Irene

What an end to a week. An end i'd rather not repeat anytime soon. You know that visa issue I mentioned earlier - well it turns out it was actually a huge deal. I got a phone call from the lawyer at 5pm on thursday telling me they were going to have to send me back to the UK, as I was out of status (aka illegally working). I did some searching around and found there was a chance they could issue me a new entry document if we could prove it was their error and that there was an office in Portland. So yesterday was a day spent at the lawyers office, then waiting around to see if they would entertain changing my documents.

Luckily Gabby came with me, looked after Barkley and kept me sane during the whole experience. Luckily they didn't take me away and stick me on a plane. And that's the closest I ever want to get to that happening. They changed the documents and all is now okay. This whole process has been a pain in the ass, but most of it I can laugh it. This wasn't though, I swear I lost ten years of my life in the last 24hrs. Last night involved some adult beverages, and today has been slightly fragile....

And now just waiting on Hurricane Irene, though by the time she reaches here she'll be a tropical storm, so all we'll see is some high winds, lots of rain and probably some power-outs. I don't think it's going to be huge, but we'll probably spend the day inside catching up with things.

Some photos from a lab lobster outing, and from the last round of Monhegan Diving (a few weeks ago)

Trish teaches us the right techniques for opening and eating lobster! 

Little lab group!

Collecting Gersemia corals off Monhegan. 

Collecting corals. 

It was a beautiful day!