The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University, where I work as a professor of marine science, was recently gifted 25 million dollars from the state legislature to fund a “comprehensive water quality study.” Money for water quality research sounds like a good thing, and assuming we have some freedom to plan the research ourselves, I think we can make good use of it. Nevertheless, there have been some legitimate concerns and criticisms surrounding the gift. I first saw these expressed in social media commentary, then in a pithy editorial by author and journalist Craig Pittman in the Florida ..read more

Although I'm a marine biologist whose primary research interest is the saltwater environment, I'm a big fan of nature in general, and that includes freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. One of the reasons I care about these land and freshwater environments is because they are incredibly important in the processing of water flow and pollution as it makes its way from the land into the ocean. If the terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems get messed up, the ocean gets messed up, too. That means murky water, algal blooms, and death for all the seagrasses, corals, manatees, sharks etc. that I love ..read more

One of the indirect consequences of Hurricane Ian was that it motivated my landlord to sell the house in Bonita Springs that my spouse Rhonda and I had been renting and living in since 2012. Initial rent for the house was reasonable, and it went up just 16% from 2012-2022, which was less than the 29.7% cumulative rate of inflation in the US from 2012-2022 (https://www.usinflationcalculator.com). So we were actually getting a little better deal on rent in 2022 than in 2012. Of course that assumes that university faculty salaries in Florida kept up with inflation over that time period, which ..read more

One of the consequences of Hurricane Ian, which is something that was going to happen eventually anyway, is that my landlord decided to sell the house we rent. We have to leave before 31 Jan 2023. Because prices in the area have more than doubled since we moved down in 2012 I can no longer afford to rent a house within a sane commuting distance from Florida Gulf Coast University and I will have to rent an apartment. Therefore I need to sell lots of things that I can't use or have no room to store in an apartment. Please contact me if you want to buy any of these things. I'm not going to ship a ..read more

(Credit to Mark Athancio for coining the alternate name for this Hurricane that trashed his house, truck, and trailer.) Hello friends, family, and windsurfing- and science-curious strangers who happen upon my blog. I'd like to take a moment to tell the story of my personal struggles with big, nasty Hurricane Ian, which ravaged SW Florida even more so than Hurricane Irma of 2017. I'll tell the story in phases. Phase 0: Before the Hurricane. Prior to Ian, 2022 was going pretty well for Rhonda, myself, and our French bulldogs Petunia and Violet. I was busy with my job as a marine biologist at F ..read more

I was walking across my yard the other evening to get my SUP board from the shed when some random jerks drove by and sprayed me with an automatic plastic pellet gun. I'm not injured, but it was very upsetting and it left marks. I filed a report with the cops (physically harming someone against their will is battery), but since I didn't get the license plate of the car the guys probably won't get caught. I've since learned that this is part of the TikTok "orbeeze challenge" to shoot strangers with pellets, film their distress, and derive sadistic pleasure and internet fame from making the v ..read more

 Hi blog readers. Although I don't post about watersports as much as I used to, I still do watersports. Windsurfing is still my favorite, despite the challenge of matching good wind, public beach parking, and time off work here in SW Florida. It all came together in late January, though, with a big cold front bringing NW winds and a good swell to Wiggins Pass State Park in Naples. Day one of the wind started with a dramatic switch from a warm southerly gale to strong, cool west winds; a switch accompanied by an unprecedented destructive outbreak of tornados in Lee County. I waited until t ..read more

Anytime I look at what's going around on social media or popular media I end up cringing at the sort of black and white oversimplification of reality that it seems like 99% of us are guilty of 99% of the time. We always want yes or no answers, and good or bad classifications. However, in the real world the answer is usually "it's complicated," and good or bad is a matter of context and degree.  Scoundrels seem to have become adept at using oversimplification to hide complicated, damning truths. Scoundrels are versatile, though. They are also adept at hiding simple truths by obfuscating wi ..read more

 Whew, it has been a real busy last 8 months or so of life. Lots of exciting but stressful work, spiced up with some unexpected challenges, anxiety about the coronavirus pandemic, environmental disasters, etc. Nevertheless I have a lot to be thankful for. Number one is my wife Rhonda, seen here where we're celebrating Christmas at her family's home in New Hampshire.  I'm also thankful for our new dogs- little french bulldog rescues Violet and Petunia who are a lot of work but super loving. Here Petunia is in one of her favorite spots, sitting in my lab while I play computer games ..read more

 I'm not sure if I saw something like this before or thought it up from scratch, but I made the figure myself.  ..read more