Beam Reach

Methods: Day 1

I had a really great science-experience today and I figure that since those sorts of events are more important to write about than my fascination over the physiology of raspberries, it’s important to get it down now.

Today is the first full day back on the boat. We stayed in North Bay last night, and since we weren’t getting very clear indications about where the orcas were this morning we decided to head southward, usually not a bad place to be for whale-watching. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any whales today, but perhaps what we did accomplish was more important; we not only started planning out our group methods, we actually did a pretty good practice run too.

Sam and I need the hydrophone array for localization purposes, and Ash has volunteered to help us out with that. We have a whole complicated arrangement; after we’ve all worked together to deploy the array into the water (which was an enormous operation because of how tangled the cable was) Sam is taking bearings with the compass, Ash is taking pictures of the orcas, and I’m going to completely ignore the orcas so I can count and ID all the boats in the area. The array is going to be used with Val’s computer and the orange box, which we were trying to name earlier. It’ll probably end up being called “Ron Weasley, though I think it would be funnier to call it “Bloody Hell.” Somehow I don’t feel like that would go over too well with Val though. Someone needs to be on the computer too, that’ll probably be me since boats really don’t take that long to count. And 400 meters, the radial limit I was originally considering, is actually VERY small! I might have to reassess that distance simply so that I can have a more reliable data pool. Tim and Anne are using the high frequency hydrophone, the “pothead,” I thought Tim’s name “Uber Doobie” was a lot funnier.

The test that we did first was to anchor the dinghy to a certain location and to deploy a speaker from which an S1 call was emanating, we used the array to record sounds from that. Sam got bearings, Ash got pictures, I monitored the recordings. It went pretty well I thought. Then Val did echolocation clicks using two hammers and we got recordings of that, Anne and Tim got recordings using the HF hydrophone also. Finally, Val got into the dinghy and did pass-bys, I had to use the range-finder for that and it doesn’t help that I can’t hold the device steady. But we got some pretty good recordings and data there too. So we practiced methods for orca calls, echolocation clicks AND boat noise. We may not have seen orcas, but I still think today was really great because we were a lot more structured than we tend to be when orcas are around, maybe it’s because it was the first week but it would seem to get a little chaotic whenever orcas were sighted. I was excited about seeing them too, but the cold thing was definitely a damper for me. Speaking of which, thanks to the gear that my mom sent, and maybe a little of my own acclimatization, the weather hasn’t bothered me at all so far, which is really great. Another important thing about today, now when we DO see orcas, we’ll be ready and know exactly what to do.

I’m on science log tomorrow, so I better run to get everyone’s details, then start to put together the crazy puzzle I’ll have to present tomorrow.

Raccoons!

Hi Everyone! This is my first blog at the start of week 4, terrible I know! So I’ll introduce myself; my names is Ashleigh, and I’m an Aussie (No Sam we don’t know why the aussie is pronounced auzzie). I’ve been pronounced the “girlgy girl” of the group. So much so that when I pumpled out the holding tak yesterday, everyone thought it would be funny to take photos of me! Not Happy! Aparently I also get distracted by animals WAY too much- according to Val! One in particular is the raccoon. Everyone here thinks Im crazy for having an infactuation for raccoons, especially my roomi Anne (love you babe x) whom has a particular hatred towards the “little scaverngers”. Apparently in America raccoons are pests!! Anyway on a particular day last week Tim and I were on a raccoon stake out (Ok so I dragged him along!) and we heard some sounds coming from the big bin (aka dumpster for you americans!) outside the dining hall. We knew it was a raccoon that must of gotten stuck, but Tim wanted to leave it in there! No way! So with alot of skill I flicked the lid off the bin with a broom and we jumped back to await the raccoons esacpe (well I jumped back, Tim was already 3 metres behind me filming as he was scared of the ‘rabid’ raccoons! – sorry Tim but maybe you’ll think twice before you take photos of me emptying the holding tank next time grrrr!) . After 10 minutes of waiting and still no little raccoon emergered I climb onto another bin to get a better look. Inside the bin was not 1 raccoon, but 6 raccoons! And they were sooo cute! We took loads of photos of them, one in particular which is now my screen saver on my computer, which I’ll attempt to upload onto here. At one stage I was jumping up and down from the bin with my geeky little head lamb and a broom and some americans walked past looking at us like we were crazy! They’re like “Raccoons?” and proceeded to shake their head and walk away. I put the broom inside the bin so they would have something to climb up, to escape (they made fairly vicious noises when I did this! I think they were attacking the broom!) and we resumed out position on the opposite bin so we could see what they were doing. They climbed the skinny broom one at a time until they reached the top of the bin and proceeded to climb along the fence (quickly) in our general direction. Tim whom was already sketchy about the situation in general proceeds to yell “Jump Ash, jump!” which totally freaked me out, so we jumped over this massive (we I’m only small!) fence in order to escape these supposably ‘blood thirsty’ raccoons and ran for a bit up this hill. From there we watched the rest of the family escape the bin (despite Tims disgust, who had had enough raccoon fun for the night) before closing the lid so no other cutie raccoons could get stuck. The end!