08.27.2005: To town and back
It is Saturday and that means it has almost been a week since we (all the
students) arrived at the labs. This has been one of the most inspiring
weeks of my life. I can't remember a week that could compare to the
knowledge I have gained this week. I am so excited to see what lies ahead
for next week.
The labs are a beautiful place to live. It is so green and peaceful, and of
course our friendly deer are simply adorable. The only slight downfall is
the temperature. During the last couple of days the temperature has shot up
but it still doesn't mean that the water will be warm! Yesterday we had the
pleasure of jumping into 56 degree water, which might I add, is a "peak
summer temperature." We had to take a swimming test, rather a test to see
how shocked our bodies are to be dunked in that water should the ferry swing
by and dump us out of our 10 foot row boat. Well, any way, now we can say
we swam in some very cold water.
Because we took the swim test we are now allowed to row to town. Laura and
I decided to make a quick walk to town while stopping to pick blackberries
along the side of the road. I had never picked berries before and it was a
lot of fun! So very tasty too! The plant of course was not a fan of the
situation and stuck a small thorn in my finger.
We met up with Courtney, Nicole, and Fredi who rowed to town to maybe hang
out for awhile and after discovering a couple of drunk dudes we decided to
head home. Fredi was a wee bit tired from rowing against the current for
awhile on their way to town and the girls needed a third to row back with so
we could switch off if we got tired.
So, off to the rowboat I go! It was fun! The best thing about making our
way out of the marina was the people on their boats looking at us and making
fun comments like "need a taxi?" Some were helpful and untied our boat and
pushed us out. That was nice of them. I am quite positive we were a sight
to see among the the big sail boats. Nicole for the first portion of the
rowing trip was wearing a headlamp to let people know we were around. She
looked fantastic! Thankfully traffic was low and no one headed in our
direction. I was not willing to test out my abilities to survive in the 56
degree water.
Once out of the marina it was smooth rowing from there. Fredi and Laura got
to the dock as we were pulling up and helped us out. I can see that the
adventure is only beginning.
08.28.2005: Shopping and sighting
Yesterday, Saturday 8/27, was an interesting and exciting day. Fredi,
Laura, Courtney, Nicole, and I went to the supermarket to get groceries for
the week. While we attempted to make it as easy as possible it was a very
new and somewhat stressful experience. I have lived with 4+ people my whole
life, but I was never really forced to be involved in figuring out what we
all wanted to eat, how to buy it, what brand, etc. At my home if the food
was there we ate it and if we didn't like it we didn't. So, overall it was
a learning experience of seeing the others' reactions as well as controlling
my own. I'm glad we got through it and moved on about our business to take
an unintentional tour of the island.
Laura, Fredi and I picked up Courtney and Nicole in town to head toward Lime
Kiln. Yeah...we got a wee bit lost. Apparently the whole island is
beautiful, not just some parts like most places. Mom, I saw a lot of cows!
I will get pictures next time :o) Once Laura recognized where we were,
which was after making a circle around the northern end of the island, we
were well on our way. At Lime Kiln we had something interesting to look at
before the orcas came by. I spotted what looked like a floating carcass of
a harbor seal. Fredi confirmed it and was very interested in what may be
the cause. The current was strong and headed offshore so Fredi didn't have
his chance to perform an expert necropsy. It was okay by me because I don't
think I would have wanted to witness that yesterday.
I think our group is having a good run of luck. We were at the point for
less than 45 minutes before a pod or two showed up. There were people who
appeared to have been waiting since the morning. Some think it may have
been J and K because those two pods were hanging around in Canadian waters
earlier in the day. Just when things were great, aside from a rush of boats
near by, some jackass in a private vessel decides it is a good idea to
intercept their path as well as rush into the middle of the pod. Needless
to say it brought up a lot pf emotions that I didn't think I would feel over
a situation like this. I think we all pretty much felt the same.
Once the orcas, and the jackass boat left we decided to head back because
Courtney and Nicole should probably not get caught in the dark again on the
rowboat. A little ways down the road we spotted the orcas and the jackass
boat again! So we pulled over and used binoculars to try to get a reading
of the name. It was like this huge sting operation or something. Fredi
headed closer to shore and, luckily, the boat headed back and passed right
in front of us. It was still far so it was hard to read the name, but
hopefully we got something useful. I was still weirded out by how much it
angered me.
We did notice that some behaviors occurred more often when that particular
boat was harassing the whales, so perhaps those could be signs of agitation
and not a happy show of play. I also saw an orca change its direction when
the boat approached. Very interesting things occurred with the nasty boat
around.
Later Laura, Fredi, and I got home and I began cooking. Shortly after,
Courtney and Nicole had made their way back to the cabin just in time for
dinner. The stir fry was tasty and we all went to bed as happy campers.
09.08.2005: Soundwatching
I apologize for another long entry, but it is necessary :) Today I was given
the wonderful opportunity to join SoundWatch on the water to observe whale
watchers and give them information regarding the guidelines of whale watching.
The day started out calm with about 7 boats around J and K-pods with L-57
hanging out. We only needed to approach a couple of boats to tell them about
the guidelines, so the excitement of the morning was my first experience peeing
in a bucket on board with quite a few boats hanging around. That was
definitely something to remember. A picture of the bucket
(empty) is available.
Three humpback whales decided to grace us with their presence and they were
magnificent. They appeared to be two very large adults and a smaller one.
Kari, who is around orcas every day, was definitely interested in keeping
track of the humpbacks, so we tailed them from a distance for a couple of
hours. That was really neat to see and they kept taking deep dives, which
meant they would show us their flukes just before going under for 5-10
minutes. After two hours we had to head back to the orcas to regulate :)
At this time J, K, and L were all around and pretty scattered. There were a
lot of boats, mainly Canadian, but most seemed to be respectful of the
whales and generally it was a few boats per small group of killer whales.
One of the most interesting moments was when the humpbacks and orcas
interacted. Twice, the humpys went for a deep dive and the orcas followed.
Two people, on different boats, stated that they had heard a sound that sounded
like it was a humpback call (deep "oooooooooo"). It would have been awesome to
drop a hydrophone in to hear what was up! They were probably talking about the
stupid people on the boats that don't have anything better to do with their
lives than to see them breathing and taking the equivalent of a stroll. Then
again, they could have just been having a normal powwow determining that the
orcas are friendly residents and won't eat the humpback babies. Who knows...
We then had to head back because it was getting late, but we had to move
slowly because we were in an orca crossing zone. The highlight of the day
was when we accidentally got in the path of a mom and her calf. While not
very whale wise, and in violation of many of the guidelines, it was not
intentional and the pair had crept up behind us. So, Kari cut the engine
and let the animals go on about their business. They came up so close to
the boat that I could have touched them had I not been enjoying orca-gasm!
It was really neat to see them under water and be able to distinguish the
saddle patch and eye patch from the rest of their bodies. The pictures
should hopefully be up soon. I took those with Kari's camera and she will
put them on a CD in the next few days.
SO yeah, overall and amazing day. Oh! I also saw Steller's sea lions on
the way to Friday Harbor. They are HUGE! It was nice to see a few of them
hanging out because they are rarely seen in SoCal.
Ma, Pa, y Ani, los extrano un monton y gracias por hacer lo posible para que
yo pueda disfrutar estos animales fabulosos. Estoy de lo maz feliz,
gracias!!
Thank you to everyone who made this possible, I can't begin to express how
grateful I feel. It has been amazing here :)
09.21.2005: Last week on land
Wow, these last couple of weeks have just been crammed with activities!
Last week a professor from UCLA (Rafe Sagarin) who is doing research on orange and purple
sea stars came up and wanted our help out in the tide pools. Now, the idea
of getting up at 5am, then 5:30am, and at 6:00am on the last day was not all
that enticing, but it was a fantastic adventure. On the first day we lost sight
of the trail and bushwhacked our way back. I've never done that and it was,
amazingly, a lot of fun. On the last day we stopped at Roche Harbor for
their dough nuts. I believe they put something good, or bad, in them because
the energy and and weird, hyper mood that everyone had was awesome! That
was one of the most fun and silly days.
We are now into our last week of the land component of this program and
AAAHHHHHHHH I'm freaking out :) I am excited to get on to the boat and begin
our research but am scared about sailing 24/7. I imagine I will learn even
more about myself in the next 5 weeks than I have in these previous 5 weeks;
in the previous 24 years at that. We are all going to be very, very close
to one another at the end of this trip...
I have no doubt that on this trip, I am making some of the best friends I
will ever have. It is amazing how quickly you become family with the people
around you when the rest of yours is quite a distance away.
To my biological family and friends,
I miss you guys, but I would like to
import you to Friday Harbor. I am in my element with so many other
marine-loving geeks like myself. Plus, living a place without smog is new to
me and I am not complaining. I love you all.
See you soon!!!
09.26.2005: First full day at sea
What an amazing first day. We started the day with breakfast and planned the
daily voyage. We slept in Parks Bay and planned on anchoring in Garrison Bay
later that evening. Todd gave us a tour of the boat and taught us the many
different parts, many of which I don't remember now, but there was a lot of
jargon thrown around. We then took off and began learning to tack. It was a
lot of fun, but, by far, the best experience of the day was the encounter with
the orcas. We saw many groups, dropped a hydrophone in and heard them live.
It was amazing! Later we had dinner, played games, attempted to ID some whale
with pictures taken earlier, and then ate animal crackers to get hyper. Who
would have known we would go crazy on the first day out? I figured that it
would take at least a week, but no, just one day. It was awesome.
09.27.2005: Day two...
Yay for orcas! We only saw a few which were later identified as the L2 group,
but we heard a lot from them through the hydrophones. We could clearly hear
their blows and it was incredible. Just for side information, this is almost
three full days without a shower now (including the 25th when we took off).
Gross! Okay, moving on.
We received a points-of-sail lesson and it was nice to get a better
understanding today than what I remember after it was reviewed a couple of
weeks ago. We didn't do much sailing today because of the lack of winds, but
driving the boat was still a lot of fun. I drove us into Roche Harbor, with
Todd's guidance of course, to Wescott Bay where we anchored for the night.
09.28.2005: Another day gone by so quickly
We woke up in Wescott Bay and the fog had set in. So, to kill some time we had
a winch lesson and a weather introduction (high pressure v low pressure). It
was still cloudy and a little foggy when we headed out but this still made for
a wonderful day. We tinkered with some hydrophones and other equipment. It
started drizzling so I quickly got out my foul weather gear to test it out and
I was really warm. It was nice to know that this Southern California girl
could handle some cold weather. Little did I know of what was to come the next
day. Anyway, we did see some porpoises and thankfully they weren't being
chased by J-pod. We headed toward Mitchell Bay and anchored there for the
night. Nicole and Courtney made a mean batch of Mac & Cheese with green beans
on the side to which I added pancakes (crepes) with dulce de leche for
desert. We definitely went to bed as happy campers.
09.29.2005: First rainy day
What an awesome day! We got up and had a quick cleaning of the boat because
the rain and wind from last night managed to clean off the deck pretty well.
We then had our lesson in the boating rules of the road and were on our way out
of Mitchell Bay. As we got out of the harbor and just past Henry Island we
let out the sails and began our training in tacking. We were quickly involved
in high winds and rain. It was so much fun! Gato Verde hit some waves that had
the water crashing over the bow of the boat and for some reason Val felt it
would be okay to lay on the trampoline. Yea -- he got a little wet. I looked
up and in slow motion I saw a wave come crashing down and engulf him. He was a
good sport and laughed it off. I guess he got the shower we all need.
I'm not sure when, but at some point up to 10 Dall's porpoises and one harbor
porpoise played out our bow for about 5 minutes, which was a very long time.
We were all getting drenched but they were so beautiful. Even Freddy, who was
sea sick, felt better after the porpoises showed up. They were amazing and the
highlight of my day today! Val's shower was the second best moment of the
day, although he might disagree and feel that it was the worst moment of the
day.
While we haven't showered in a few days, this has been an invigorating
experience with today's windy/rainy weather and bow riding.
09.30.2005: Orca, orca, orca...
More orcas! They were beautiful. We left Roche Harbor after getting water,
pumping out our wonderful wastes, throwing out trash and recycle, and picking
up a dozen Roche Harbor Dough nuts. We soon tuned into the whale watching
channel and heard the location of some whales. We were only a couple miles
away! Off to the light house we went. As soon as we encountered the animals
we deployed all of the equipment, took pictures, and enjoyed the view. We saw
a few members of all three pods, and most of the crew was happy to see J1 and
J2, Ruffles (J1) has the most amazing wavy dorsal fin. We've seen
pictures, but wow it was cool to see live.
After the whales left us in the dust at the light house, we began slowly
heading north, trailing them far beyond our sight. Apparently some orcas got
left behind and were hauling their way toward the main groups. We were
cruising along and -- pooof, we hear their blows and the chaos of dropping all
of the hydrophones began. This routine took place a couple of times today. It
was really quite funny until we couldn't untangle all of the cords. We are all
mad scientists now!
We finally headed to our final destination for the night at Jones Island where
we pulled up to a dock. LAND!!!! After dinner Nicole, Courtney, and I
headed to land and crossed this small island in five minutes. It was nice to
walk more than what the boat allows. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings
for us. We meet our new skipper that will be with us next week. We also get
to shower in two days!! How exciting!
10.01.2005: End of the first week
I can't believe that this first week has gone by s quickly. We picked up our
new skipper today and she is really nice. She likes showers! We get one every
other day. It will be a lot of fun having her around too. We will miss Todd,
but he will be back. Because we docked at Friday Harbor for a few hours we all
got to make some phone calls and that definitely boosted the mood a little. I
miss home a lot and really enjoyed calling my family and John. My new family
here has been amazing though and helps the process of being away from home a
lot. The most awesome things today were the Dall's porpoises bow riding.
They came twice! It was very exciting. They are so beautiful and its amazing
how they bring up the mood. At the end of today we anchored at Parks Bay to be
near Friday Harbor to drop off Todd. These next four weeks are going to go by
so quickly. I love being out on the water and I really don't want them to
fly by. But, I guess it just means we are having a good time.
10.03.2005: Up Close and Personal
What a day! Today started off pretty average with a plan to head toward the
whales and get some sail training. While we didn't do too much sailing we
sure got a fill of whale activity. By the time we arrived to the whale
location we were ready to deploy the hydrophones and everything went
smoothly. I only tripped over cords once today! I was proud of my klutzy
self. We had a nice method of recording, spotting, attempting to ID, and
transferring data going; I was impressed. We managed a couple hours of
recordings and then the most amazing, unethical thing happened. It wasn't
too unethical because the orcas did a sudden change of direction which put
us in their path. Brett and Laura yelled 9 o'clock and everyone ran over to
see a mom and calf pair within meters of running into our boat. They took
one breath, the female slapped the water with her flukes and under they the
boat they went. It was breath taking. I can't put into words what I felt
when I saw them swim under the trampoline with their white eye patch and
belly showing. It was absolutely incredible. I was not expecting that
close encounter and was left speechless after a series of "Oh my god! Oh my
god! Oh my god!" ran out of my mouth.
10.04.2005: Greetings
Wow, so I wasn't sure that we'd have another exciting moment as thrilling,
or even more so than yesterday's close encounter. I will get to today's
moment in a little bit but I'd like to mention that today's research went
incredibly smooth again. I was taking some ID shots with Val's camera and
calling out bearings while Nicole and Courtney recorded while taking their
data, Brett was doing his recordings, Freddy, Scott, and Val were
troubleshooting the fishfinder, and Laura was recording while taking
pictures. We had a good system! The whole system went haywire when we
discovered a couple groups of orcas lining up.
We witnessed something that doesn't happen often and I'm not sure if we'll ever
see it again. We initially noticed a group of killer whales heading in one
direction make a sudden direction change. They all went under, then surfaced
together and cruised with their dorsal fins up. Not until someone quietly
yelled out "it's a greeting ceremony" did I know what was actually happening.
I had only read, heard and seen videos about this phenomenon. It gave me
chills to see the two groups lined up and slowly cruising to meet each other
with their fins out of the water. Even more amazing was that we could hear
them above the water! I still get chills just remembering everything. They
sped up a little and began mingling. Thankfully Scott and Val functioned
enough to begin recording because they (total of about 20-25 whales) all
disappeared and all we had to go by was a bunch of calls being transmitted
through the hydrophones. The calls heard at this time were by far the clearest
and loudest calls we have recorded. Laura thinks that this may have been a
good-bye ceremony. Around this time of year the L's tend to head elsewhere while the J's
hang around. Hopefully this wasn't a good-bye ceremony because we'd love to
see them some more. Yeah, this was overall amazing. While I realize I keep
saying this, I'm not sure what else could be better than what we saw today.
I'm not sure what words to use to describe the strange feelings that went
through me as I watched this incredible meeting between members of two pods. I
felt the need to simply shut up and listen. I definitely felt that I was put
in my place by these incredible beings.
10.06.2005
Today was a pretty good day except for the rain. While I enjoyed the rain
and high winds for sailing last week, I was not that big a fan of the rain
with no wind today when we actually had to do research. I was, however,
pretty excited that I could be sitting at the bow not getting wet and not
feeling cold. We slept in Griffin Bay at the south end of San Juan Island
in hopes of being close to the whales in the morning. We got pretty lucky
and they decided to bless us with their presence early in the day. We
definitely got some good sound files to work with today.
The coolest thing was when a mom and calf pair approached our boat. We
noticed some very strong calls and Rachael, who has done work with Luna who
has been separated from his family for years and is living in a harbor,
noticed that some of the calls sounded like Luna. Sure enough, it was
Luna's mom with her new calf. I was very impressed by Rachael's ability to
recognize calls characteristic to Luna and therefore Luna's mom.
We decided to anchor in Mackaye Harbor on Lopez Island. What a beautiful
place!
10.07.2005
Mackaye Harbor was wonderful and it was great to wake up there, regardless
of having woken up for an hour last night to do an anchor watch. After Val
woke me up for the anchor watch last night at 3am, Laura reacted and almost
fell off the bed in an attempt to make it easy for me to climb over her.
That definitely made waking up a good one. I don't think I wake up at 3am
laughing very often. It was great. I've been lucky that I've had company
during my watches the last two nights. Rachael just happened to wake up and
decided to keep me company a couple of nights ago and last night Val had a
mission to burn the carbon off the carbon deposit on the wick of the aladdin
lamp. He was sitting on a bucket by the stove with the wick over a flame.
I can't believe he stayed up to do that. I would definitely have left it
until the morning. Three in the morning was enticing yesterday but I think
4am sounds even better. Let's see how it goes tonight and tomorrow. I've
definitely been having an off day, so I am glad that we had a relatively
relaxing day in Friday Harbor.
My excitement of the day was that I got to pump out our wastes using the
poop-mobile. Brett, who has done it before, and I headed a couple docks
away and retrieved the poop-mobile. We brought it back to our boat and
began pumping out our wastes. If not for Brett I don't know what would have
happened and I'd really rather not think of it. Kudos to Brett who knows
what he's doing with our wastes. Everyone kind of went their own ways for a
couple of hours and I headed into town to buy a watch, because I can't find
mine (how do you lose a bright pink watch?), some ice packs for Broken
Freddy, and some other goodies.
We decided to anchor in Matia tonight. This island is beautiful! Even
better is that we got to walk on land! It was fun. After we headed onto
the island to watch the sunset and play around. Freddy has a busted knee at
the moment and Scott took him out for the walk on a wheel barrel. It was
awesome! Although, Scott, with a fantastic (fantastic for him, not so much
for us) amount of sugar in his system, was wheeling Freddy at amazing
speeds. He almost knocked out Courtney in the path! Well, that is an
exaggeration, but he definitely was having a wee bit too much fun driving
Freddy around. We returned to the boat with brownies fresh out of the oven.
Oh no, more sugar! Everything turned out to be moderately sane regardless
of the sugar overload.
10.08.2005: Chaos
So the day started it rather nice when I woke up to the sounds of the
engines starting. Actually, I was happy about it because it was early and
we were heading to find the killer whales. As I'm cleaning up the table a
little I see a boat heading straight to ours and not making any turns. I
immediately thought it was someone who wasn't paying attention because his
boat was on autopilot, but it turned out to be Brett. Apparently he went
for a walk this morning and we left him. He sleeps in the hole up front, so
I wonder how long it would have taken us to realize he wasn't there. So, we
deploy the dingy to pick him up and he gratefully says good-bye to his
taxi-boat. Just as Brett and Scott get out of the dingy, the boat does a
turn, the engine is started and the rope from the dingy gets stuck in the
propellers. So Scott speaks the unspeakable words, "is there a wetsuit on
board?" Thankfully Brett saved the first part of the day and there was no
need for a wetsuit. Although, I'd like to add that Crazy Laura offered to
be the one who has to get in the 50 degree water. And why did she offer?
So she could take a hot shower afterwards. There is something so wrong with
that logic. Anyway, problem solved, for now.
Less than 10 minutes later the engines stopped. Sweet, another problem.
The starboard engine was having problems with fuel flow. Thanks to Scott
and Judy it was fixed. Scott apparently likes to climb into small spaces.
Once we were up and running we decided to find some whales! There was
definitely some foraging going on and some Dall's porpoises were foraging
too. That's what we think, but who knows, maybe it was the whales messing
with the porpoises. We saw the Dall's porpoising and behind them a killer
whale would appear. It was very strange. Of course I wanted to get
pictures so I had the camera ready to go, so I thought. Yeah the camera
was in the wrong setting and I forgot to check that and so all of the
awesome shots of this interaction are gone. I was a wee bit peeved with
myself. Oh well. We recorded some awesome sounds, got some pretty good ID
shots and had a lot of fun.
We spent the night at the labs. Yes! A shower! We also thought about going
into town to hang out, but we crashed a bit too early for that. Man we are
party animals. This was a fun week but it is going by too quickly.
October 15, 2005 Where does the time go?
So, these last few days have become a bit of a blur. I remember bits and
pieces of things happening but I'm not sure what day they occurred. It is
so strange feeling this lack of control over my memory! Anyhow, everything
has, of course, been amazing. On Wednesday, the 12th, we had a great
sailing day. We had some really good winds and swells. We did a couple of
observations around killer whales and then had a sailing day. Now, I had
heard about surfing the waves but who knew it would be so much fun? I think
we got up to 11 knots at one point or another. And as appropriate as it
could be I popped in the Beach Boys and began the surfing with Surfing
U.S.A. I had so much fun!
On Friday, I think, we drifted south of San Juan Island for a bit and then
decided to head north when some orcas found us! We were the first whale
watching boat to see them. How cool was that? So we had a few minutes
before we got swarmed with whale watching boats -- poor whales. That is all
they get. Boats, ships, and some more boats. Anyway, so that was
awesome. I, of course, don't remember much else about the day.
Today we discussed what to do in the case that someone falls overboard.
Well, we got a slight practice tonight. Todd, Laura, Kevin (new captain for
the week) and I were sitting a the table enjoying each other's company when we
hear badunk-thump-thump-thunk. We look at each other, Laura gets outside
first and she asks, "Are you okay?" and Courtney answers, "Yeah" and then I
hear Laura ask "Are you in the water?" and Courtney calmly responds, "Yeah."
Yeah, she slipped down the stairs at the stern (called the fan tail I think).
She was thankfully okay, but wet and cold. She was definitely a good sport as
I began laughing when I realized she was fine. Good times.
So how is it that we're passed the third week at sea already? I wonder if I
am going to get into some sort of depression when I get home and have to go
back to living my normal life. While I miss people at home there are
definitely aspects of my life that I don't miss. How can I ever go back to
the normal school setting after this experience? That's it! I'm moving in
with Val and Leslie! But they don't know it yet -- I'll be slick like the
river otter that attacked our boat last night! NUMA NUMA!
Week 4, October 23, 2005
So again this week is a blur with some key, wonderful experiences. We had a
guest, Bob McLaughlin, on board and he brought his high tech military
night-vision gear with him. We had hoped to do some sort of night follow but
conditions weren’t right (no whales). We did, however, see a pod of baby
orcas! Well, actually, it was a group of Dall’s porpoises. We had an awesome
time with them! They stuck with us for an extremely long time and we’d like
to think that they were interacting with the boat, especially when Scott was
weaving the boat through the water. It was awesome. I’m not sure what night,
but one night we decided to test out the gear while anchored at fish creek and
so Laura had Scott and I head out in the dingy and pretend to be killer whales.
So off we went splashing with the paddles, making blows, and Scott stood up to
be J1’s dorsal, but didn’t do a fantabulous job. Good times.
On Wednesday, October 19, we had another awesome experience with Dall’s
porpoises. But even better was Laura’s birthday party! We snuck all these
things around and she didn’t suspect a thing. We sent her out in the dingy
after dinner under the impression that we would be picking up Leslie (Val’s
wife) at the dock in Snug Harbor. They went around and around for quite
some time and headed back. As they were coming back Laura believed that we
were leaving Leslie for some time without picking her up. How could she not
suspect something was up? We would never do that to Leslie. Plus, the
girls and I were very secretive while they made a beautiful card for her.
I’m glad we surprised her. We had a really yummy ice cream cake that Leslie
had made, flowers, gifts, decorations, the works…I think Laura felt the
love.
On Thursday, after having no clue about where killer whales were and
receiving a bunch of pages about the humpbacks we finally decided to go
catch us some humpbacks. There were quite a few of them, at least 4, were
hanging out by Race Rocks. Laura also officially became a mast hugger. We
hoisted her up the mast to check out the humpbacks and Steller’s sea lions
hanging around. Humpbacks are awesome, but the sea lions were incredible!
A huge male came toward our bow and then swam under the trampoline and came
up on our starboard side. We all scrambled to that side and it slowly came
up vertically checking us out. Once out of the water he eyed us for awhile,
we made eye contact, and he left. That was unreal. Sure enough another sea
lions approaches us in a similar way. She, however, took a liking to Scott,
how was at the stern and checked him out for awhile. He had a fan. Then
those two met up maybe 30 meters away and exhibited some nose-to-nose
behaviors. As Scott pointed out, they were no longer nearly as intimidating
as we felt they were while going through Cattle Pass. Which reminds me,
Scott also speaks Steller sea lion. One morning when we were heading
through Cattle Pass a sea lion began barking, Scott responded and it barked
back at him. They definitely have strange vocalizations that, to me, sound
like an elephant seal vocalization. That was pretty neat too!
So, finally on Friday we find us some whales. It was L-pod and we they were
pretty spread out, so, we had a hard time figuring out where to go and meet
up with them. The leaders leave us in the dust but the groups that were
trailing decided to catch up to us. We set up the sails, killed the
engines, towed a hydrophone and waited. A few whales crept up on our
starboard side and a couple on our port side and then they disappeared. We
didn’t hear much of anything until we heard some clicks and insanely loud
calls. They must have been right behind us! Anyway, a group of 5 or so
came up on our port side and stayed with us for what seemed like forever.
One tail slapped, another breached, and just like that they left us in the
dust. We found L-pod again later and decided to attempt a night follow.
The whales ditched us about midnight, which I feel made for quite a
successful night.
We went ahead and tried another night follow with J-pod who was really close
together and resting the next day but we only stayed with them for about 5
minutes after it got dark. We wanted to sail again, but one problem with
sailing is that you are at the wind’s will and you can’t stop quite as
easily. We suddenly got 20 knott winds and took off. We tacked, took some
strange turns and the whales were gone. I don’t think they ditched us. I
believe we ditched them with all of the directions changes we made.
We tried a night follow on Saturday but that only lasted about 5 minutes.
So we headed into Port Townsend for the night, which lead to a very long
trip back to Friday Harbor. So this morning, after we are about 1/3 into
our trip back to the labs, Brett wakes up and tells us that he woke up with
the theme song to Gilligan’s Island in his head and apparently when people
wake up with songs in their heads it means something. A couple days ago
after not seeing whales for a long time, Kevin woke up with Chariots of Fire
in his head and we later found L-pod. Anyways, so about a 1/3 way into our
trip the starboard engine dies. Now, this could be due to fuel flow again
or low gas. So we give Todd a call and ask him what it could be. Our
question got answered when the port engine went out. Yeah…we ran out of gas
and were thankfully not in a shipping lane. So, Vessel Assist, AAA for
boats, came to our rescue and we made it home and showered!
This week was fantastic and Kevin was an awesome captain. I had a lot of
fun and attempted to disregard the stress of an unprepared paper and
project. So, now I am off to try to finish my project. AHHHHHH!
Rooooger that.
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