Weekend sans adventure

This was my first full weekend in Faro since I moved to Montenegro…coincidentally everyone I know is away this weekend or working furiously to finish some deadline. I am sitting here sipping a cup of white wine, thinking about my week. What a crazy week. I got back late Monday night from paradise (which I now call CP) for 4 straight stressful days of dna and waking at 3am wondering if my samples were degrading as I slept. I just did some more serial dilutions today, this time freezing them between each level, which will hopefully provide a method that will start to give us some repeatable results. I have to admit, this work is a lot harder than I thought. I realize I am a bedroom geneticist (if I am using the term correctly, I wonder how many fictitious terms I have passed on so far in this country?), doing it on the side. This is not something you can do on the side. Everyone I am surrounded by has been doing it for years and actually understands why you add all those products to your PCR reaction…and what P.C.R. actually stands for…(just kidding Filipe). My understanding does not even compare. Give me a Petri dish and some media and I will grow you some kelp, but dna? That is one elusive little molecule. I haven’t thrown in the towel yet though. I know there is a lesson in all of this. It’s a challenge, and I can learn. Who knows, this may lead me in a direction I had not anticipated. But I kind of miss growing kelp right now….

To start off the fim de semana, I popped open a bottle of Nico white wine (thanks Tania!), sliced up some peaches and really nice Portuguese crusty bread, a little olive oil with sea salt. So nice. I am truly having a Jarrett moment. He would be pleased to see me sitting at a table for more than 10 minutes (I made it for 30 min) savoring a glass of wine and a light meal in the late evening sun on my back patio (ignoring the kid staring at me between the points of his tennis match from across the fence), surrounded by my Mac products (ipod and book…what a dork I am, and a hypocrite considering I have always made fun of Mac users. That is, until I bought one, and now I know I was just jealous). Is it wrong to think of your computer as your friend? Is that wine or just loneliness? No really though, I pour my heart out to this laptop and I think it is an unavoidable bond for any writer.

*Just a side note: I am so glad I brought my ipod with me. I almost never listen to it at home. Here I listen to it on my morning walks to school now. On shuffle, which has got to be one of the best features of any music player, but especially for ipod because….well, my ipod really knows me and always plays what I want. For example, the other day on my walk, ipod started off with Iz’s “somewhere over the rainbow”, then went onto cyndy lauper and finished up with a little bluegrass. It was the perfect walk. However, I have had my ipod for almost 4 years now and I guess since I use it so rarely, it has worked great. But now that I am loving it so much, it is starting to make weird clicking sounds and pauses songs randomly. Is this Apple rearing its ugly head? As soon as the ex-PC user sees the light, the device breaks and you find yourself at the Genius Bar looking for answers.

Ok, another side note: Most of you know me as a very clean person, almost obsessively clean. I cannot stand to have empty plates on a table or crumbs on a counter. But, I have never lived alone and I have come to the conclusion that most of my behaviors are driven by guilt because in Portugal I am a slob (well at least by my standards). I leave dishes in the sink sometimes for 2 days! It really doesn’t matter at all because I am the only person who will need the sink. I have no guilt. Quite freeing really. Another thing that is different is that I am getting a ton of exercise here. I jog almost every morning and then do some yoga in my sunny tiled living room and usually bike or walk to school (that’s right Jason, not even a bus anymore!). I have never in my life had the capacity to lose weight while traveling since, as you all know, I experience life primarily via my taste buds. But Portugal is key.

*monetary exchanges have never been made between the author of this blog and Apple (well, except for all the money paid out for the plethora of accessories required to operate an ipod these days).


Sunday afternoon DNA UPDATE: I have bands! The serial freezing worked because I have bands (although faint) for the test primer loci for 13/14 samples I just ran. Filipe's samples still look better than mine but at least I know I have dna that can amplify. Picture to follow.

Cabo de Palos, Spain

With 2 days advanced warning and a borrowed tent I stepped into Leonardo’s car to make yet another epic journey to the south coast of Spain for scuba diving. This time we would make it all the way to the Mediterranean, hoping to catch some “big blue” sea at a marine reserve on a seamount off Cabo de Palos. Two sandes de queijo e presunto and 1 major traffic jam later, we arrived at our destination, La Manga campgrounds outside of Cabo de Palos. This has to be one of the most spectacular campgrounds I have ever witnessed, emphasis on “spectacle”. There were at least 400 lots in this place, a quarter of them occupied by privately owned make shift vacation homes that had likely endured the construction phase for a good 15 years. Some of these structures were constructed out of plywood covered in glued-on Spanish tiles or stucco. The campground also had two huge pools, a few bars and a meeting house on a lake with a tapas bar and full stage.

We were lucky enough to arrive just in time for dinner hour, which is approximately 12am in Spain. The place was packed with people aged 6 months to 65 years, all speaking in fast elevated tones and munching on garlic smeared octopus bits. But wait, there’s more….entertainment, which consisted of a man on a synthesizer accompanied by two young woman singing “Baila, baila, baila”. One of the singers was wearing some serious FM boots, two leather garter belt (one on each thigh), fishnets and black wool (yes they were actually wool!) hot pants. As if part of the routine, as the first cry of “Baila!” escaped her lips, the stage filled with dancing vacationers, most of them either under 6 or over 60. I watched the skewed mass and well dressed singers with a dropped jaw and was comforted by the fact that the 3 others I had come with all had the same expression. Apparently the glory of mixing dance, FM boots and 5 year olds has not reached Portugal yet…After a few songs we wandered back to our tents in awe. (below: Filipe's feet the next morning swarming with flies)

The next morning we gathered our dive stuff and headed to the pool bar for breakfast. With thoughts of toast loaded with butter and fresh OJ, I watched as 3 men in their 60s guzzled down beer and shots of ouzo. We quickly coursed through Filipe’s marine organism ID books and were on our way. But the boat wasn’t leaving for a few hours so Leonardo and I had some time for some snorkeling at a cove a few blocks from the dive shop. This was my first snorkel in the Med and it was amazing. Clear deep water with lots of little fish, a really large species of seagrass (Posidonia) and boulders. The color of the water was this deep yet transparent blue with an indigo hue, which I assume only occurs in nutrient depleted waters. It was already worth the 9 hour drive.

On the dive boat we headed out to the marine park, anchored and dropped down. I was not prepared for what I would see. The best visibility I have ever experienced, about 120+ ft (which wasn’t even the best it could be), revealed an underwater mountain extending from 30 to infinity ft covered in algae, sponges, swarming with fish and at least 10 divers, all encased in an endless indigo blue sea….then a 60 lb grouper swam by me and I felt like I was going to faint. (note: all underwater shots were taken by Filipe Alberto or Leonardo Mata, aka. dr. kill)

Was this narcosis, the bends or just the most intense visual overstimulation I had experienced at depth? My tight hood and the 76 F water temp did not help my blood pressure infused excitement and I started to notice that I could hear my heartbeat, which is a bit scary for a diver more accustomed to the sound of darth vader-like breathing. I knew I had to calm down. Then, I turned around and my dive buddy was gone…well there was a guy who looked like Leonardo, same fins, same mask but who was the new guy next to him? These two guys must have been one of the 5 other pairs of divers we had been on the boat with. (Note all the divers on the anchor line. With 4 dive boats anchored on the same seamount, the site was fairly crowded near the platform.)

Convinced my buddy had ditched me, I started swimming back to the anchor to get a familiar frame of reference, only to notice that Rita and Filipe were back near the surface. I turned around again to look for my buddy and the Leonardo imposter and his lurking friend were motioning to me wildly from below…the international scuba signal for “where the $%!& are you going?”. Was I doing something wrong? Who was this guy anyway. Clearly they knew something I did not and I had just broken some rule, touched some rare protected alga or unknowingly fin slapped an endangered fish. The lurking friend approached, giving me the ok sign and I thought he must be some sort of scuba police guy who was now sticking with me because he thought I was a narked out tourist….Then Leonardo “returned”, grabbed my vest and signaled for me to follow him. I was mad though, where the hell had he gone anyway!? Overheated and head pounding I hovered above the other divers thinking, “should I just go up? Maybe I’m dying or will soon, that would suck. I better calm down, go sit in some algae. But that dive cop is still following me so I better act cool, swim a straight line” After 11 minutes (I was watching my dive computer very closely) of internal debate I forced myself to closely inspect some algae and forget about the big blue sea 70 ft thick above me…the effect was calming.

We piddled around a small area for another 30 minutes and then ascended. I was totally drained. The waves were rough, the back of the boat was rocking wildly up out of the water and the boat tender was speaking to me in Spanish, flashing his gold tooth at me (yes, he actually had a gold tooth). I still have no idea how I got my gear and body back into the boat. After a bumpy, seawater soaked ride back to the docks, we had a “de-briefing” where I discovered that there was indeed no Leonardo imposter and scuba cops don't exist. He had no idea who the lurker was, the guy had apparently just started following us, making it appear that I was the odd diver out. We set out for dinner in Cartagena promising to be a better dive team the next day. Cartagena is a really nice town just to the west of CP and has some old very well preserved buildings as well as a roman amphitheater that was unearthed by teh bombing during the spanish civil war.

Diving began the next morning with a shore dive in the snorkel spot from the day before. It was even better on the bottom. So many cool, colorful invertebrates and fish. I got to see a really large moray eel with yellow spots, which we tried to cajoule out of its hole. It was just what we all needed after the stress of the last dive. (below: Leonardo's mad scuba skills almost surpass mine)

In the afternoon we went out on the dive boat again, through Atura-sub. We anchored at another spot in the marine park called Bajo de dentro and descended. This time, I was ready for the sight and could not believe what I had missed the day before. The first thing we saw was a 30-member school of grouper 30-60 lbs each. They swam by slowly, ogling us. We followed the school around the seamount where among many other creatures that I am not mentioning, we saw a school of barracuda. It was wonderful to be in the big blue, just cruising around and not feel like shark bait. I was completely relaxed, my buoyancy was perfect and I had mad scuba skills. It was a complete 180 from the day before. I wanted more…turned out we all did and the next day we booked another dive at the same spot. It was the best diving we had all done. (i swear I am not narked in that picture!)


That night we drove up the coast, stopping to wander through a town which had one of the most crowded beach scenes and to see a jazz concert in San Javier featuring Anne Hampton Calloway “the best American jazz voice of today” (not really) and Brazilian composer Ivan Lins. One last night at La Mangapolis and another heavenly dive at Bajo de dentro and we were back on the road again to Portugal. Now I am back at work to face yet another week of poorly amplified DNA. Why can’t vacation be every day?

ps. It may be heartening for some of you to know that the mullet, still only reported from isolated regions in the US and most of Canada, is alive and thriving in southern Spain.

Diving in Tarifa, Spain

After 4 hours and one of the hottest drives I have ever experienced we arrived at our campsite in Tarifa, Spain where we were hoping to dive for the next 3 days.

Being the kite boarding/wind surfing capital of the world, Tarifa is usually incredibly windy, which poses some difficulties for hopeful divers. Sure enough our first day, the conditions were poor so we could not go out and instead just walked around the town. Tarifa is really beautiful with narrow cobblestone streets and secret courtyards that you could glimpse through slightly open doors.

Being Spain, there were countless very trendy shops, like this Vibram shoes store selling shoes with toes on then and Pygmies, a children's clothing shop.

Our favorite place was Nuno's suggestion, Cafe Azul where we ate in a back room filled with pillows and low tables, perfect for a siesta after a nice meal of fruit and crepes.

Two cool things about Tarifa are that Tangier, Morocco is only 35 minutes away by ferry and there is a castle/fortess that still has a catapault and large cauldrons to pour burning olive oil onto scaling intruders.

To drown our sorrows about not being able to dive, we headed to the beach (also not such a good idea during record wind).

Aside from wind, Tarifa also has a very large sand dune overlooking the bay.

We celebrated our lazy day of wandering at a really nice dinner in town.

The following day was more calm so we did a noon dive at Las Ancoras (anchor) off the light house point. There were so many fish, big ones, since it is a marine park and the topography was high relief rock walls with deep sandy channels in between. It was a really nice dive. Rita and Nuno had to get back to Faro so Filipe and I met up with another post doc, Onno, to do some seagrass sampling on Monday. It also happened to be a religious fiesta day and everyone had gathered at the harbor, apparently to watch local kids struggle to make it to the end of this wooden pole over the water that was being slathered with grease. The incentive appeared to be large fish hanging at the end of the pole that were wrapped in old looking plastic bags.....yum.


Don't let the dry suite fool you, Onno did his previous work in the North Sea at -5 to 0 Celsius only wearing a 7ml wetsuit. The views from the boat of Tarifa were great and eventually Africa appeared out of the fog (background of some pics below). We also saw a green turtle swimming by, but of course I missed it while fumbling with my camera.

Filipe points to Africa....

It was a hot day and very calm conditions which is a good thing since we spent about 3 hours on the boat searching for an elusive cymodocea seagrass bed. We finally found it and did the dive to collect tissue samples for Onno and Filipe's genetic work. Then there was still time and the conditions were still good so we did a dive to see the Laminaria kelp species at 80 ft. This was really cool for me since I do not know the kelps out here at all. As soon as we climbed back on board and before we even had a chance to remove our hoods, we were each handed a glass of beer by the captain....and a display of nice bread, cheese and proscuitto. It was a great end to the dive, although not very re-hydrating.

We hit the road after a few coffees and a second lunch on land, made it home pretty late. However, I really did not get enough of driving Spain's highways so tomorrow we will set out again on the open road, but this time we are heading to Cabo Palos on the Med about 9 hrs east from here. The diving is supposed to be amazing and I just pray there is no wind!

ps. I hosted a wine tasting party last night for some people at the lab. We tried about 10 bottles and my favorite was a red (tinto) from Alentejo. I also made my first squid dish ever, from scratch!