Robinson, too, finds the 19th-century appeal of the isles hard to resist. Every summer he can be found on Star Island, rocking on the porch of the old Oceanic Hotel and waiting, in Pavlovian fashion, for the dinner bell to ring. Evenings begin quietly with the candlelight church service at Gosport Church, and end with singing, poetry reading, or music and contra-dancing on the wide porch. "You see the sun rise and set, and you're reminded of the true condition of the universe," says Robinson. "In a world of total flux, where change is a constant, it's a place you can go where everything stays the same. Your rocker is still on the porch, the rug is still threadbare, and your socks are always right where you left them."

On a brilliant 60-degree day in late March, the Gulf Challenger, UNH's research vessel, motors out to the Isles of Shoals carrying a crew of graduate students and Mike Lesser '83, '85G, the Shoals Marine Laboratory's new assistant director. Quickly the tall lighthouse at White Island, the jagged outline of the village on Star and the shingled cottages and World War II-era radar tower of Appledore come into view. The boat cruises into Babb's Cove near Appledore, where Lesser, who perpetually sports sunglasses and a dark tan, takes a motorized rubber raft to shore and steps carefully onto algae-covered rocks. The island is empty--boarded up for winter--but for the raucous colony of gulls that screech in protest at this invasion of their territory.

Lesser feels at home here, having experienced the Shoals Marine Laboratory from nearly every vantage point. He's taken and taught courses in marine science, cleaned and cooked as a work-study student, been an engineer and diving officer and filled in as captain of the island's boat. And as the lab's new assistant director, he'll spend the summer here once again.

"I'd never been outside the traditional academic environment; when I came here, it was total immersion. The students and faculty worked 12-hour days, in the field, in the lab, in the classroom. It's the most intense and best way to learn," he says. "It's a magical place, a community of people dependent on each other, not just for education but for every aspect of daily life."

Lesser found his niche while taking the lab's introductory course in field marine science, and soon after enrolled in the microbiology program, with a minor in zoology, at UNH. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Maine, and recently returned to UNH as a researcher. In the last year alone his research, funded mainly by the National Science Foundation, has taken him to the Bahamas, Belize and New Zealand. But he has always maintained his close ties to the lab and to Appledore Island. "Ninety-five percent of the people who study here love it, but some of us just have to come back time and time again. We feel compelled to be a part of it."

In summer, Appledore serves as an open-air classroom, where students and faculty from UNH, Cornell and other academic institutions live and breathe marine science. Paula Rodgers, a UNH sophomore and marine biology major who spent last summer at the lab, recalls a close community that squeezed a semester's worth of work into a month. Days began with exploration of the intertidal zone--teeming with tiny sea anemones, snails, mussels, crabs and sea urchins--and often ended with students and faculty bolting from class to catch the sunset.