<p>Connecticut College is on the water and has excellent offerings in ecology and botany. </p>
<p>I also recommend Allegheny, Hampshire, Juniata, and Wheaton; all of them have strong biology programs with an organismal and/or marine focus.</p>
<p>If Maryland is not too far south, Hood is quite strong in marine science and could make a nice safety. The College of the Atlantic is located along a beautiful stretch of coastal Maine and has the most hands-on undergraduate marine science program I’ve come across so far. It is quite small even for a LAC, however.</p>