Arriving in Moorea...

It was quite funny when Ashlynn said that she was sure we’d never heard of where she would be doing fieldwork for three months to collect data for her master’s thesis: Moorea, an island in French Polynesia. Ironically, Jimmy and I had gone there for our honeymoon for one week in July 1993. Sadly, the Club Med where we had stayed was shut down in 2000 and is now just ruins.

Ashlynn spent her first few weeks on the island staying in a house with a family of marine biologists. It wasn’t close to the lab, but it was very close to the beach, which she loved. 

We’re really proud of how hard she worked to secure grants to fund her trip and her research. One such funding source was from the Women Divers Hall of Fame Awards 2024, which awarded her the Graduate Marine Conservation Scholarship.