Beam Reach

First day at Lacrover!

Today was the first service day for the VaTo group, and I’m doing my service work at Lacrover Farm, a local sustainable-organic farmer. When Jason and Val first mentioned our service projects to us and told us about Lacrover, I immediately knew I’d want that to be my project because I had done a lot of work this past year on agricultural policy with my senior thesis for environmental studied. Monday’s brief trip just confirmed my initial impulse, and being there today was the ultimate vindication.

The farm is owned by a husband-wife team, and Katie picked me up from the parking lot of FHL here at 8:15 this morning. We stopped by the ferry to pick up another girl, Tessa, who is volunteering there, and after picking up some empty cartons and bags from CSA (I think that’s for the “Community Supported Agriculture” people who pay a regular fee and have produce set aside for them), we went to the farm. Katie and Paul put me right to work picking raspberries, which I’d never done before. I never thought about it, but that little hollow inside a raspberry is because the part we eat is hugging this little cone-shaped structure that probably has a name…for some reason that just struck me as fascinating, even if most other people had already kind of figured it out. Other fascinating things picking the raspberries; there was an enormous spider with a bee wrapped up in its web and it was starting to eat it. And I saw a little bright green frog sitting on the raspberry leaves. Maybe this stuff sounds boring to most people but I guess I’m a sucker for being so close to nature like that…OK, so a farm isn’t exactly natural, but you know what I mean.

Then I picked beans with Paul and we were talking about my environmental thesis, he was really interested in my research on soil carbon which was nice because I think he’s the first person I’ve met outside of the environmental department at Penn who wanted to hear about it. And we talked about politics too! I realized just how far removed I am from my Penn political science/politics experiences when I forgot the name of the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania who was catapulted out of office in 2006 by the Democratic candidate, whose campaign I worked on. But I remembered it a little while later, so that made me feel better.

After that I picked 36 pints of strawberries and washed potatoes (lunch was in there somewhere too). The whole day was just such a good one for me, sitting in the warm sunshine, picking strawberries while listening to the music of Incubus, Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana on my iPod, not worrying about the yellow jackets buzzing around my hands or the enormous spiders that kept running up my pants. And getting a bit of time with their cats and dog is really nice for me because I miss my own cat a lot. I bought some of the beans I’d picked and potatoes I’d washed to send to my parents, my mom just overnighted me a ton of warm base layers and other warm gear so this will be like a little thank you. Lacrover will definitely be a very good thing for me here.

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I have a functional computer! Win!

My computer charges!!! Score!!! Todd’s computer guy couldn’t fix it. Bummer. But my parents sent me a port that plugs into the computer at a different jack, so I can charge it (however slowly) without using the broken jack. Thanks, parents! And since my dad already had the port, it was free instead of $550 (what Fujitsu would charge to fix it). Win. I was so sick of living out of my flash drive. It’s too small to store DATA on it, and it can’t run programs because it IS just data storage.

Went to the Center for Whale Research today. I want to help out there or do something, but I don’t know how much help they need doing anything. I WOULD like to know if they’ve got vocalizations ID’d to whales. I’d be more than happy to increase my sample sizes.

On the topic of good, I think I’ve got more of Praat figured out than I thought I did. I’ll play with it later today and see how much what I want to do will work with my own voice. I’m not sure what stats I want to run. I wonder if I can use JMP. It’s not at all intuitive, and Val really seems to like R. And then Jason’s a big advocate of Matlab. We’ll see. Maybe Vannoni and McElligott (2007) have some insight.

I’m tempted to jump in the water. I need to get SOME physical activity going. Even if it IS just becoming slightly hypothermic. It was nice at British Camp (62 degrees!) . . .

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Back on land – Week 3

Monday 3^rd to Thursday 6^th September

Well the last 3 days on land have been spent fine tuning our research proposals. I’ve decided to focus on high frequency boat noise and create frequency power spectrums from these recordings and relate them to power spectrums of the killer whale high frequency echolocation clicks. I decided to change my research area slightly when I found out that we have a high frequency hydrophone and measuring echolocation clicks and boat noise at these higher frequencies is a somewhat novel idea. The great thing about this program is the resources and technology we are able to get our hands on, and thus are able to do some good quality science. I knew pretty much nothing about acoustics before I came to this program and in the last 2 weeks my knowledge has increased dramatically, to the point where I’m pretty comfortable in looking at a sound and being able to explain it.

We went to a place called Lacrover Farm on Monday, which is a sustainable organic farm. We picked some fruit and veg for them to take to market and got to keep some. The strawberries and raspberries were probably the best I have ever tasted. After the farm we got to visit the Center for Whale Research (CWR). Now some of you may or may not be aware of this place but punch it into Google and see what you get. Basically the CWR, created and directed by Dr. Ken Balcomb, has kept track of the Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) population since the 1970’s. We got to meet Ken and chat to him and it really was bloody awesome as I’ve read a lot of his work and he was one of the ‘founding fathers’ I guess you could say on research on the SRKW population. I didn’t realise the CWR was actually just Ken’s house, but it’s right on the water and overlooks Haro Strait where orcas often swim close to shore as they head up the west side of San Juan Island, so its’ an ideal location. Unfortunately we didn’t get to stay long but I could have picked his brain for hours. Hopefully I’ll get to do that some more in the near future.

Monday night saw Ash and myself go raccoon hunting and we came across 6 trapped in an industrial bin near the dining hall. Ash will tell you I was scared but I maintain that I kept my distance because although these little creatures appear cute and cuddly, they are often rabid and I didn’t really fancy getting rabies that evening, nor any other evening for that matter! Ash insisted that we rescue them from the bin as they were stuck in there, so we got some great photos and video, put a broom in there so they could climb out and then watched them one after the other manoeuvre themselves up the thin broom handle and out around the edge of the bin and scurry away. Ash thinks they are just the cutest things but I just have one word that I say to her… “rabies!”

Wednesday night we had another public lecture at the whale museum about SRKW prey diet that was very interesting. We met the sea group there, known as ‘JaMi’, after Jason and captain Mike, and we are called ‘VaTo’, after Val and captain Todd. Had a small meeting after the talk then we went back to the labs and the other group went back to the boat that was moored on the other side of the island. It’s a shame our contact is so minimal but I guess that’s the way it has to be for the program to work. Last night I spoke to a researcher named Giles who I am volunteering with this Friday as part of my Service Project for the program. Originally I was going to be going out with Soundwatch but as I said last week their engine gave up the ghost so I’m going to go out and help Giles with her behaviour studies. I just wanted my service project to be out on the water as I love being out there and cruising around looking at orcas. Didn’t get sea sick at all last week (touch wood) so being out there doesn’t bother me in that respect.  So yeah, looking forward to that tomorrow. It’s Thursday the 6^th as I’m writing this, we don’t have class till this afternoon so I’m going to post up all that I’ve written in the last 3 weeks, as per Tracy’s request ;-P. I had planned on doing it anyway, just feel bad it’s been this long. Well enjoy and you’ll hear from me again with another Beam Reach update.

Friday 7^th September – Sunday 9^th September

Well Friday saw my day off and I had volunteered with a woman named Giles who is doing her PhD on killer whale group cohesion and geographic location. I’m volunteering as part of my Service Project for the program, so what better way to do it than out on a research boat studying killer whales! As I mentioned previously I was originally meant to be going out with Soundwatch but because they are out of action, Kari from Soundwatch put me onto Giles (named Debbie but she prefers to be called Giles), and so I went out with her. I was picked up on Friday morning by her assistant Lindsay and we headed across to the west side. Met their driver Aimee, who is also the curator of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network here on the island, and another female assistant of Giles’, Gurard. So even on my days off I’m still surrounded by women! Still, I guess I’m used to it now. So we had reports of transients down near Race Rocks heading into Haro Strait so we headed over, putting along at 10 knots ‘cos that’s as fast as the boat would go (engine difficulties). I was bloody pumped as I haven’t seen transients yet and would love to see them make a kill on another marine mammal. Somewhat cruel/disgusting I hear you say, well, that’s the food chain baby! But unfortunately the whales were too far out for our little boat to get there and back so we had to call it a day. Bugger! Good thing did come out of the day though. Aimee gave me a lift back to the labs and I helped her unload a harbor porpoise and a juvenile Dall’s porpoise from the freezer. We put them in a netted bag and tied them off the dock so they could thaw out for a necropsy next week. Bad thing is the necropsy is on Monday and I will be out at sea. Double bugger! Still, I got to see them and take photos.

I volunteered to be Quartermaster this trip out to sea so I’ve had to organise the shopping list and discuss meals with the group. I’ve also had to liaise with the sea group to see what food they have left so we don’t double up on items. So Saturday we went to the local Farmer’s Market and got most of our produce. The market seems to be a big thing here in

Friday
Harbor. I guess you can’t beat freshly picked produce. After the market we headed to the supermarket and got all of our other food items, were way under budget (good work Tim ;-P ), and then took it back to the lab. Grabbed lunch and then rowed into town with Sam (member of the VaTo group with me). I guess I should establish now the five in the VaTo group. We have, in order of life experience (i.e. age) Anne, Me, Alex, Sam and Ash. Great bunch of women, very different, but that’s what makes things interesting! So Sam and I went into town ‘cos I needed to buy myself a sunnies strap (so my super duper polarised Arnette sunnies don’t fall into the drink) and a Nalgene drink bottle. Now for those of you that don’t know a Nalgene bottle is one of those bottles that you can run over with a car and it won’t break. Pretty much everyone on this program has one so I thought it would be a good investment. Plus the fact that I’ve been using a Gatorade bottle which apparently, is not good for you because after you use it several times the plastic starts to deteriorate into the liquid and poison you. Fun times! So now I’m part of the Nalgene crew so all is good. I’ve been doing my proposal as well, trying to finalise it (draft) and get some hypotheses and methods stated. Not sure if research is where I want to end up as a career but while I’m here I’ll give it a bloody good shot! Who knows, 6 weeks time I may change my tune, but I do love being out on the water…

So Sunday saw the changeover at the Friday Harbor Labs dock. Was great to see the other group (JaMi) but I think the only thing on their mind was a shower, so pretty much as soon as we’d had a chat, had lunch and unpacked their gear they were off up the hill to fight each other for the only 3 female showers in the dorm. I’ve actually been really lucky with showers as I don’t have any other group members to compete with, but I do have the occasional members from other groups that come and stay at the Labs. At the beginning of the week I had the whole bathroom to myself (3 loos, 3 showers) so every time I’d leave I’d turn the light off, being the energy efficient individual that I am. Only problem with getting into that habit is when more people come to the dorms you continue to do it and so one night I actually turned the light off on some poor bloke on the loo. I walked out and instantly remembered there was a guy in there, so quickly turned around and flicked the light back on and gave a “Shit sorry mate”. I heard a mumble from the cubicle but couldn’t make out what he said, something very polite I’m sure. Anyway, after sorting out all the food as Quartermaster, with help that was greatly needed, we set off from the labs dock and went and pumped out at
Friday
Harbor
Marina and filled up with freshwater. We then travelled around to North Bay on the eastern side of

San Juan
Island and anchored for the night. I’m glad to be back on the boat as I really do love being out on the water. I’ve stayed up late to finalise my draft proposal so am off to bed. I plan on posting this sometime this week, depending on when we can pick up internet connection.

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Whales, "cats" and seals – Week 2 (at sea)

Monday 27^th August

After spending the first night in my little hidey hole at the forward starboard, and getting up at 12:30am to see Mars appear to be a small moon (apparently this won’t happen again in 2000+ years), I awoke and poked my head out of my hatch to see flat calm water and I gotta say, it was awesome. The day consisted of boat orientation and learning the systems onboard, rules etc. No whales unfortunately but we witnessed a purse seine fisherman take in a school of salmon, with much difficulty I might add. We just kinda cruised around and got familiar with the boat. We anchored in
MitchellBay (Snug Harbour marina), got some great sunset shots, and the evening was spent doing work for our proposals. After reading some papers I have decided that I want to look at boat noise of the various whale watching vessels, including recreational vessels that are out on the water in the Southern Resident Killer Whale habitat, and then somehow look at killer whale calls in the presence of these vessels. It’s not defined as yet but it’s only the draft proposal due on Wednesday so I can work on methodology over the next couple of weeks.

Tuesday 28^th August

Today was the best bloody day I have had in a long time. Something happened that I have wanted to happen ever since I found out I was coming on this trip. Ok, so the morning started and we had reports of J Pod down on the SW side of San Juan Island, heading North. We had anchored on the NW side, but had to pump out (get rid our “waste”), so we went up to Roche Harbour, got rid of our business, then made our way down the west side. Now the catamaran we are aboard has an electric bio-diesel engine, so when we run the engine (generator) and it charges the batteries and when fully charged, we can travel about 2 hours at a speed of 3-4 knots, running solely on the electric motors. ‘Gato Verde’ translates to “Green Cat”. Green meaning it is environmentally friendly and Cat because it’s a catamaran. The GV is the only commercial hybrid bio-diesel electric vessel on the Western coast of the US, so I’m feeling very privileged to be able to be on this vessel knowing that we’re not contributing to underwater noise pollution. So it’s a very sustainable vessel, but not a fast vessel, but can average about 5 knots (engine on), and we did that on way down the west side of San Juan. On the way down we passed what we thought was a dead harbor seal in the water. So we turned around, approached the seal and it actually turned out to be one seal on top of the other, and they were in fact very much alive, and engaging in mating behaviour (must have been adopting the “slow and steady” position). The two seals just looked at us as if to say “Do you mind!?”, and so they slowly sunk down the water column, still grasping at each other. Gotta say it was pretty bloody funny. So having witnessed the sexual behaviour of 2 phocids we got back on course heading south and before we knew it we were watching J Pod travelling very close to shore. They were extremely spread out and travelling in groups of 2 or 3. No measurements were going to be taken today, as we just wanted to watch the whales and observe what sort of behaviour they display, as well as the behaviour of other vessels. We were abiding by the ‘Be Whale Wise’ guidelines and staying a 1/4 – ½ mile off shore and 100m away from the whales. We were also running silent (using the electric motor) and so our noise in the water was barely noticeable compared to other vessels (something that I wish to measure and compare in my research). Now the whale watching guidelines are not law, yet (give it a few weeks and they will be), so boaters are not legally obliged to abide by them. There are however enforcement vessels that let boaters know if they are doing the wrong thing, although they can only be in one place at one time and so we witnessed several incidents of recreational boaters getting too close or going too fast, and even cutting them off. I’ve said it before, but there really are some d$#&heads out there. So we just cruised back up north following the killer whales and watching them breach, tail slap, spyhop and porpoise up the coast. We did stick the hydrophone in and could hear them making calls, so Val took some recordings just so we could get familiar with the equipment and learn how to transfer data to our computers. Time came up to about 4:30 pm and all the whale watch vessels had gone hours before as K and L Pod were heading in from Strait of Juan De Fuca and so the afternoon trips would have gone there. So it was pretty much us and J Pod cruising up the coastline and this is when it became one of the best days I’ve had in my life. We were keeping our distance (100m) and getting some great photo shots. This happened for over half an hour as we cruised up passed NW San Juan Island and up Stuart Channel towards Stuart Island. Next thing we knew, at Turn Point on Stuart
Island, the whales took a dive and the front few surfaced right next to our boat! It was incredible!  We cut the engines, there were about 8 individuals and we could see the white on their bodies as they were about 2m under the surface of the water. They surfaced again this time right under the forward starboard section of the cat, less than 2m from where we were standing! It was incredible to see their almost 6ft tall dorsal fins protrude out of the water with such grace. I told myself that while I’m up here out on the boat I really want to all of a sudden see the orcas surface right beside the boat, and it happened the second day I was on the boat! It was bloody awesome and I’m sure if you videoed me I would have looked like a little kid getting excited when he opens his xmas presents. Mind you, we were all extremely pumped and adrenaline was rushing. It truly was an exhilarating experience to be that close to such a large graceful creature, one that I will treasure forever I’m sure. I got a couple of good photos and a video of the experience but my excitement missed some good shots. Can you blame me?! The whales headed in a different direction to where we were due to moore for the night, so we cruised on into Privost
Harbor on the NW side of Stuart Island and set up “camp” for the night. It was an awesome day, witnessing one of my favourite creatures in their natural habitat and being soo lucky that they chose to change path and appear right next to the boat I was on. Days like this make me realise how lucky I am to be here.

Wednesday 29^th August

Whales again today! We witnessed parts of the superpod coming across Haro Strait around lunchtime. We dumped the hydrophone in the water as we paralleled them but no audible sounds could be recorded. We couldn’t follow them for long as we had to make our way back up to Roche
Harbor to meet the land group. To clarify, the Beam Reach group has been split in two, five students in each group, as we can’t all fit on the Gato Verde. Val Veirs is our group instructor and Jason Wood is the other group’s instructor. So it was good to catch up with them as we bonded pretty well in the first week. Scott Veirs is the founder/creator of Beam Reach and he came aboard tonight and will be spending the next week onboard. It was bloody great to finally meet him as we have exchanged many an email. We anchored at British Camp in Garrison Bay that night after spending the evening with the land group and going to a public lecture at the Whale Museum presented by Dr. Marcia Holt. I found the presentation very interesting and it gave me ideas for my proposal. Speaking of proposals, our draft was due today and I gotta say I know I did a shocking job. Being on the boat is very distracting, our resources are limited, and I haven’t been in a science frame of mind for over 8 months. I know what I want to say in the proposal but couldn’t get it all out in the time we had. My final research proposal will be a million times better as I know what I have to do because I’ve written research proposals before. I’ve also been thinking about my methods and I gotta say I’m pretty pumped because what I want to look at has only been looked at once before and apparently it was done poorly. So I’m excited to be looking at individual boat noise and getting some good data.

Thursday 30^th August

Unfortunately no whales today but we got some good winds and so put the sails up and tacked down
Haro Strait down to the southern end of San Juan Island. I really like sailing, letting the power of the wind take you. I’m really keen to learn as much as I can while on this program. I was at the helm and we hit 8 knots! So far that’s the speed to beat. I think my Dad’s passion for sailing is coming out in me. We went through some crazy currents in Cattle Pass in the afternoon (body of water between
San Juan Island and Lopez Island) before anchoring on the northern side of the southern tip of San Juan
Island – place called Fish Creek.

Friday 31^st August

Did an experiment this morning that measured the source level of the ‘Gato Verde’ (GV) generator. Deployed hydrophone at various distances behind the GV to determine the sound propagation of the new bio-diesel generator and compare with data taken in 2005, but with the old standard diesel engine. I processed the data in Excel and Val’s Beam Reach Analyser program and saved it onto the Beam Reach ‘Black Box’ external hard drive. Gained a better understanding of using the program which will definitely aid me in analysing boat noise files and killer whale calls when I collect my own data (in terms of dB anyway, frequency analysis is the next step). Had rain today, first time since we’ve been out on the water. Headed out south of San Juan Island and back up around the west side just after lunch. Had no reports of whales today. Anchored in Snug Harbor.

Saturday 1st September

Went up to Roche Harbor to pump out. I was in charge of Science log this morning so had to give a report on the data we collected on Friday for the GV source level. Every morning we each have our chores on a rotating roster. Chores include cleaning the heads, galley, deck etc; preparing a systems log where we monitor our power and other usage onboard; preparing a navigation log where we look at the tides and decide what course and at what time we should take it. Our movements are pretty much based around what the whales are doing so we basically go where they are (if they are nearby). Often the whales will go out west (past Strait of Juan De Fuca) for days at a time so we can’t really get out that far in our vessel (nor is it feasible for the whale watch operators to go out that far). We have a pager that was given to us by the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor so we get pages everyday where whales have been spotted by spotters on the Canadian side of Haro Strait. Our instructors Scott and Val Veirs have contacts all over the place so if whales are around we will know where they are, but often it’s the case of not being to get there because it’s too far away (for our vessel anyway as I said).So we headed south again out of Roche Harbor after pumping out and picking up Mike (the other Captain that will take over Todd for the next group that boards on Sunday). We headed down south of the island as we’d had reports of J-pod just west of the tip. We got down there and there was an abundance of boats. It’s Labour Day weekend here at the moment so there are lots of recreational boats out on the water. J-pod was very spread out and it appeared as though many boaters were breaking the ‘Be Whale Wise’ Guidelines. An organisation called ‘Soundwatch’ operates out of the US here and is basically out there on the water to let boaters know about these whale wise guidelines and speak to those boaters that do break the rules. At the moment they are only guidelines but it is hoped that they will be enforceable laws within the next month or so. Unfortunately ‘Soundwatch’ blew its engine in the last couple of days and is out of action until they can somehow get it fixed or get a new one. They rely on funding and donations so it is unknown when they will be back out on the water. I had offered to volunteer with them next week but at the moment it doesn’t look like I’ll be going out if they don’t get the engine fixed. There is however a Canadian counterpart, ‘Straitwatch’ that does exactly the same thing and fortunately they were out today. We had a chat to them and explained what we were doing with our research and they type of vessel we were operating. I asked them if they could do a drive-by for us so we could measure their underwater boat noise and they happily obliged, so there is already some data there that I can analyse for my research paper. The whales had changed direction by time we finished with Straitwatch and were heading north up the west side of San Juan. We finally caught up with them and I just couldn’t get over the amount of boats that had parked themselves offshore to the whales and had created what looked like a passageway up the west coast. We decided to deploy the hydrophone array (4 hydrophones on a single line that drags horizontally behind the boat, specifically used for localising orca calls), and initially we got nothing but after half an hour we got some unbelievably clear sounds coming through the speakers and we could see a calf less than 80m away from the boat travelling parallel to us. The calls were so clear it sounded as if the calf was right next to the hydrophones. The hydrophone just seemed to be going crazy with all the vocalisations that were being made, and luckily we have top range software and equipment to be able to record these sounds. It really was awesome to hear the calls so clear with what sounded like almost no background noise. Another awesome thing about today was that we got to see J-1, aka ‘Ruffles’. He is a 50+ year old alpha male with a 6ft dorsal fin that has curvature and appears as though it is ‘ruffled’, like the potato chips (if you can remember them). He is very iconic and easily identified out there on the water. He often travels alone (ie. not right up against other pod members) and leads J pod. So after getting some awesome vocalisation data we putted back up to Snug Harbor, anchored and settled in for the night as Sunday is our changeover day. It’s Saturday night as I’m writing this and we have out changeover at noon tomorrow. So the boat has to be cleaned thoroughly for the next group and we have to get all our stuff organised. I’m really looking forward to getting back to land for one reason… I get to have a shower! Yep, that’s right, I haven’t showered in a week. It is sort of discouraged while aboard the GV because at Beam Reach the word ‘sustainability’ is practiced and so by us having showers we are using up water and when out on a vessel, freshwater is a vital resource. I actually don’t think I smell bad (thanks to BO basher), although I certainly don’t feel clean so definitely looking forward to a shower tomorrow. Also, being a sustainability school we are also discouraged to eat anything with a ‘face’, so yep, I’ve been a vegetarian for the last week. To be honest it hasn’t really phased me because I know next week when I’m back at the labs and at the dining hall I can have meat. I’m really craving a thick juicy steak though and I think the only way I’m gonna get it is if I cook it myself on land next week. So that’s definitely on the cards! Honestly though, not a fan of tofu at all. It’s just too bland. The meat substitutes however haven’t been that bad. Don’t get me wrong they’re not the same as meat but if you closed you’re eyes and thought really hard that you were eating meat you could probably convince yourself. Anyway, it’s late and I’m on breakfast in the morn. Catcha.

Sunday 2^nd September

So back to land today after a week at sea. We did the changeover in Snug Harbor. Was good to see the other group, and so we exchanged details on various processes on the boat. They will learn it all this week but by us telling them some of the things needed to be done every day we made it a little easier for the new captain Mike. The other group had almost double the amount of food we did so I think the shopping for next week, of which I am quartermaster, will be minimal. Woohoo! So we had a methods/statistics lecture on the GV after lunch then left the other group to learn the ways of the GV. Being back on land the first thing we all wanted to do was have a shower. So pretty much as soon as we got back to the labs and unpacked it was getting clean time, and believe me, it was a bloody great shower!

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Beam Reach begins – Week 1

G’Day. I’m Tim from Australia and this is the first blog entry I’ll be making for the Fall 2007 Beam Reach Program. I plan on posting one a week but of course it all depends on time and how busy this program gets. So, in saying that, here’s how the first week went down.

I arrived at the Friday Harbor Laboratories, Friday Harbor WA on Sunday August 19^th at around 6:30pm. I met a couple of other students on the ferry across from Anacortes so we went and grabbed dinner as we had missed dinner at the Dining Hall. Got to the labs a couple of hours later and made our way up to the dorms. Met some more Beam Reach students and settled into my room. I got a room to myself as I was going to be the only guy student on the program for the next 10 weeks. I don’t know what it is with women and marine science, particularly marine mammal science, but it clearly seems to be dominated by the female gender, in the
US I’ve found anyway, as this was the case when I studied at UMiami in Spring 2006.

So Monday morning we had breakfast together then headed off to class. Met Jason Wood and Val Veirs and we all gave little introductory spiels about ourselves. We all have different backgrounds, as can be expected, and it was interesting to hear what people have done/are doing with their university degrees. I’m one of two international students. The other is also a chick from Australia, Ash, from
Adelaide funnily enough, and also from my home uni. We get along great guns as we can really relate to each other being so far away from home and in a slightly different culture. I’ve been helping her with the subtleties of the American culture as I have spent 6 months living in the
US back 2006. So mid morning Mon we headed across to Lime Kiln State Park, a popular land whale-watching place on the west side of San Juan Island and got time to ourselves to think about what we wanted to do on this program and what area of study we wanted to focus on. I want to do something with boat noise and killer whale acoustics but have not yet decided specifically. Unfortunately no orcas in the area or on the OrcaSound (go to Orcasound.net to hear live streaming) hydrophone, guess I’ll have to wait for the boat.

The next few days consisted of Beam Reach Program introduction, basic acoustics tutorials, and finalising the area of study to write our draft proposals. On the Wednesday night we went into
Friday Harbor to the Whale Museum and listened to a presentation on Southern Resident killer whale communication and the changes that have been observed in the last 25 years. It was very interesting, even more so the fact that it was done by a senior undergraduate student. We were also allocated our groups for the boats this evening.Friday saw the swim test. Many of the crew had been dreading this but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong the water was bloody cold but the sun was out so once you got out of the water you were fine. Jumping off the dock was a good laugh and many a photo was taken. Just before the swim test we did a small experiment that used a hydrophone to measure sound propagated from underwater speaker at varying distances. It basically helped us to understand the sound propagates in a spherical manner underwater. In the afternoon we planned the food for our voyage out at sea, and then a few of us decided to row into town to meet the others to go shopping. I just love the fact that we can row into town and it’s actually quicker than walking.

Saturday was our day off and most of us slept in and missed 8am breakfast so basically the rest of the day was spent doing our proposals and getting ready for the boat the next day as some of us had to move rooms. Luckily I didn’t have to move anything as my room was one of the ones we were keeping. Mind you, I don’t have much stuff to move but the same can’t be said for other people in the group. They know who they are, and I’ve been giving them heaps all week!

Sunday we loaded all the gear, food and personal stuff we needed for our week on the boat onto the dock and awaited the arrival of the ‘Gato Verde’ catamaran. Todd (captain) and Shannon (other BR instructor) arrived just before lunch so we all had a perusal of the vessel we would all be calling home over the next 9 weeks. So we had lunch, loaded all the gear up, I shotgun my little hidey hole at the forward starboard, we said our goodbyes to the land group, and off we sailed, well motored as there was no wind, to our place of mooring for the first night.

So as I write this at the end of the first week at Beam Reach I’m sitting out on the ‘Gato Verde’ cabin area where we are moored at the southern end of Jones Island (NE of San Juan Island). I can see the moon in the sky peaking through the clouds over San Juan Island and it’s glistening on the ripples of the water. I can hear the waves lightly breaking on the rocks nearby and the sounds of crickets on the island. Yep, doesn’t get much better than this. ‘Tis gonna be a good week I feel.

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blogging . . . briefly

OK, so time to try blogging for class. This should be interesting. Here goes.

I think my Beam Reach experience so far can be summed up in one word: exhausting. In Week One, it seemed like we had all-day-long classes, followed up by nights spent in the computer lab reading articles and searching for papers. Week Two on the boat was pretty much work from 7am until whenever I finished what I needed to get done (about 10:30). Add that to the work needed to keep my head upright, and I’m pretty beat.

I think the thing that gets me the most is that we’re never *off-hours*. From when we get up until when we go to bed, we’re working without a break. Sure, I can take a breather to go for a run or read a (non-whale-related) book, but it still seems like I’m on duty all the time. Even when the two groups get together, we’re either attending a lecture or loading stuff on and off the boat. No time to unwind and hang out. I can handle sleep deprivation (no matter what NPR says), but I need my down-time. No offense meant to anyone giving those lectures, but I wouldn’t mind a meal with team JaMi without time constraints. Just a thought.

Anyway. Today shall be spent . . . working! I need to find Ford’s call catalog (I’ve got a sinking feeling that I left it on board the Gato Verde) and classify the calls we used in our report of the “Close Encounter”. Then I need to figure out this whole formant thing. Jason explained it briefly, and I can kind of see what he’s talking about, but I’d love to understand how that applies to all the little red dots I see when I open up Praat. And I pronounce it “Praht” instead of “Prat” in my head because, really, what else can anyone honestly see when they see a doube “a”?

I think the room still rocks slightly. Todd says I may have vertigo issues, which I’ve never had before. Now I’m worried that the rocking only comes from my worries that the room is still rocking. I think I need to get back on the boat where the floor actually DOES move so I can stop wondering if it is.

I suppose I should sum up everything that’s happened, but I think Alex did a better job of summing things up than I can (too tired to remember the sequence of things). But I’ll try to keep up with this in the future so my blogs can be more of a journal and less of a rant about how much I want to just sit and hang out (or practice my option shots).

OK, I actually need to do homework now. To the library!!

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Superpod

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Today, we got an early start and raised the anchor before 8 a.m. Motoring down the west coast of San Juan Island, we spotted Ruffles with two females. This was a rare opportunity as the Gato Verde was the only boat in the vicinity, so we got to enjoy the killer whales on our own. Unfortunately, once we deployed the hydrophone array, we realized that the three killer whales were silent and not vocalizing. The orcas headed southwest and we followed in the same direction, trailing the hydrophone. We met up with the rest of J pod, as well as members of K and L pod in between Vancouver island and San Juan Island. Kenna took ID photos, while Wessal, Elise, and Heather gathered data on calls, time, latitude, longitude, bearing, and behaviors. We observed spyhopping, tail slapping, and breaching. We headed back to Roche Harbor to enjoy stuffed mushrooms and corn for dinner.

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Mating Seals

This note from Tim was published in the email notices sent out by Orca Network.

Hi Susan,

My name is Tim Hunt and I’m an Australian student on the Beam Reach
program studying killer whale acoustics and behaviour with Scott and Val
Veirs. We came across something a couple of days ago that apparently, is
rarely witnessed in the waters around the San Juan Islands.

At mid-morning on Tuesday 28th August we were travelling south out of
Roche Harbor aboard the Gato Verde catamaran when we noticed off the
starboard bow what we thought was a dead harbor seal floating in the
water. We turned the boat around and upon approaching the seal it did not
move, we got closer and I noticed it was in fact two seals, one laying on
top of the other. Still no movement as we pulled up right alongside the
seals but then they both opened their black beady eyes and just turned
their heads and looked at us as if to say “Do you mind?”. Still holding on
to each other tightly they slowly sank beneath the surface of the water
and down out of our sight.

Now we’ve been informed by our onboard PhD seal expert that most pinnipeds
are land breeders and the harbor seal is one of only a few species that
are aquatic breeders. The seal on top appeared too large to be a juvenile
as both of them were relatively the same size, and pups are weaned at
about one month anyway. So attached is a photo and we thought people might
like to view a rare sight of harbor seals in “action”. Enjoy!

Cheers, Tim Hunt on behalf of the Beam Reach
team

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Bowriding porpoises and killer whales spyhopping

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

After breakfast at Snug, the Gato Verde sailed south along San Juan Island. We heard rumors on the radio that J pod was offshore, so we headed towards Victoria. We found a tight formation of killer whales and deployed the hydrophone array. There was lots of spyhopping, as well as occasional breaches and tail slaps. We followed the group of orcas back towards shore and caught up with them again near Lime Kiln. Their formation had broken up slightly and the killer whales were more spread out. We continued south to False Bay, taking a number of different recording of killer whale vocalizations, before turning around to head back to Snug Harbor where we would meet up to head for a talk at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. On our way back up north along the coast, Elise spotted a small pod of Dall’s porpoises and we all watched from the bow as a number of individuals took advantage of the Gato Verde for some bowriding pleasure.

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