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Follow the Leader

Before a 2009 research expedition that departed from Grand Cayman Island, MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Jill McDermott spent a day swimming and snorkeling, when she spotted these turtles, the smallest the size of her palm, in a lagoon near a long stretch of coral sand beach. “The turtles were very active and curious about me,” she said. “Some of them swam up to look at me, and these were climbing in and out of the water, switching between swimming and sunning themselves.” McDermott, a native of Maine, studies hydrothermal vent chemistry.(Photo by Jill McDermott, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)