The Sink or Swim Project

I love sharks and am deeply proud to have just completed my first year as an intern in Dr. Hammerschlag’s Shark Research & Conservation (SRC) Lab here at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

As summer begins and my Freshman year at RSMAS comes to an end, I am excited to share that I am about to cast off with some of my SRC lab partners and people from the Field School for a shark research expedition in the magnificent waters of the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ll be traveling and living aboard the 55’ R/V Garvin’s research vessel with 13 other crew members and we will be performing all sorts of cool research on shark populations in the Gulf.

68 miles West of Key West, the Dry Tortugas are an untouched natural environment filled with incredible marine life and beauty. With the exception of Fort Jefferson, which maintains a small staff of National Park Service personnel, the islands are uninhabited and were named by Ponce de Leon in the early 1500’s after sailing by them and believing they were shaped like turtles (tortugas in his native Spanish language).

I visited the Dry Tortugas about three years ago on a family fishing and diving trip and fell in love with them. The waters are pristine, the beaches soft and bright white and the sea and marine bird life is abundant everywhere you look or swim. It’s simply an amazing place and I am very exited about conducting research there and enjoying another adventure in a place I love.

While I am offshore on the expedition, please know that I will not have any cell, email or internet service but I hope to return will all sorts of stories and pictures to share with you. Enjoy the end of your school year and the start of summer and you can be sure I will be enjoying my time with the sharks and other awesome marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.