Vamos a jugar

For starters, I'm the cute one in the hat.

I was down in Mexico this past weekend because of a mandatory class field trip. It turns out that the class was only mandatory for those who could make it, a fact which I discovered about 4 hours into the trip. Doh!

Three professors and three students (just a quick head count for those of you who are mathematically challenged) from GCU went down to Rocky Point to study the marine vertebrate and invertebrate life. We stayed at CEDO, a research station near Puerto Penasco. Below you can see the sleeping quarters (the deck) and the great view from our beds in the morning.


We didn't do too much in the way of actual class work. We went tide-pooling a couple of times. We spent a lot of time cruising around Rocky Point, at night. But the best part was the "excursion" we took on Saturday morning.

After a two hour trip out to this odd little island, we jumped overboard into the deep blue sea. Interestingly enough, the island isn't naturally white in color. It's called Bird Island. You do the math.

Anyway, back to the jumping into the ocean. Just above you can see a shot of me just before I took the plunge. Right behind me are sea lions. Rawr! As a side note, as you can see above they flip over on their backs in the water and stick all four flippers up in the air. They do this to warm themselves up. It's pretty funny looking. But it seemed to work for them. Also note that in this picture I am still smiling. The water was unbelievably cold.

However, it was all worth it to get this underwater shot of the sea lions swimming all around me. What an experience to have 20 or so sea lions swimming past me, underneath me and literally right up to me. It was pretty magical.


To end, I'm sorry for those of you who have slow connections. I know that kinda stinks. I hope the pictures didn't take too long to load. Anyway, Picture Tuesday will now become Picture Thursday. Further updates as events warrant...