This morning, I head for Portsmouth, New Hampshire to take a boat to visit the Shoals Marine Lab at Appledore Island. A faculty member from our department was recently appointed the new director of the lab and he invited me to come see the facilities and think about the educational opportunities it offers. I'm excited about going. Boats run only once a day (more or less), so I'll be spending the night. And maybe a second night.
I think I remember Willy saying there was a network connection there, so I'm hoping I'll be able to update my journal.
They do have a network connection on the island. I found Portsmouth in good order, drove around until I spotted the parking place and the place where I was to embark, and then had a couple of hours of free time. I parked, walked around for a bit, and then had lunch at the Portsmouth Brewery. They had a very nice New England Special Bitter, which I enjoyed with a bowl of chowder and a salad. The service was particularly nice. I was interested to see that the Portsmouth Brewery was started by the same people who started the Northampton Brewery. Small world.
I still had lots of free time after lunch, so I stopped in a number of the little shoppes and then chatted with Phil for a while on our cell-o-phones. I noticed some dark clouds gathering, so I went and got my stuff from the car and reported a bit early to the boat. I was given a hearty welcome aboard and chatted amiably with the people on the boat for a while. After a bit, it rained for a while -- half an hour or so, and then cleared up and was simply magnificent. People weren't ready to go quite when they had thought they would be. At one point, everyone took off to get ice cream. I stayed behind at the boat -- mainly out of a tiny worry that I might feel seasick. That turned out to be unfounded.
Around 5, everyone was on board and they fired up the diesels. The raised the bridge for us as we headed out. We went by the Portsmouth Shipyards (on the list to be closed) and the old navy prison (boarded up for 30 years or so). Appledore Island is about 10 miles out from the coast.
The first event, upon arriving, was that everyone on the island pitches in to create a "bucket brigade" to pass up all of the supplies from the ship to the truck. It was an interesting exercise to see everyone -- including the director -- passing each box and package from one person to another up from the hold, across to the dock, and up the gang way. Once that was done, we came up to the director's house and I was shown to my room.
It's an interesting place and I'll have more to say once I've finished digesting the experiences I've had since I got here. Good stuff and a great opportunity.
StevenBrewer