After a good nights sleep we headed for the Neptune breakfast. There was pretty much everything there incl champers and juice. There were a few speakers incl Rich Ross and Mark Callaghan. They had elected an aquarist of the year and since he was from the Minnesota club they got Angie to introduce him. She did well despite the beer and several champagnes to settle her nerves lol We went for our first good check out of the floor and attended a number of talks acro...

Another early start waking about 7 and had breakfast in our pergola again. We went and checked out the progress in the show hall and chatted with a few peeps. Tal's flight got in about 10.30 so we collected him and delivered him to the hotel. After a quick lunch we set off for la Jolla and the sea cave kayak trip. There was a bit f mucking about making sure everyone knew what they had to do and getting us kitted out in helmet and life vest. A two block walk too...

It's been a murky, cloudy day, not what you usually get from San Diego but for all that the relative cool was a nice change from the searing desert heat. After breakfast in the pergola outside our room we went and checked out the display area. We ran into Jeff and chatted for a bit then Randy arrived and joined in. We put it out there that we were going to the aquarium if anyone wanted to join us and Radny and Joel both decided they would. It was only a short ...

We seem to have a new pattern of behaviour, very different to last years. Previously despite having the intent to start out early each day late nights usually meant we weren't up til 10am. This morning we again hit the breakfast at 6am before packing all but the food. We've got it organised so we take just one suitcase into the hotel in San Diego and gave pared back the dry goods bag, stashing things we will have no use for due to having no cooking ability in the...

It was a clearer day today, sunny clear blue skies greeted us when we got up at about 7.30. After a good breakfast we loaded up the car and set off east towards Corona. We took the freeways there then set the GPS to avoid highways and sat back to enjoy the scenic route to Julian. It was very dry, the on going drought is definitely biting in these hinterland communities. Wildlife spotting of the day, a large flock of Pelicans on the move, some small red woodpeck...