Auckland Museum: My ocean

Everyone knows I love going to Museums!  So I was thrilled when I was invited to explore a new exhibit at the Auckland Museum: Moanna - My Ocean.  It explores life across the shorelines of New Zealand, to animals living in the depths of the ocean.

The ocean is home to animals that are both small (ex. plankton) to large (ex. great white sharks).  Each live in different environments, and this exhibit does a great job of highlighting some of the special features of each.

Explorers start at the shoreline, looking at birds of the coast, and then moving on the animals that live along the continental shelf.  For instance, did you know that the Snapper actually lives up to it's name, and has a pretty scary set of teeth on it?  One of the highlights of this part, was a 3D movie, which was housed in it's own 3 dimensional, sea urchin inspired, theatre.  (If you ever have an abundance of leftover pool noodles, now you know what to do with them!)

Next, visitors move on to the pelagic (mid-water) zone.  This area displays several large sharks (life size replicates of actual sharks living in the Hauraki Gulf.  However, if they were real sharks, you wouldn't be able to do this!
This area also has a 360 degree screen, which shows the behaviour of schooling fish.  The fish are not part of a movie, but actually have individual artificial intelligence.  They move via a programmed routine, and react based on what predators are thrown at them, and how neighbouring fish move.  That being said, the show is not the same twice!  It was really exciting to watch! 

Finally, we moved into the dark depths of the deep-sea. 

Many of the animals that live in this area are unique, and modified to live in a part of the ocean that is very cold and dark.  Explorers can experience the feeling of all the pressure that one would experience living under all that water.  What a squeeze.  It's hard to imagine that even at a depth like that, many animals (such as this crab) grow to incredible sizes! 

After visiting the depths, visitors return to the shoreline, where they can examine a few more coastal species of birds, urchins, sharks, and this wonderful yellow boxfish! 

If you are in the Auckland area, I would highly recommend you visit this amazing exploration of the ocean around New Zealand!

Education Update

I'm afraid that the Wandering Octopus has not been on any fantastic adventures recently, so there have been no blog updates.  However, I would like to share with you what is going on in my life.

I have been working hard over the past two years working on a Master's degree at the Auckland University of Technology.  My thesis has been written and is currently being reviewed (insert dramatic music here).  It is 90 pages long, and over 20,000 words.  I feel extremely accomplished in the work I have submitted, and I am anxious to get the reviewed manuscripts back so I can begin working on the final edits.  However, this will not be happening until early August (so I have about a months break time).

I have been working at AUT over this semester, teaching an entry level scientific writing course, and invigilating final exams.  Now that all of that is done for the semester, I finally have a few weeks to breathe. 

My time in New Zealand is coming to a close, and I will be returning to Canada at the end of the month.  (But hopefully, I will have time to go on one or two more adventures with the Octopus before I fly out).  However, I hope to return here next year to begin a phD, as I am enjoying the topic that I am working on, and hope to expand my research to a larger group of squid! 

Thank you all for continuing to follow me, supporting me, and showing interest in my adventures!

Aaron & the Wandering Octopus

The Octopus in Brazil

First of all, I would like to mention that taking three back to back flights to get to Florianopolis, Brazil was possibly not the greatest idea in the world.  That was a VERY long day.

However...

I made it!  Waking up in Brazil the next morning was amazing, I had a lovely view of the ocean from my window.  Most days we had beautiful sunrises, which made the fact that we were getting up at 6:30 slightly less painful.  That being said, the early wakeup calls were worth it, because I had a fantastic time at the conference.

I know that the idea of a room full of scientists studying cephalopods would not be an exciting prospect for many individuals, but I was in my element!  There were some amazing presentations of the work being done in cephalopod research right now, including some amazing video footage of rarely seen species from the deep-sea.  I gave a 15 minute talk about my study species, which went really well.  I received many compliments from people whom I look up to in the scientific community.  We finished the conference with a closing gala dinner, which had a diverse array of food, and some Brazilian entertainment.

Despite the lovely weather in Brazil, I spent most of my time indoors, so did not take full advantage of the sun.  I did have a couple of days of being a tourist before heading back to New Zealand.  I discovered that Florianopolis is home to projecto Tamar, which rehabilitates injured Sea Turtles.  It was an amazing experience to come so close to these beautiful animals.

 I spent the remainder of the day wandering around Florianopolis, which is an island off the Brazilian coast connect by a bridge.  The city is full of tropic parks, sandy beaches and colorful buildings.

On the ride home, I had an overnight layover in Rio de Janeiro.  Once there, I stayed around the corner from the Copacabana beach.  One of the things that has always been on my bucket list, was to see Christ the Redeemer.  I was thrilled to be in Brazil, so I went to see it.  However, when I got there, the mountain was covered in a thick cloud, and I was told there was not visibility at the top.  But did I let that stop me?  Noooooooooooooooope!  I started climbing the hundreds of stairs to the top of the mountain, and eventually, the statue came into view.  After about 20 minutes of waiting, the clouds cleared for a brief instant, and i was able to snap of few pictures and enjoy the monument I had journeyed to see. It also has a great view of the harbor the city is built on.  I was also glad to meet some of the locals.

Brazil is a beautiful and interesting country to visit, however, make sure you know a little Portuguese before you go... it'll make the trip slightly less stressful.  For the most part, the locals spoke little English, but they were very helpful to tourists who obviously didn't know any Portuguese.

Thank you Brazil for a wonderful trip!  I hope the next time I visit I will be able to experience more of your beauty, and less of the inside of a conference hall!

The future is Brazil!

I am excited to announce that the Wandering Octopus and myself will be travelling to South America in a little over a month.

I have been accepted as a speaker at the Cephalopod International Advisory Council Symposium (CIAC) in Florianopolis, Brazil! Brazil is a country that I have always dreamed of traveling to, but never thought i would have the opportunity. I'm so excited, both to be travelling to this exotic location and to be presenting the research I have done in front of the Worlds leading Squid and Octopus experts.
 
I'm hoping that despite my busy travel schedule, I will have an opportunity to bump into this guy...

The Octopus in Tasmania

Last week was the combined New Zealand/Australia Marine Sciences conference in Hobart, Tasmania. Heather, the octopus and I flew over for the week to enjoy multitude of amazing speakers, and to present our own research to the scientific community.

Hobart is a harbourside city on the southern tip of Tasmania. (So in the middle of winter, it's a bit chilly). It prides itself on it's Seafood, and there were many floating fish and chipery boats in the main harbour. We also made a new friend in "Jeremy" the Pufferfish, who was lazily swimming around the harbour. Hobart is also a very historical city. It is situated at the base of Mt. Wellington, so it's a bit hilly, but makes for a very picturesque hillside. Many of the important buildings in Hobart are made of the original sandstone, which makes everything look like it's from a different era.
The conference was held at the Wrest Point hotel, but we stayed in the Pickled frog Hostel, which was about a 10 minute bus ride away. The conference center was located right on the water, which was great because we had amazing, sunny weather the whole time. We woke up fairly early in the morning, and caught a bus to the conference. Every day we had several keynote speakers to get our minds working. We would then break for morning tea, before heading off to a day of presentations. Most of these were given by students, like myself, or researchers at other institutions. The topics ranged from whales and dolphins, corals, ocean warming, pollution, deep-sea food chains, and of course SQUID (which was totally the most interesting topic).
At the end of the week, we had a gala dinner, which included a three course meal, a live band, marine themed decorations, and dancing. It was a great way to finish off an engaging (but exhasuting) week.
My only regret was not being able to see any live Tasmanian devils!

The Octopus gets a vacation.

I apologize for all the time I have been away from my blog. In all honesty, I have been extremely busy with school and my new job, and havn't done anything worth posting about... until now. It's fall break here at AUT, so the octopus, Heather and I decided to take a wee vacation over to the island of Waiheke. It's about a 40 minute ferry ride away. It's a beautful lush island with lots of nature trails, quaint boutqiues and beaches! (However, the buses only run once an hour, so if you miss them, you end up taking walking trails around the island... which end up being alot of hills and stairs!). We stayed at the Bioshelter backpackers, a hostel that prides itself on being environmentally friendly. It's got a very unique design, and looks more like a Bali resort on the inside. Probably the most notable room in the whole hostel is the toilet, which is rather unqiue! Each room has several beds in it, but as it was not busy, we got a room to ourselves! We spent the day familiarizing ourselves with the small town of Oneroa, and especailly familiarizing ourselves with the beach! (It's a hard job, but somebodies got to do it) Waiheke is very much a vacation island, so every cove seemed to have boats tied up in it. We spent the afternoon snorkeling, and collecting sea shells. We finished the day off enjoying a pizza on a beach front bistro!

The next day brought warm sunny weather. We decided to do some more swimming. This time, we hiked around the north tip of the island to Ray island. It's not accesible by road, so we had the entire beach to ourselves. We spend hours looking through the tidepools, and swimming in the crystal clear waters. We then decided to call it a day, and took the ferry back to Auckland. A short vacation, but relaxing none the less.

The Octopus goes to Sydney

The octopus and i went home for Christmas, and on our way back were able to stop off for a few days in Sydney, Australia. It wasn't ALL touristy stuff, I actually went there for my friends wedding. but seeing as we were in the area we took the opportunity to do some sight seeing! Sydney is probably best known for two things: the Opera house

and the plethora of unique exotic animals that live there.

The octopus and I got a chance to visit the Sydney Aquarium, and were greeted by the coolest statue ever (made entirely of Lego I might add). In the aquarium, the octopus had a chance to catch up with a distant counsin. (Look closely, there is a cuttlefish in that picture). We also joined my friend Meaghan on a glass bottom boat ride, this allows you to get up close and personal with some of the fish in the tropical aquarium! We also got up close and personal with some very large sharks!

Afterwards we visited some of Australias natives. We saw Kangaroos, crocodiles, dingo, the cassowary (much cooler in real life), and of course, the cuddly Koala!

Had a great time in Sydmey, it was just too bad that my visit there was so short! I'm looking forward to whenever I have a chance to return and explore more of Australia!