The Monterey DPS Adventure

The DPS (Division for Planetary Science, a division within the American Astronomical Society) held its annual meeting in Monterey, California in 2003. Here are some of my pictures from that little adventure. (Note: despite appearances, I did get to some of the meeting, too. It just wasn't nearly so photogenic.)

Sea Lion in Monterey Monterey Harbor, with cormorants and sea lions.
Sea lion playing in the water Monterey Harbor, with sea lions and cormorants
A lone sea lion, paddling through the harbor Ready to set sail
A lone sea lion, out for a swim All they need are opposable thumbs, and they're off.
Napping anywhere that they can How did they get up there??
Hey, if it's comfortable... What I want to know is, how do they get up the 6 meter high cliff?
Cormorant
There were also quite a few cormorants, which look a lot like loons.

Banquet at the Aquarium

We had our annual banquet at the Monterey Aquarium. This is by far the coolest banquet I've been to.

Jellyfish Upside down jellyfish
Jellyfish in the visiting exhibit Many upside-down jellyfish
Astronomers watching fish Hammerhead shark
A bunch of astronomy nerds watching the fish A hammerhead shark overhead
Watching fish around the ceiling Sea turtle
Watching the fish swim over our heads. Note that I'm pretty sure two of these people are Mark Lewis and Cori Krauss A sea turtle. (He's a little out of focus, sorry.)
Monterey and Mars Dining by the Water
Monterey with Mars above it Dining in front of the fish

Whale Watching

A group of us (CU and Cornell students) went out whale watching on Thursday morning. While we missed a lot of talks, it was worth it. (As well as worth the $25 it costed.) We didn't see any blue whales or orcas (bummer), but we did see fin whales, Dahl's porpoises, and some harbor porpoises at a distance.

Fin whales Fin whale diving
Fin whales at the surface Fin whale starting to dive
The pod at the surface One last whale picture
The pod all together One last whale picture
Dahl's porposise frolicking Dahl's porposise frolicking
Dahl's porpoise frolicking in the boat's wake More porpoises
Dahl's porposise frolicking Dahl's porposise mid-jump
More... Caught one mid-jump
Dahl's porposise frolicking Dahl's porposise frolicking
Yeah, more Dahl's porpoises So I took a lot of pictures. They're cute.
Harbor porposise at a distance
Harbor porpoise at a distance

Back to the Aquarium

Since we only had the banquet in about 1/3 of the Monterey Aquarium and since we'd already skipped the morning sessions, three of us decided to go for broke and revisit the Aquarium. It was worth it.

Kelp forest in the Monterey Aquarium Shark in the kelp forest at the aquarium
Kelp forest in the Monterey Aquarium Shark swimming about in the kelp forest at the aquarium
School of fish in the kelp forest Pre-pizzafied anchovies
A school of fish swimming around in the kelp forest Pre-pizza anchovies, in their own little tank
Sea otter floating about Two otters floating about
Sea otter floating around the aquarium The other two otters floating together
All three otters together, one of them looking around Someone knows it's nearly feeding time
All three otters together, one of them looking around Someone knows it's about feeding time
She knows it is nearly feeding time Otters are their feeding stations
Someone else also knows that it's nearly feeding time Feeding the otters. Notice that they've all come to their assigned stations
Otter running up on shore Otter mucking about
Having been told to run up on shore, the otter does so I have no idea which end is the head versus the tail

I have a new career goal: sea otter. They seem to have a lot more fun than humans do.

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John Weiss
Last modified: Sun Oct 19 10:46:43 MDT 2003