Familiar Faces

I spent the weekend up in Hobe Sound with my cousin, Michelle, and my friend Claus (it's really convenient that they are married!). They had a little Halloween party (their parties are always fun!) and I got to see some friends from my seagrass days at FAU.

Foxxy Cleopatra and Little Bo Peep!

Dexter- looking for his next victim!

Sunday, we went to eat at Harry and the Natives (since 1941) for some biscuits and gravy, eggs Benedict and gator hash! It's a cute little local place with good ambiance and funny decorations. Afterwards, we relaxed by the pool, listened to some music and enjoyed the nice weather. For lupper/linner, we chowed on good Mexican food (I love cheese dip!) and then it was time for me to make the trip home. It's great seeing friends and family again and relaxing for the weekend!

Arts and Crafts

It's been a super busy week- both at work and afterwards!

I'm continuing to learn my way around work and everyone has been great about showing me the ropes. This is the Glassell building- our offices and labs are located on the second floor. I've been busy constructing the blocks we will use to attach the coral fragments (aka nubbins) which includes PVC, cinder blocks, cement and epoxy. What do you get when you mix all of those things together (plus a week of work)?

To make the pedestals, I cut the PVC pipes into 4" pieces (I love using power tools), mixed the cement and filled the tubes with the cement. Once they were dry, I used an underwater epoxy to attach the tubes to the cinder blocks. I had lots of help- Jimmy, who has been involved with the current nursery, showed me the ropes and the tricks to mixing the perfect cement. There is still a lot to do, including forming cement cups, designing a photoquad and figuring out a labeling system! On Wednesday, I got invited to a Florida Panther's game with some friends from work. It's been a long time since I've been to a hockey game, but it was a lot of fun (I'll wear socks next time, though!).

The most important thing that happened this week was that I found an apartment! After spending almost every day for the past two weeks looking for something, a friend at work told me about a place near Coconut Grove. It's a super cute little cottage on a quiet shady sheet within walking distance from shops and restaurants! I can't wait to move in (and it's such a relief that I've found something)!

Congratulations, Rich!

I'm very proud of my brother-in-law Rich who trained for and successfully ran his first marathon on October 5th around the Loch Ness in Scotland! What a huge accomplishment and I'm so happy that I was able to be there to watch as he crossed the finish line!

Girl's Day in Scotland

While Rich prepared for and ran most of his marathon, Chris, Jessica and I set off to explore the Scottish moors, Clava cairns, Brodie Castle and see the beach!

One of our missions for the day, was to see the Scottish moors. Moors are low-lying uncultivated fields often covered in grasses and moss. Culloden Moor, located near Inverness, was the location of the Battle of Culloden where the Scottish Jacobites fought the British army for rights to the throne in 1745. This was the last battle ever to be fought on British soil.

One of my favorite things about Scotland were the sheep. I thought the large castles surrounded by green fields full of sheep were amazing (and the sheep with the black faces were the cutest!).

The Clava cairns are also located nearby. Cairns are piles of stones used as landmarks, but most often are tombstones. The Clava cairns were built during the Bronze Age (between 3300 and 1200 BC) and are passage graves and tombs. The central cairn is a ring of stones with unique stone paths or causeways forming "rays" radiating out from the center.

All of the cairns are arranged from north east to south west in relation to the rising or setting sun. The cairns incorporate cup and ring mark stones (a form of prehistoric art found mainly in the UK). The central stones are graded in size and color, so that the stones are larger and redder to the south west, and smaller and whiter to the north east.

A passage into the center of one of the tombs. Although the cairns have been extensively studied, there is still very little known about them or who built them.

Maybe it was this guy......he looks just like the one I found outside my sister's house except he's black!

Next on our trip, we visited the beach! This was the first beach that I've seen on the North Sea and it was beautiful (although a little cold)!

Love this shot with the washed up algae (I'm guessing some kind of Ulva.......) and you could see beautiful white cliffs across the water and some of the mountains already had snow on the top! Chris tried to talk me into sticking my foot in the water, but we settled on just putting our hands in!

Not my typical beach apparel! There was also a nice beach walk (lots of people were out walking their dogs) and a park nearby.

Brodie Castle was built in 1567 by Clan Brodie. We didn't actually tour the inside (it is furnished with Brodie family heirlooms), but decided to walk around the grounds instead.

There was a great nature walk around a pond.....

.... where we found these swans and ducks. It is suggested that visitors tour the castle during the spring when their famous collection of daffodils are in bloom!

Cawdor Castle

Cawdor Castle is located in Nairn, Scotland. It was built in the late 14th century as a private medieval fortress by the Thanes of Cawdor. The ancient tower was built around a legendary holly tree. It remains as a private residence, but is open to the public for six months every year. The rooms are decorated with family portraits, renaissance furniture and lots of tapestries. There's even a drawbridge.

Cawdor Castle is also romantically linked to MacBeth in a long and tangled history. The castle is rumored to have been where MacBeth murdered King Duncan I or where Lady MacBeth roams at night. However, King Duncan was actually killed in 1040 A.D. (before Cawdor Castle was actually built) and died at Elgin Castle in Moray, but Cawdor Castle usually gets the credit due to to the changing of some names by the Scottish historian, Hector Boethius. Regardless of what happened or did not happen there, Cawdor Castle was fantastic and the tour was very enjoyable.

There are three gardens on the property (as well as a golf course). The walled garden was originally planted in the 1600's.

Standing in the grove near the holly maze.

A path leading through the walled garden (they have a full time gardener).

Jessica enjoys some down time at the fountain.

I loved this red bench!

This is the wool shop located at Cawdor Castle. I was really hoping to find a store to buy some yarn "straight off the sheep", but this was more like a gift shop with sweaters and scarves.

The town of Inverness has a statue of a unicorn. Now, that's something you don't see everyday!

The search for Nessie

We stayed in the town of Inverness which is 37 km from the Loch Ness, the infamous home of Nessie (aka the Loch Ness Monster)! Loch Ness is one of three lochs which connect the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is the largest, deepest (230 meters deep) freshwater lake in Scotland. It has very cold dark water typically with very low visibility due to the high peat content in the surrounding soils.

We visited the Loch Ness Exhibition Center in Drumnadrochit which explains the myth of the Loch Ness Monster. The earliest report of a monster dates back to the 6th century when an Irish monk, St. Columba, heard of a local man who was attacked by a "water beast" while swimming in the loch. St. Columba sent his follower Luigne moccu Min to swim across the loch. When the beast came after him, Columba made the sign of the cross and commanded the beast away.

The term "monster" was originally in 1933 by a journalist for the Inverness Courier and the first photo of Nessie was taken in 1934. The photo, however, was proved to be a hoax in 1994. Various other sightings have occurred over the years, but the waters of the loch are so unproductive, it is unlikely that an animal of Nessie's size could find enough food. Multiple expeditions have searched the loch using sonar and other modern technologies, but nothing has ever been found. Explanations for monster sightings include trees, seals, deer, rogue waves, birds, etc. We needed to see for ourselves, so we took a trip out onto the loch for search for Nessie.

Our vessel for the lovely one hour tour of the Loch Ness was this boat.

Our guide for the day was Captain John who helps runs the boat for research cruises as well.

It was a bit of a windy day causing waves up to about 3 feet. Captain John said that 3 ft waves inside the Loch were the equivalent of 15 ft waves on the ocean! We were lucky to get out on the water- they cancelled all of the afternoon trips after ours due to bad weather. We got to see a rainbow though and the skies cleared long enough for us to get a good view of the countryside!

This is Urquhart castle. Built in the early 1200's, it was an important medieval stronghold during Scotland's uneasy history with England. In 1296, Urquhart was captured by the English only to be taken back two years later by Andrew of Moray and William Wallace during their campaign against England.

Unfortunately, the castle remains in ruins, but it is the 3rd most visited site by tourists in Scotland. What better spot to put a castle than on a lush green hill next to a beautiful lake?

The scenery around the lake was like a postcard.

Boat houses along the Loch.

Jessica found a huge stuffed Nessie at the gift shop. Unfortunately, Nessie wouldn't fit in our luggage, so we had to leave her behind!

Another common explanation for Loch Ness Monster sightings is that people often just "see" things while on the water.........do you see it?

Oh, silly us- Nessie was in the lake by the visitor center all along!

Scotland

Rich was running his first marathon around the Loch Ness in Scotland (what a cool place to run your first marathon!!!!), so Jessica, Chris and I got to go along to support him and see the sights along the way.

Going across the English Channel!

One thing that made travelling in Scotland easy (except for the fact that they still use the pound), was that Scotland is an English speaking country (and they have such lovely accents!).

Jessica loved riding around on my luggage!

One things that didn't make travelling around in Scotland easy was that they drive on the left side of the road and that the steering columns are on the right side of the car and the gear shift was on the driver's left! How confusing!

Rich just took it in stride though and got us around safely! Chris even tried it out and was a natural!

Our first stop was at Deep Sea World just outside of Edinburgh. It's a great little aquarium with a Seal Sanctuary. They have two resident gray seals and usually use the rest of the facility as a rehab area.

Here's Heather who wasn't wanted to perform her tricks for her fish!

Coral nubbins everywhere! This display discussed the aspect of coral farming to replenish degraded reefs. Most of these corals were Pacific species (they even had bubble coral!).

They had a cool underwater tunnel with a moving sidewalk. We were there for one of their diving shows.

The stingrays would glide right over the ceiling and the sand tiger sharks were huge!

Jessica got to ride on the little plane- she's always so serious when she's piloting!

After spending some time at the aquarium and having some fish and chips, we took a scenic drive to Perth. Town of Perth

Scone Palace (where you are greeted at the gate by a very nice man in kilt) was originally built in the 1580's as an Augustinian Abbey. It is made of red limestone in classic Georgian Gothic style. It is beautiful with large ivy growing up the walls!

The palace once served as an Augustinian Abbey during the Middle Ages, but is most famous as the coronation site of Scottish Kings between 1306 and 1651.

This is Moot Hill- coronation site of Scottish Kings and is mentioned in MacBeth. The stone in front is a replica of the Stone of Scone. Rumored to be the pillow of Jacob during the dream of Jacob's ladder in the story of Genesis when he saw the angels of Bethel, the stone has been used for coronation ceremonies up through Queen Elizabeth II. The original stone is now in Edinburgh. The hill on which the chapel and stone sits was made by Pilgrims bringing a bootfull of dirt to show their loyalty to the king.

There are many peacocks roaming around the grounds including some albino males.

There was a cool little park where I claimed my own castle. I think I'll look for something a little bigger!

And they had a cool tire swing attached to a zip line!

This archway represents the old town of Scone which was mostly destroyed when the city was taken over by a mob from Dundee. The Abbot's palace seen today was rebuilt in 1803 and is privately owned by the Murray family (aka Earls of Mansfield).

The Mercat Cross at Old Scone. Mercat crosses were originally a market place for merchants to sell their goods, and later became the focal point of many town events such as executions, announcements and proclamations.

An old cemetery on the Scone grounds.

There is a Murray Star maze on the grounds which only has one way in and one way out. The goal is to make it to the center fountain which then leads you to the way out. The maze is made out of copper and green beech trees used to resemble the Murray family's tartan. The quickest way to the center is only about 30 meters (let's just say we took a little longer than that to find it!).

The gardens on the grounds were fantastic! It was here that the Douglas fir was introduced to Europe from North America in 1827. Because we arrived a little late, we didn't get to go inside the Palace, but just getting to roam the grounds for a little time was amazing!