The three 2011 Our World Underwater Scholars spent a week driving through Florida, where we dived in fresh water springs and met a variety of people in marine research and the diving industry. Christian Clark, the current North American Scholar was kind enough to take it upon himself to make plans. He has completed cave training during his scholarship year with Jill Heinerth in High Springs, North Florida. So we began here.

The complex cave systems cover a large area of North Florida and surrounding states. Without cave training, Erin and I were limited to caverns but this didn’t dishearten us. The sinkholes and caverns were other worldly. At Ginnie springs we descended into the crystal clear water and explored the cavern. We were lucky to have a beautiful sunny day, so we made the most of it and went for a swim down the river. As we slowly made out way along the sandy bottom I spotted a murky wall that turned the visibility from infinite to very finite surprisingly quickly. This extreme change is caused by decaying plant litter that makes its way into the springs. I hesitated before just kicking into the black water. It was stunning to just sit on the bottom watching the rainbow of blue, bright green, orange and red. The trees lining the banks meant that the entire dive you were reminded you were diving in a beautiful forest.

While in North Florida we visited the Florida Natural History Museum in Gainsville. Here the Ichthyology Collection Manager, Rob Robins showed us through the largest collection of fish is in the world; with more than 2million specimens and a quarter of the worlds known species of fish. The ingenious use of moving shelves meant the collect fits into a surprisingly small area, but I can imagine the frustration of adding specimens to the already overflowing collection. We had a tour of the museum and spent some with time Yannis Papastamatiou, a Post-Doc Research Biologist.

After a long drive from Gainsville to Ft Lauderdale, exploring gas stations and fast food restaurants along the way, we met Jeremy Kerr who is a Research Assistant at the National Coral Reef Institute, Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center. He was kind enough to take time out of his day to give us a very thorough tour of NCIS. They currently have a range of coral monitoring and rejuvenation programs. Jeremy is currently working on large scale Benthic Habitat Mapping.

While in Miami Christian organised for us to have a tour of the Living Oceans Foundation fleet. The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF) is a private operating foundation with a research vessel carrying out marine research around the world. Research, conservation and restoration projects include mapping, coral monitoring, oceanographic monitoring, ecotoxicology and biodiversity studies. The foundation also has education and outreach programs.

The Everglades is a National Park I have wanted to visit for a long time. The complex marshland environment is home to much
of Florida’s beautiful native fauna and flora. Spiders, birds, fish and alligators are visible in all directions even from the side of the motorway. We spent a day hiking through trails, battling swarms of mosquitoes and admiring the stunning surroundings.

The week was a great opportunity to meet people who are carrying out research based out of Florida. There are a lot of marine research, education and conservation organizations working hard to study, increase awareness and protect Florida’s surrounding oceans; the Caribbean, The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Thank you to everyone who made time to talk to us about their work.