Beam Reach

Week TWO

Well it’s week two being in Beam Reach and I have had one weekend to my leisure, so I thought. On Friday night we saw the Merchant of Venice play by Shakesphere at Roche Harbor. The play was very well done and the weather was just perfect for it being outdoors. They even serve tea and cookies at intermission. On Saturday Donna took Juliette and myself into town for the Farmers Market and to go grocery shopping at the locals market. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before in my other blogs but it’s the “local’s” grocery store and it has no sign on it to let anyone know it is a market. There is NO sign at all, a bit strange to me, oh well. Donna was kind enough to drop us off at the Whale Museum since we were given free entrance tickets. I learned a bit more about the orcas and alot about one in particular, Luna. If you don’t know the story about Luna, here is the website http://www.reuniteluna.com/. Also follow the link that shows the sea lion comparison. That young whale really touched me and made me very emotional. If you don’t know me then you wouldn’t know that is no surprise. I am extremely emotional with animals when compared to humans. However, I am still not sure how I will feel when I see one from a boat out in the wild for the first time. Anyways, back to the museum, it was nice and very educational for everyone who would visit it. I stopped next at the wildlife care center store just next to the museum and talked a bit about the animals they see come in to the center. I had to ask about owls and any other birds. I then went into town to have some lunch and a bit of vino. I love the Seattle area because it’s the only place I can find Moscato d’Asti. Mom, do you remember that bottle we brought back from Seattle, Heavenly. Stayed in on Saturday night to try to just catch up on myself and the week. It was nice to just feel normal again and get the sense of there are other people on this island. Sunday was spent doing my proposal for the majority of the day and ended with all the Beam Reachers watching Charlie & the Chocolate Family. It was nice with the popcorn and everything. Bob Francis & his wife got here on Monday and we had a great talk about sustainability yesterday and today. Really got me searching to what I really felt on the subject. We visited the Center for Whale Research today. They are the people who ID all the whales and have a pretty extensive catalog of all the whales. I must say this probably would have been good to see on Day 1 or Day 2. Also, I have still not seen this thing we are studying….what-cha-ma-call-it….orca? I here they look like a police car in the water and something about some alphabet letters, A,B,C or J,K,L or something like that. Just kidding we see them all over the island like the islands personal mascot. We do have the pager that sits in our cottage to alert us where they are. We get a bit giddy when we are able to track them. It’s just a shame that there are so many boats. Well you are probably sick of reading or your eyes are hurting by now. So if I can remember I will talk about my thoughts about policy next time.
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other:

I’d forgotten a couple other fun things:

When we first hung out at Val’s house, (week 1) Fred Felleman dropped by and gave a really interesting talk on the politics of whale research and legislation. Definately someone to keep in touch with, as legislation has always been on great interest to me, despite it’s frustrations and heartbreak.

Also, Sunday evening, we had ourselves a movie night in G-cottage! We snagged the projector from Donna and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (TB version!) Johnny Depp, is brilliant, but sometimes creepy. Very fun evening had by all, and a very welcome end to a long day of finishing the rough draft of my research proposal!

This morning I got my first 6:45am phone call! It was from Cynthia, who’d just gotten home from Portugal! She didn’t realize I was out here and there was a 3hr difference.. hehe. Luckily, shes one of my best buddies, so I’ll forgive her :).
I also got mail from Allie!! That made the day even better – and Allie, if you read this – your card certainly did serve it’s porpoise! Thank you!!!

CWR!!

I would like to start this entry by stating that I would like to give Ken Balcomb a hug and say *Thank You* for your 30 years of legwork, figuring out all these little details about the whales so that I get to ask a more interesting question for my Beam Reach project (as well as for the rest of what will become my lifelong research).
But before I get too far ahead of myself…
Yesterday, was Packed! Classes involving math, caused a brain shut down in the AM – been a while since that happened. It’s the management math I had to do for wildlife bio, so I know I can do it, it’s just a matter working slowly and practice. Anywhoo, guest that afternoon was Bob Francis. Interesting lecture about Sustainability. Sustainability is one of those fascinating and immensely frustrating topics that get my jaded self all pissed off and disgusted at the egocentricity of Humanity.
Dinner was lovely, we all cooked – Val and Leslie brought salad, Donna made zucchini lasanga, I made garlic bread (cheesy and regular) and Erin made Apple crisp! The chatter round the table fun interesting and thought provoking. It was nice, and made me miss folks…

Today we went to the Center for Whale Research, and that was pretty darn nifty. They have an absolutely superb system for doing thier photo ID on the computers… I need to really start working on learning these whales… Ken Balcomb gave us a bit of the history of it all,and that was really nice, because he filled in the gaps I had in the USA side of my knowledge (since I’ve always focused on the Northern residents). I’d love to sit down and really chat with him at some point, so hopefully we’ll get another chance to hang out over there.

okie dokie, well that’s about it. Night all! pics soon!
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