Back on The Road, Mar Menor to Blanes, Spain

May 7th 2010

After a successful day of sampling in Mar Menor and a great local dinner of lobster paella, Chris and I loaded up the van and got back on the road early Friday morning. We had a 757 kilometer (470 miles) drive ahead of us to arrive in Blanes to meet with a team of collaborators from multiple institutes and universities. As you would expect the drive took all day, lots of toll roads and lots and lots of bugs all over the windshield, big big exploding bugs!!

Blanes is a tourist town located on the Costa Brava about an hours drive northeast of Barcelona. After we checked into our hotel, Chris and I headed to a meeting at the Centre d'Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB). CEAB is located on top of a small mountain, a strange place to have an institute that studies marine and freshwater systems, but it has an incredible view of the coast!

We were greeted by our collaborators: Dr. Emilio Ortega CASAMAYOR, Dr. Maria VILA-COSTA, Dr. Jean Christophe AUGUET from CEAB. Also attending the planning meeting were Dr. Frederick Gichin Batlle and Carles Borrego from the University of Girona. The collaborators had years of scientific experience with the local lakes and lakes systems in the Pyrenees Mountains. Due to weather in the mountains we decided to sample 3 different lakes in Banyoles watershed from Saturday to Monday. Tuesday we would check the weather to see if we could get up into the Pyrenees to collect our last sample.

Lake Banyoles is a natural lake in Girona that is 2,100 meters by 750 meters with an average depth of 15 meters, the lake was the site for Olympic rowing in 1992. Also in 1998 an overloaded tourist boat sank killing 20 people.