Mote Marine Lab and Aquarium

Hi Sea Fans!

Mote Marine Lab is in Sarasota, Florida in the US (yes, the American leg of my trip continues! : )).

Mote was founded back in 1955 by a woman named Eugenie Clark...lots of people know her as the "Shark Lady".  You can go to http://www.sharklady.com/ to find out more about Dr Clark, but something I thought you'd be interested in is that she has done 71 deep submersible dives and the last time I heard, she was STILL DIVING...amazing for her age!!!

Anyway, back to Mote...the lab is named after a man, William R. Mote, who was a close friend of the lab and a keen fisherman.

Lots of research gets done at the aquarium and out in the field so the people who work there are very busy.  Dolphins, manatees, sharks and coral reefs are just some of the things they study.  I got to help out at the aquarium where they are breeding seahorses at the moment...  I got to feed them. :)

I also got to help the docents (the people you find walking around the aquarium who chat to you about the animals or those that are stationed somewhere like a touch tank to tell you more and answer your questions) on one of the days I was there.

My best experiences though was helping with the shark training and observing a manatee training session...awesome!

Thanks to Kasey and everyone at Mote for showing me what you do in a day, I had a great time.  Sea Fans, if you'd like to check them out, go to www.mote.org.

That's it for now.
Chat soon.
Cheers
Abby
}( *)8