Tauchen, KAEC and the Arrival of the Mussels

An exhausting week lies behind us - that's why Felix hasn't had time to write about the 24-hour trip yet - but that will be done later - I think ;-)

But what else happened?
On Friday we went on a boat trip and dived a wreck (the 'Cable Wreck', 'Staphonos'; sunk in 1978 and still full of building materials it was carrying - hence the name) and the Anas Reef.

'Wreck diving' at the Staphonos

The current was quite strong during the wreck dive (at least on the surface) - that was quite challenging for some of the divers who were with us.. But we were fully in our element ;-) Diving should be a bit exciting too ;-)

It was once again a very nice day with nice people :) Even though all our activities almost turn into 'leisure stress' ;-) But since we have only a limited time here (at least for now, who knows what's coming..), we want to 'experience as much as possible' :)

In the evening we had our first Thanksgiving :) One of the professors at the Red Sea Research Center threw a Thanksgiving party together with some of his PhD students - including all the sweet/greasy but super delicious American food you can imagine for such an occasion ;)

We spent the weekend on Saturday evening with our new Lebanese friends and colleagues from the institute in KAEC (the 'King Abdullah Economic City').

KAEC is a planned city being built north of KAUST since 2005. Just like KAUST, it is supposed to represent a new, modern and cosmopolitan image of Saudi Arabia (we didn't wear abayas on the premises, for example - and otherwise everything was exactly like here on the university campus). Unfortunately, we didn't see much of the city because we arrived in the evening. Moreover, some areas were apparently closed off because the recording of 'Saudi Arabie gots Talent' (yes, that actually exists! :D ) took place on the same weekend. But we will definitely repeat this trip!

Shisha and delicious food - a successful evening in KAEC

This week, Felix started sorting and analyzing the data from last week. I was fully focused on preparing and fine-tuning the mussel experiment.
(Including the fact that I was walking around all week in salt-encrusted and dirty clothes because I was constantly hanging headfirst in the large holding tank ;-).. But that's life as a marine biologist ;-)

Yesterday, we finally went diving again for the project and collected all the mussels in an exhausting but quite successful fieldwork day.

Felix collecting the giant clams

In the evening, we cleaned them all (to remove fouling) - after that, they could finally 'move in' to their setup.
Today, the experiment started with the first acclimatization phase - the next 3 weeks will be quite exhausting but hopefully also successful :)

Tired but happy - all the mussels are here, so let's get started :)

We have been looking forward to the upcoming weekend for a long time - we are going to Al-'Ula!

Al-'Ula corresponds to the biblical Dadan and was the main city of the Lihyanite Kingdom. There, among other things, we will visit Mada'in Salih, the ancient city of Hegra, known for the more than one hundred monumental tombs carved into the rock from the first century BC to the first century AD.

Finally, we get to see more of the country! :)

Until next week and greetings

Felix and Susann