And the experience .....priceless.

The last of the Phoenix Islands "Greatest Hits" highlights.#10: Future PIPA ExpeditionsOkay, I admit it. I have been stalling on this last post. The truth: I have no idea how to end this blog. How do you put a neat, satisfactory end on something so wild? Anything I write will be anticlimactic. With this in mind, let me simply offer you some stats to let you know how where things stand as of this very moment:

...15 Expedition members, now spread all over the globe
...15 amazing NAI'A crew members (based in Fiji) 
...100+ bags of luggage transported to and fro
...400+ SCUBA dives completed on the 2009 expedition
...4 blue water dives
...3 ROV excursions
...11 days on-site in PIPA
...11+ days in transit (5 in very rough seas)
...500+ species of fish documented
...200+ invertebrate species documented
...3+ scientific publications in progress
...5000+ photos of PIPA (see previous posts for highlights)
...65 blog posts
...12,000+ blog readers (Thank you!)
..........408,250 km2 of protected ocean (PIPA remains on of the world's largest MPA)

And the experience ..... priceless.

Thank you all so much for reading and journeying with us. Special thank you to Jeff Ives (the New England Aquarium blog guru) for all of his support. Special thank you to all of the fellow bloggers who posted, students who participated, and readers who commented. To those silent readers - thank you - we hope you had as much fun reading as we did writing. It was a blast. I still don't know how to end this blog (mea culpa), so I'll leave you with some comforting thoughts:

1. The next PIPA expedition is slated for 2011. Stay tuned, and we'll keep updating this blog to let you know exactly when.

2. We'll post 2009-PIPA related press, publications, lectures, and outreach efforts here on this blog. These will include a book, a National Geographic article, a movie, scientific publications, and press.

3. This blog will not disappear (it will remain on the Aquarium website), so you can re-visit the 2009 expedition at any time. With 65 posts to go through, it will certainly keep you busy to go back to the beginning! Plus, the New England Aquarium is never idle - there are always amazing adventures all over the globe (including at 1 Central Wharf, Boston!), so check out the other blogs to see what's going on.

So, thank you! And don't forget to live blue.

Happy holidays,

-Randi