Book Club Presentation

Presentation of HALCYON FURY at the "Bookworms" book club, 

Independence Township Senior Center, Clarkston MI 

Mediterranean Tall Ship Cruise

Our tall ship Star Flyer is anchored in the Gulf of Poets off Lerici, Italian Riviera, September 2011.  We visited Corsica, Sardinia, and St. Tropez, France as well.

Lerici Harbor

My Book Signing

My book signing at Horizon Books, Traverse City, MI, August 13, 2011

My First Novel

HALCYON FURY, a sea story of suspense on northern Lake Michigan, was published at Infinity Publishing in April, 2011, and is available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon, and Barnes & Noble Nook Books


The story is set in Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay region and features Traverse City and Elk Rapids, as well as Ann Arbor, Charlevoix, Beaver Island, and the Straits of Mackinac.

Paul Tyson discovers that his research data on global warming in Lake Michigan have been stolen and published by fellow student Ronald Withers. Paul confronts Withers and threatens to break his neck if he doesn’t confess and retract the plagiarized article. Later, Withers is found comatose with massive head trauma aboard the research ship HALCYON. Paul is charged with aggravated assault, and as Withers barely clings to life, the charge is likely to be elevated to murder one. Out on bail but unable to control his anger, Paul struggles to salvage his career and his relationship with partner Joan Brockton.

My Next Novel

My next novel, NO SWIMMING, will continue with the main characters of HALCYON FURY. Joan Brockton’s nemesis, Larry Griffin, after leaving grad school and entering a Caribbean medical school, creates a transgenic freshwater jellyfish with fatally toxic stinger genes from the marine box jelly and plants it in a lake near Traverse City, causing fatalities and general panic. Griffin falsely implicates Joan as the perpetrator, and begins plans to introduce the jellyfish to Traverse Bay. Joan and Paul Tyson struggle to unravel and avert the impending disaster.

PROFESSIONAL SEAFARING: Early Years on the Research Vessel Inland Seas

This is the research vessel Inland Seas operated by the U. of Michigan Great Lakes Research Division in the 1960s and 70s, one of four UM boats I worked on as an undergrad and graduate student technician in the summers from 1962-65. This photo was taken by Steve Schneider, who graciously allowed me to use it as the cover photo on my novel Halcyon Fury.

Here I was operating the oceanographic winch on the Inland Seas the summer after my sophomore year of college, 1962. Almost back in the days when “ships were wood and men were steel,” and women were virtually absent on research ships (fortunately no longer the case).

Grad Student Research Tech, Lake Michigan

A grad student tech on the RV Inland Seas in 1965, I am at left of center (hat on) wrestling the 250 lb coring rig on Lake Michigan.

At left, operating the winch for a Nansen bottle water sampling cast

At left, operating the winch for a plankton net cast

On the “hero board” of the RV Mysis with an oceanographic bathythermograph

At left, operating the benthic animal screener for a bottom sample

At left, on the Mysis operating the “bear trap” Smith-MacIntyre bottom sampler

Naval Oceanography

After my MS I took a position as a biological oceanographer with the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office in suburban Washington, D.C., 1966-69. There I met and married Lynn, also an oceanographer at NAVOCEANO.

On the hero board with a plankton net on the U.S. Naval Ship Sands in the Sargasso Sea (North Atlantic), 1966

My PhD Research Years

I was a doctoral student at Michigan State University’s Kellogg Biological Station from 1969-73. This is one of my field experiments on photorespiration in aquatic plants.

Nearing completion of my Ph.D. in 1973, I was invited to join the NSF Alpha Helix Great Barrier Reef Photorespiration Expedition. This is the Alpha Helix anchored off Lizard Island, Australia. I was there for four weeks.

Running a photorespiration experiment with a seagrass on the fantail of the Alpha Helix

Teaching Limnology (Freshwater Ecology)

In 1973 I joined the biological sciences faculty at Wayne State University, Detroit, where I taught and researched until 2007. Over those years I published 29 scientific journal articles and book chapters in marine and freshwater ecology, and directed 9 doctoral and 4 master students.

One of my early limnology classes in the mid-seventies. I am in the goofy Aussie hat trying to get control over the chaos.

Heading out for a limnology class field trip at WSU’s field station in the Upper Peninsula, early 1980s

My limnology students taking a lake water sample

My Grad Students

At center, celebrating after my first doctoral student’s dissertation defense (seated below me)

My grad student running an algal photorespiration experiment

My grad students setting up a phytoplankton nutrient enrichment experiment

Wayne State University 2000s

Aboard a Grand Valley State research vessel during a research conference in Muskegon, MI, 2001

My two last doctoral students celebrating my WSU President’s Excellence in Teaching award, 2002

My last limnology class, East Graham Lake, MI, fall 2006

My doctoral and master’s graduates celebrating my retirement, 2007 (they came to Detroit from as far away as the Philippines, Seattle, and Washington, D.C).  I remain Professor Emeritus, and continue to review manuscripts for journal editors.

RECREATIONAL SEAFARING: St. Thomas 2011

Alongside Nightwind, St. Thomas snorkel charter, 2011

With family aboard Nightwind at Caneel Bay, St. John, Jan. 2011

With family at Stonehouse villa overlooking Red Hook Bay, St. Thomas USVI, January 2011

With Lynn at Red Hook harbor, St. Thomas, USVI, 2011

Sea Cruise 2010

Panama Canal during a Ft. Lauderdale-San Diego round trip cruise, 2010

Michigan 2009

Our 40^th anniversary at Saugatuck harbor, MI, 2009

Kayaking at our summer home on Elk Lake, MI, 2009

Sailing the Grenadines 2008

Royal Clipper Grenadine Isles cruise, 2008

Manning the deck wheel on the Royal Clipper (unfortunately it was disengaged at the time; real steering was being done down in the pilot house)

Martha's Vineyard 2007

Edgartown Harbor, Martha’s Vineyard, 2007

Bermuda 2006

Warwick Long Beach, Bermuda, 2006

With King Neptune at Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda

Eastern and Southern Caribbean Cruise 2006

A catamaran sail to the Pitons at St. Lucia, 2006

At the helm of the catamaran Adventurer on a snorkel day-sail, St. Thomas & St. John

  

Venice & Greek Isles Cruise, 2005

Beginning in 2005, Lynn and I have taken a number of ocean cruises and seaside vacations. Here we are at Santorini on a Greek Isles cruise

…and Mykonos later that day

Detroit Yachting 2000s

Aboard our Carver Rivera in Detroit, mid-2000s. We spent several fun years as members of the Detroit Yacht Club.

Captain Tony driving the Carver, Detroit River

Elk Lake Boating

With Lynn on our Four Winns 205 at Elk Lake, mid-2000s

I have spent a lifetime engaged recreationally with watercraft of all kinds from rowboats, canoes, and kayaks to sailboats, runabouts, motor cruisers and ships. Here I sail our O’Day Daysailer on Elk Lake, MI, early 1980s

MY SEAFARING HEARITAGE

Much of my seafaring DNA is from my father, the late Jack L. Hough, shown here as a Sea Scout on Lake Michigan out of Chicago in the 1920s.

My earliest memories as a toddler are of Woods Hole harbor in the mid 1940s (shown here at that time), where my father was a geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and an at-sea oceanographic instructor for submarine officers.

After 6 month’s service as chief geologist on the final Admiral Byrd Antarctic Expedition in 1946, my father became a professor of geology and oceanography at the U. of Illinois (1947-63) and later the U. of Michigan (1964-73). As a young teenager I accompanied and assisted him in several field trips and cruises on UM research vessels. He is shown here near the end of his career on the RV Inland Seas on Lake Michigan. Dad taught me seamanship and sailing, and introduced me to the marine and freshwater sciences.

Part of my seafaring DNA came to me from the Vikings through my Swedish grandfather, the late Anton J. Carlson, who crossed the ocean in 1890 as a teenage immigrant and rose to scientific fame as a professor of physiology at the U. of Chicago (ca1905-1956). His initial landmark research was on the cardiac physiology of the marine horseshoe crab leading to the discovery of the function of the vagus nerve in humans. He built a log cabin on Elk Lake, MI, and taught me as a youngster to fish in his marvelous old wooden duck boat.