Although I was only in D.C. for a couple days, I did get a little time to do some sightseeing on the second day of the conference before heading home.

The last time I was in D.C. was 12 years ago, so it was interesting to see the places I remembered, like the White House.

I spent a long time at Lincoln Memorial. The view from the steps is amazing and the statue is so impressive. Lots of people stood around taking pictures, while others lounged on the shady steps overlooking the Washington monument.

I also really liked seeing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I especially liked seeing people getting tracings of the names.

That night I got to have dinner with a fellow MIISer who is working in D.C. for the summer. We had an amazing meal and I definitely wished I could have had a little more time to explore the city!

This past week, I was sent to Washington D.C. to attend the Mission Blue Oceanic MPA Workshop. Mission Blue is a concept spearheaded by Sylvia Earle and the National Geographic Society (NGS) that seeks to preserve as much of the ocean as possible– and more specifically, at least 20%.

WildAid’s particular interest in this workshop was their emphasis on managing high seas MPAs and figuring out the best ways to establish compliance and enforce their no take status. Personally, I sought to make some good contacts that could potentially contribute to my publication with WildAid on marine enforcement, since the guests included various MPA managers, donors, and some government officials.

I took a red-eye flight from SFO to BWI on Monday night and arrived early Tuesday morning.

I took a cab straight to the conference, since I was definitely cutting it close and enjoyed the sights along the way. The ride took a little over an hour with traffic, but we finally made it.

After some coffee and a quick breakfast, the group of about 30-40 people sat down to listen to a few speakers.

Elliott Norse– the president of the Marine Conservation Institute and someone I met at MIIS through Dr. Charlie Wahle– was one of the speakers and he gave us some really great background information on oceanic MPAs.

After a short break, we gathered into action teams where we were trying to figure out specific action items to progress the mission. My team was focused on enforcement and consisted of a few MPA managers, some Coast Guard representatives, and a few nonprofits.

We ended up with some great ideas and initiatives, as well as specific action items that individuals would take.

The next day, we continued working on our initiatives and then we all made individual promises to continue with the mission, with specific action items we would take.

The conference was a lot of fun, and I think we made excellent progress. I also managed to meet some very interesting people and acquire the contacts I needed for my publication, and potential guests for our conference.

WildAid was pretty empty this week because several people are out on vacation or traveling for work, so we took the opportunity to inflate one of our sharks to inspect it for any holes and clean it up a bit before shipping to a zoo that wants to display it.

Here’s Nicolette cleaning up the shark.

However, some of us couldn’t resist taking a couple pictures with the shark. Isn’t he great?

I finally got around to taking a few pictures of the office.

Here’s our front desk– the view as you walk in from the elevator and Nicolette’s candy bowl… I’ve definitely paid a few visits there!

Here’s my desk and lovely wallpaper.

We have some amazing prints around the office including this elephant one and the amazing sea turtle picture below.

Finally, we have some pictures of random campaigns and some of the celebrities we’ve worked with. Can you spot Harrison Ford below?