Greetings,
My name is Jon Fajans and I have officially started in my new position as SEAKEYS Field Manager. I come to you from the University of Florida where I worked as a Biological Scientist for the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences and Seahorse Key Marine Lab. Although I have extensive marine field experience from my days in the Coast Guard and at the University of Florida, I have much to learn about the specific needs of the clients of the SEAKEYS network. I would appreciate your help in bringing me up to speed. I look foward to meeting with each and every one of you in the near future.
I am currently a one person operation until our new Research Assistant, Sarah Egner, arrives at the beginning of November. I will continue to recruit help from the KML whenever possible to begin the task of bringing the stations back to a regular maintenance schedule.
As many of you are aware, we took a pretty big hit from both Katrina and Rita. Katrina dislodged all the platform mounted equipment for the Northwest Florida Bay station. USF hopes to begin repair late Nobember or December. Rita completely destroyed the Sand Key station and the newly replaced Dry Tortugas station. Both structures are missing above the waterline and all equipment is lost. We will begin search and recovery operations as soon as man-power allows. Both stations will require new pilings to be driven before replacement can be scheduled.
My email adddress is: jsfajans@keysmarinelab.org .
I look forward to working with all of you.
Jon