The centerpiece of this issue is the OCEANS ’09 conference held in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA. This conference, like all OCEANS conferences, was a great opportunity to network with other ocean engineering professionals, to learn the latest developments in technical areas of interest, see the latest products from a wide variety of product and service providers, and socialize with friends and colleagues. This conference also had some unique features that we hope to see continued in the future at other conferences. The organizing committee had extra challenges with this conference because of the hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005. The Biloxi area is still recovering from the damage of those storms and this made the conference planning process very difficult; both because the normal planning was interrupted by the hurricane and the recovery period, and because the conference center had to be completely rebuilt on the inside; the logistics planning became dynamic to say the least. When I heard some of the stories I was amazed at how well it came off. The planning committee deserves an extra dose of appreciation for their efforts.
     We also present a report of the SYMPOL-2009 conference held in Cochin, India in November. This was the tenth symposium of the series and presented many papers in relevant topics.
     There is also a somewhat belated report on the International Submarine Races held last June.
     I have included some poems by John Masefield that I hope you enjoy as much as I do.
     As always, there is an open invitation to write to me with your comments, opinions, and rebuttals – my e-mail address is j.gant@ieee.org.

Jim Gant
j.gant@ieee.org