the cruise on Long Island Sound.

 the intrepid sailors ready to embark on the Project Oceanology cruise at U-Conn.

 but first we have to eat.............and eat we did.

 the U-Conn welcome center - a magnificent building to say the least.

 Looking out onto Long Island sound from the U-Conn Campus.

 the lighthouse on the U-Conn campus.

 the Marina at the U-Conn Campus.  We wondered if the students had to own one of these beauties to study the marine related classes at U-Conn.  Perhaps not - these boats looked like a years tuition cost.

 The students who instructed the cruise retrieved the U-Conn lobster pot.  No lobster was inside.  They had taken a lobster with them in a bucket, but in the course of the cruise they forgot to take it out of the bucket and show it to the students.

 the lobster pot was crowded to standing room only with spider crabs.

 the shoreline on Long Island Sound.  I would love to live in one of these homes, but there is too much  home for the amount of money we could give for one of them.

 We took a core sample from the bottom of Long Island sound.  The other students on board with us had their own tasks to perform such as try to measure the salinity of the Sound, try to measure the clarity of the water of the Sound, determine wind velocity and direction as well as latitude and longitude of the boat.  Our job was to examine the Core sample.  David said it looked like a big piece of poo.  It really smelled like that and we had to put on paper what it looked like, smelled like and consisted of.  I am glad that we do not have to do this on a daily basis.

 This is Bill doing the dissecting of the core sample.

 The explanation of the how and why of the trawl net and what we could expect to see.

 another capture was made of a sample of plankton in the surface water.  there were thousands of living organisms in this sample and when held up to the light one could readily see the myriad species swimming around.  I never imagined there would be such an amount of marine life in the upper layers of this water.

 a ferry taking people and cars across the sound to a nearby island.

 the Catch of the Day.  The students threw the fish etc. back into the water after explaining a little about each species that the trawl net captured.

 emptying the net of the haul.

 The touch tank where we could touch and or pick up specimens.

 Mollusks, clams, spider crabs, vacated shells and small fish on display.

this lighthouse is said to be haunted.  The student related that the school had been out there to do some sort of work and that they had meticulously closed all the windows and locked the door before they left.  The coast guard called them later on and asked why the windows were all open.  She said that the lighthouse is haunted and that furniture moves of its own accord and strange noises can be heard throughout the building. as well as  windows opening and closing of their own accord.  How much of this story is true is up to us to interpret.