How many lives do you have?

view from top of street

That is what the doctor giving me my dive physical today asked me...I responded with "I think I'm on my 5th."  He said "well I've only got one so why not make the best of it right?"  I couldn't agree with him more.  I continued to tell him how I was starting my life over here in Monterey and when he asked if it was that big of a move I told him it was pretty huge leaving everyone I knew, friends and family to come to a place where I didn't know anyone.  He said that wouldn't last too long because I'm a good guy and I work with a lot of good people which was very reassuring.  

Pacific Grove

I'm starting to settle in out here in this beautiful environment.  I haven't been doing too much outside of work except running and playing on the computer but I joined a running club which should be fun.  We ran on Wednesday.  It is just a small group of people of varying ages and levels of running so it's a good mix.  I found one girl to run with so we kept a pretty good pace for 6.5 miles while everyone else except for this one crazy Russian guy, were running behind us.  After the run we all went out to a bar downtown but I didn't stick around for too long but probably will next week.  We meet again on Monday for a track workout!

Local beach

Work is going well so far.  I'm going to be working mainly in the seahorse section but will also be involved with the jellies on Wednesday and Thursday.  They've gotta get me all trained up in just a couple of weeks and them I'm in charge of the seahorses on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.  There's a lot to learn in a short amount of time but most of it is very repetitive, you just have to pay attention to a lot of very minute details.  My second day was amazing.  I got to go out on one of their boats (they have 3), it is a 19' Boston Whaler and we went out in search of moon jellies (Aurelia aurita) along with other species if they looked good enough.  We went out probably 15-20miles in 6 foot swells that were covering up the horizon and cruising along in thick fog searching each slick we could find.  Just outside of Moss Landing we started seeing the moons we needed and then they were everywhere!  We easily got two tubs full of jellies and grabbed one Pacific sea nettle on the way.  I saw a purple-striped jelly and an egg yolk jelly that were both twice the size of my head, it was unreal!  We also saw sea lions, sea otters, and one harbor porpoise...this place is amazing.



The week went pretty quickly and was somewhat exhausting trying to learn everything and find my way around but it's going to be a great place to work.  The people seem cool so far but it's only been a few days so we'll see how that goes down the line.  And now that I finally got my dive physical done I will be able to start diving soon (hopefully).  Until then though I'm going to keep up with the running of which I'm going on 30+ miles this week so that's exciting.  I may also start running with another group on Saturdays that do a fun run in Pacific Grove.  They only go 3-5 miles so if I run there and back I can get a good 8-10 in each Saturday.  


Oh and good news to the fam, I might be able to come home for Christmas but I'll let you know for sure soon!


GO PATS!