It’s that time again, after a few months of hiding behind my computer I’m starting the second big fieldwork season to collect data! I just arrived in Bali to sort out the last preparations for what will hopefully be a productive three and a half months of data collecting. I’m pretty excited about this trip, as I will be visiting some amazing places again where I’ll be working with great people!

Home for the next 2 weeks

It all kicks off early tomorrow morning, when I’m leaving on a liveaboard trip to Komodo for two weeks. Safari Bali has once again kindly offered me a place on the Sea Safari VII, so I should be very comfortable while I’m trying to find frogfishes, ghostpipefishes and maybe the occasional manta ray or dragon. Once I get back from Komodo, I’ll be spending a fair bit of time in Bali again before heading to Lembeh Strait. The main thing I’m trying to figure out in Indonesia this year, is which human factors have the biggest impact on muck critters.

Like last year, I will again be doing presentations about marine biology and having long conversations with divers while I’m on the boat and staying at dive resorts. Some people might see this as a time consuming interruption of valuable research-time, but I really enjoy this aspect of my fieldwork. I feel it’s important as a researcher to share what you are doing with people who aren’t in academia themselves. What would the point be of all the work we do, if only a very select group of other researchers get to know about it?

Which is why I am looking forward to the next stop after Lembeh: ADEX in Singapore. ADEX is the largest dive expo in Asia, with thousand of divers coming over to try to decide where to go for their next trip or what the newest trends are in the scuba diving world. I am very excited to have been invited to give a few talks about my research. In line with the theme of ADEX this year (Seahorses), I’ll be talking about pygmy seahorses, which I haven’t really done yet on this blog…

For the final leg of this trip I am heading back to Dauin in Philippines. Those of you who have been following the blog, will understand that I am rather happy that my good friend Luke (aka the Science Hobbit) is joining me again! Together we will be trying to figure out the best methods to study newly settled (=baby) critters. If you want to know how we’re planning to achieve that and whether or not we’ll succeed, keep an eye on the blog 😉

Baby frogfish (A. pictus), finger for scale