Mar del Plata, Argentina

I think the 3 part thing is irrelevant now that I'm so far behind, but for the sake of consistency, here's part 3:

Mar del Plata is a resort city on the beach where Argentines come to spend the holidays to get away from hot and humid Buenos Aires. Ocean Watch was docked at the smaller marina owned by the Yacht Club Argentino. The marina was very shallow and with the full moon, everyone was holding their breath hoping we wouldn't run aground at low tide. Never the less, it was a beautiful spot. We had mostly sunshine but it rained here and there too. We were even treated to a few rainbows.

Mario and I, as well as David and Herb, stayed at a hotel along the beach. Apparently it was one of the few remaining available hotels over the holiday (it seemed more expensive than necessary to me, but it was beautiful). Our room had a balcony with a view of the ocean and the promenade, which made it great for people watching too. The others stayed on the boat.

On New Year's Eve I was finally able to accomplish some more official outreach education. We erected our informational tent on the lawn of the Yacht Club (we'd hoped for the public beach, turned out we needed permits for that) and we conducted interviews of some local fisheries experts and by a local tv news station. I stayed at the tent on and off most of the day. It generated a good level of interest and it was fun to talk to people about the project and get them interested in ocean conservation issues. I'm still hoping we can get more of the website translated into Spanish so that I can refer people on to the website if they are Spanish speakers too.

I was also able to get my hands on some of the science equipment with the new onboard scientist from UW, Warren Buck. We did some recordings of underwater sounds in the marina using the hydrophone, a tool used to record sounds underwater. Apparently, there is a lot of interest by many of the scientists connected to the project about these sounds, especially in harbors.

That night all of us went to a New Year's celebration at the Yacht Club. Things were nice but, frankly, a little awkward. There was no official fireworks show but plenty of people lit them at midnight. I think the Christmas show in Punta was better though. As I've said before people here eat dinner late, so we'd only just finished dinner at midnight and then there was dancing. The vibe reminded me a lot of a wedding reception, old and young couples and children and singles. Mario and I made the best of it and enjoyed ourselves. Then there was dessert and then...more dancing. We were trying to wait for some kind of door prize but by 3am we were exhausted (as were the children still being forced to stay awake at dance at that hour...it was nuts) so we went back to the hotel to sleep. The party supposedly continued on until 5 or 6 am.

The next day we rested and explored the city and the beach a bit. I discovered that someone had been charging things to our account so I spent some of the day on Skype with the bank. I'm glad I caught it though, they only managed to get about $85 and I'll get it all back. Only annoying part was that had to cancel my debit/ATM card. Luckily, Mario had his so we were ok and a friend of ours is coming for a tour with Mario this week and he kindly offered to bring me a new card.

We checked out on the 2nd. I said see you later to the crew and wished them well on their journey around Cape Horn. I'll see them again in early February in Puerto Montt, Chile. Then Mario and I took off for Buenos Aires for our own adventures in Argentina.