from the conference from Brazil who had collecting permits so they spent their dive collecting molluscs and in this case, crustaceans... Yay, hermit crab!

Here is an aplesia on a clam

 Nudibranch on a shell! In a tube... so not super focused

After that, we had another dive in the afternoon on a wreck.  It was about twice a deep as my camera is rated to go, so I decided not to risk it. There were more ctenophores than I have ever seen before! It was incredible, so beautiful.  It was some sort of swarm up close to the boat. Also, there were some actual stinging jellyfish that everyone managed to avoid, thankfully.

The wreck sank at the end of WWII and there was a lot of life that had grown on it and was aggregating around it.  We saw another octopus--so many! I was thrilled!

After, we grabbed a coffee and some beers. Here is Bec with one of the tiny cups of coffee they have here, so cute!

Alright, speaking of coffee, I need to head to the conference to get back to absorbing all of the science! Today is a cephalopod day--yay! Sorry the quality of my blogs is quickly diminishing... My brain is losing power.