My name is Jessica Gronniger and I have had what most people would consider an unconventional life. I am half Brazilian and half American but I was born in Italy. Growing up I moved around a lot as my father worked in international education. At 23 years old I have already learned four languages and lived in nine different countries. Perhaps the toughest question I have to answer is “where am I from?” and it’s a question I seem to have to answer a lot. Well, in a life rife with change there are very few things that have remained constant. Among them is my passion for the ocean and a life on the water. No matter where I found myself in the world I always managed to find a way onto the water. I’ve lived aboard a 30 foot catamaran for a month with 17 other people, kayaked through tropical mangroves in Honduras, and spent hours with my college sailing team out on Lake Norman in North Carolina and yet I get the feeling that my previous adventures will pale in comparison to the F.G Walton Smith.
A year ago, I graduated from Davidson College with a B.S. in biology and I now find myself living in Leon, Nicaragua where I am collaborating on Zika research. While intellectual curiosity has often driven me towards lab work I have learned these past few years that I can’t spend my life locked in a laboratory. So, here I am, exploring a way to mix my passion for science with my love of the ocean, and being a marine technician seems to be the best of both worlds. Hopefully this will be the first step towards a future in marine research and a life at sea. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity and I hope I can make the absolute most of it. As my supervisor said, my job now is to be a sponge, and a sponge I shall be.
So here I sit, after a two hour bus ride on a highway that twists between active volcanos, lakes, and quaint rural towns I am finally in Managua (Nicaragua’s capital and location of one of the few international airports in the country) in an airport hotel eagerly awaiting for this new adventure to begin. So stay tuned as my latest journey unravels. I’m sure more exciting developments are yet to come.