New Year, New Fun!
By Mary Quinn
These high schoolers from around the country took part in our first ever overnight summer camp
Here at MarineLab, we are sad to see 2022 go, but excited to look towards the future! 2022 brought great schools, students, and families to our door. We made new friends, and saw some old acquaintances return to us for the first time since the pandemic. We hosted our first overnight high school summer camp, added a new boat to our fleet, grew our MarineLab family, and got to scare you all at our annual Haunted Lagoon. We even added more t-shirts to our alumni wall, from both returning schools and first-time travelers: in fact, this year we taught over 5,300 students and chaperones! Some of our lucky adventurers were visited by some crazy cool critters during their snorkels, including a pod of dolphins, manatees, a great hammerhead, a baby octopus, and a squadron of eagle rays, just to name a few favorites.
Instructor Erin and her summer camp kids got an extra special surprise during one of our labs at Rodriguez Key!
While we were grateful for every minute of 2022, this coming year is promising to bring more visitors than ever now that we are functioning officially at full capacity! As the end of the season approaches and a new one forms on the horizon, our staff has some brand new resolutions to carry us through 2023. From returning instructors, to our maintenance and housekeeping staff, to our remote workers, these are our New Year’s goals!
Outreach Coordinator Anne wasn’t afraid of the monsters in the Haunted Lagoon this year
Our instructors are excited for an entire season of new students, and hope to see some familiar faces in the mix! Those of us who get to spend all day on a program know that not everything goes to plan, but that it’s hard to have a bad day at MarineLab. Instructor Pat represents that eternal ML optimism with his resolution: Get an even better weekly leg workout by towing more kids around on my lifeguard buoy during snorkels. Ethan wants to help students become expert mangrove snorkelers and let our native Cassiopeia population have more peaceful days, and I personally am vowing to remember to clear my snorkel before I drink the ocean.
Over 5,300 students got to explore the incredible Florida Keys with us!
Other instructors are ready for a new season to bring even more amazing animals. Maria is grateful for all of our awesome critters, and would love to teach students to appreciate our apex predators, like sharks, that often get a bad reputation in pop culture! Erin wants to befriend more horseshoe crabs and sea biscuits, the cousins to sand dollars.
We love our horseshoe crabs, arthropods that have been around for over 400 million years!
Our Director of Operations, Rachel, and Coordinator, Anne, have gone to the root of our mission and are looking forward to some educational experiences. Rachel is going to ask questions every day to learn something new, while Anne hopes that 2023 will teach her brand new coworker, a puppy, some manners! Anne DenOtter, our outreach coordinator, is hoping to host even more Family Day events on our campus, because getting our local community involved with all of the amazing things we do at MarineLab is one of her favorite things.
During our Family Day events, we get to show members of the community our awesome labs!
Lead Captain Walker reflected on his year of giving our boats some much needed spa days, and resolved to spend less time with his head stuck in a bilge.
A beautiful brand-new boat, the Nari, joined our fleet this year! The Nari is named after the scientific name for the spotted eagle ray, one of our favorite critters here in the keys
Housekeeper, and chronic hard-worker, Yanette has pledged to delegate more in our upcoming busiest season, and maintenance supervisor Jorge wants to eat more cookies in 2023 than ever before. Kelley, our business office supervisor and supplier of snacks, has decided to change her name and not tell Jorge.
We hope you all had a magical holiday season, and look forward to seeing you next year!