K and L pods
Saturday, September 22, 2007
We motored out of Fisherman’s Bay on Lopez early to beat the tides. Jason cooked pancakes as we went through Cattle Pass and soon we hit the largest swells (5-6 ft) we had experienced on BeamReach. We struggled through our morning chores in the high seas and gathered out on deck to get some fresh air. A couple of the students were feeling a bit sea sick, so we had a fairly easy morning as the rest of us practiced knots. Mike had the students practice a couple of man overboard drills. After lunch of egg salad, we headed out past Beaumont Shoals and towards Hein Bank to find K and L pods. When we saw the whale watching vessels, we deployed the hydrophone array and set up to record data. There were some good opportunities for possible localizations and some whales seemed to be investigating the hydrophones, clicking at the array and getting quite close to it. We moved slowly up along the coast of San Juan Island, collecting data and recording vocalizations. In the late afternoon, we saw a group of whales very close to shore that were breaching, tail slapping, and even cartwheeling. After hours of recording, the batteries died on one of the solid state recorders just as it was time to head up to Roche Harbor for the evening. We pulled into our slip as taps was being played at Roche and there was a spectacular sunset. Elise prepared a fabulous dinner of stir fry with veggies and fake chicken and Liz entertained us with stories from Dr. 90210.
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