Beam Reach

Out to Sea Part II

As of today we have now completed our third week of the sea component. We set out with new methods and ideas for projects ready to test them in practice. Also, Scott joined us for the week to get a sense of what we’d accomplish and to work out difficulties we’d been encountering. I’d have to say our duties this past week could be summarized effectivly in one word…”SCIENCE” Each day we talk about goals for the day, task to accomplish and projects to work on, but it typically comes down to doing just plain old “SCIENCE”. Some days this entails our killer whale research projects, while other days we record water quality data from various locations in the San Juan Island to monitor specifications of the water that might affects eel grass growth. Sometimes we’re fiddling with equipment, trying to reduce water flow noise past the hydrophone or troubleshooting a number of computer programs designed to analyze acoustic data. But some of the best SCIENCE abord the Gato Verde comes spontaneously through frequent observations. One day we sailed in front of the Lime Kiln Lighthouse, sprawled across the trampoline on the bow marveling at the Dall’s porpoises surfing the wake off our bow. On another occasion we spotted sea lions rummaging through a mixing area picking out prey and occasionally keeping an eny on our boat as we drifted past. And finally some days, there is not much to observe minus “birds, boats, and lots and lots of water!” best communicated in a thick British accent.

That said, all of us Beam Reachers are having a fantastic time abord the Gato Verde, floating up and down the Westside, talking with experts and enthusiats in the field of killer whale research, doing our own “SCIENCE” and keeping ourselves sane with jokes, games, silly accents, great food and nightly entertainment…

um…who loves October!!

Stay tuned for updates from week seven of the Beam Reach Adventure…

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its been awhile…

It has been far too long since I’ve “blogged” and much has happened. First and foremost, I’ve seen breaching Orcas and bow riding Dall’s Porpoise and its been great. There are only 3 weeks left of the course, unbelievably. In the 7 weeks we’ve been here we’ve been to Lime Kiln State Park, a short kayaking trip, a short sail on a Cal 20 with the Commodore of the local yacht club, developed research proposals including methodology, meet many interesting people including some well known killer whale researchers, and we’ve spent 3 weeks on a catamaran around the San Juan Islands. Our first two weeks were an adventure. The first week we mostly spent getting used the boat and learning about sailing as the whales weren’t around. The second week we had two encounters with the whales and perhaps as interestingly the propulsion system on the boat stopped working. Our relief captain stepped up to the challenge and although we had no propulsion and little wind we managed to spend another couple of days on the water until safely returning to the Friday Harbor Labs. To return to the labs we rigged the dinghy up at the stern between the two hulls and ran that 18hp engine which was able to push us back to the labs and allowed for decent steering ability using the catamaran’s rudder. Somehow that week every time we were docking with little/no engine capabilities and only light winds I always ended up at the helm. I don’t mean to brag but I did pretty damn well and am proud of myself, plus I really learned a lot over that interesting week. Our third week out on the boat, the propulsion was mostly fixed and we were back with the owner/captain. We had one great day with the whales and collected quite a bit of good data but then the disappeared for the rest of the week. We kept ourselves busy with data analyzing and reading while we drifted around in Haro Strait hoping to intercept the whales as the returned. Despite having no Orcas we had a couple of wonderful encounters with some Dall’s Porpoise. There was one day we were sailing at 5kts or so and a group of 6-10 came up and bow rode for at least 20 min. I was sitting up on the starboard bow seat and when the came up to breathe they were 3 feet away and it felt like I could reach out and touch them. With their distinct black and white shading we could see them as they swam around underwater near the surface. A couple of days later we were just drifting with the current in Haro and a group of Dall’s came up and played around the boat for maybe 30 min. It was great!

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Beginning of Week 7

Where does one begin? My days are starting to blend together, so I will just share some of my favorite moments from these past few weeks. Well, we safely returned to Friday Harbor yesterday to provision the boat, shower, and get ready to go out to sea again for two weeks. Being on land, freshly showered, in dry clean clothes may sound quite ordinary, but yesterday I was enjoying all those things and more. The Gato Verde has been our home for about three weeks, taking us to places around the San Juans in search for whales. The weather has been heavenly and for the last nine days Colleen and I have been commenting on the fact that “October is the BEST month of the year!” Our birthdays are only two days apart so it has been fun enjoying every sunset, gawking at the Harvest moon, and noticing all the colors of fall. We are planning a Bowling Night to celebrate our birthdays and I can’t wait to show off my moves. Ha Ha! I do have to admit that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all of the students, instructors, and captains over this whole experience. We belly laugh at least a hundred times a day and for some reason I get the giggles sometime between 1 and 2 DAILY. It’s often a restless, stir crazy kind of madness that often catches me by surprise. Smile! We have all enjoyed mooring in different locations around the San Juans, but Stuart has to be one of my favorites so far. Colleen, Erin and I explored and got some major energy out there. We ran some stairs, scrambled up a steep hill, and like clockwork we had lotttts and lottttts of laughs. We have only had one whale encounter this week and it was with J’s and part of L’s off the west side of San Juan Island. We collected lotttts and lotttts of data which I still need to spend more time analyzing in the upcoming week. I was able to use my PDA to collect data, which felt great being my first time entering the data right into the palm pilot. I felt like it was a more accurate representation of where the whales were and kept a time stamp for every entry which was a little piece of heaven. When I was using my data sheets in the first two weeks, I felt very distracted and honestly not the most efficient. Using the PDA allowed me to stay focused by prompting me of what to collect. I’m excited to use it again this week; Dr. James Ha from the University of Washington wrote the software for the palm and was out again with us on Friday. Well, I realize that I haven’t shared my Dall’s porpoise bow riding stories, yogas every morning on the bow, or about being mugged by porpoise when we were just floating. But I can’t wait to tell you in person…hopefully soon. I need to do a few more things and then we are off again.

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