Jane Stevens at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab - In yesterday's post, turtle researcher George Shillinger chronicled his travels with Flat Ava and Flat Joe, who came to visit the TOPP labs. Flat Ava hung out with George. Flat Joe traveled with James Ganong. They're part of the Flat Stanleys Project. James is one of TOPP's ace computer programmers. He's the genius behind the animated maps that you see on the home page and species pages.

James usually works at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. He helps the scientists who attach satellite tags to animals such as tuna and leatherback turtles analyze the data that they transmit while they're at sea. It's very complicated. But you can read more details about the tags and see a movie about how they work here.

As you read in the previous post, Flat Joe explored a few places with George. But when Flat Joe had the opportunity to travel with James to the Costa lab at UC Santa Cruz' Long Marine Lab, he jumped at the chance. That's the lab where the researchers who tag and keep track of elephant seals hang out. Because James was busy, Flat Joe took the photos.

Here's James in the nerve center of the elephant seal lab. Notice the board on the wall -- it's where the resesarchers keep track of the seals that they put satellite tags on.

It was a stormy day -- the third big storm we've had here this season.

It was too rough to go out in the ocean, so the boat stayed parked at the lab.

Because it was so stormy, the researchers didn't go out to where the seals were. So, they showed Flat Joe this photo of the month-old pups who are hanging out on Año Nuevo State Reserve. They're called weaners -- pups whose moms have finished nursing them. These weaners are molting off the dark fur they were born with, and looking more like sleek, silver seals.

And after James finished at the lab, he took Joe to one of his daughters' colonial craft's fair at her school.