Beam Reach

Back on the Boat

Monday, October 8, 2007

 

We woke up at Roche—Anne and Alex prepared scrambled eggs with real New York bagels sent over by Alex’s mother.  Ash was leader-of-the-day and got the ball rolling, giving us a quick navigation and systems overview.  There were many reports of whales along the west coast of San Juan island, so after breakfast and a few logistical phone calls regarding boat parts, we motored out.  The main sail was taped back together underway, as we continued to listen for updates on whale whereabouts.  The whales were south of Eagle Point.  So, we grabbed lunch on the fly (more NY bagels, ramen, hard boiled eggs) as we approached J1—that guy, the San Juan celebrity.  We caught up with members of J and L pods and deployed both the high frequency hydrophone and the hydrophone array.  After a little troubleshooting with the deployments, we heard a cornucopia of clicks, a cacophony of calls, and a (small) wealth of whistles.  Alex took surveys for SoundWatch, and then Tim recorded drive-by vessel noise with Explorathor.  By this point, the whales had moved west.  We still had to sew our main sail and the winds were predicted to pick up tonight (25-35 knots), so we motored north to Garrison, to meet up with Jason to exchange data backed up the Gato Verde hard drive for a fan belt.  We dropped anchor off British camp and settled in to sew and study our data collected from the afternoon.

3 generations vocalizing

I can’t believe I have been here this long and i haven’t blogged! Well, this last week was almost a dud. We were afraid we were never going to find the whales because this is the end of the season and the whale pager has stopped as of the 1st of October. But luckily the whale watching community is tight and we encountered L-pod on friday and got some excellent data of 3-generations vocalizing. We followed the grandma, mother and newborn calf for most of the afternoon and got some great acoustic and behavioral data. Mostly though this week will stand out in my head as the week of bow-riding Dahls porpoises. At one point there was a group of about 10 of them playing around our boat. (Of course this is right before we ripped the sail…..oops!) We had some major wind gusts and got some good sailing practice in after we hung out with the whales for a few. All in all I think we salvaged the week pretty well. Time for a shower and laundry!

L-pod encounter

Friday, October 5, 2007

Left Aleck Bay this morning and heard via VHF that L-pod might be inbound in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Headed up west side and encountered L-pod between Salmon Bank and South Beach at around 11:00. By 1:30 they could be heard on the Lime Kiln hydrophone. Stayed with them while towing our hydrophone array today and got 4Gb of data that should help us figure out the call sequences between a group of females spanning three generations. They were headed north in Swanson Channel (NW corner of San Juan Islands) around 1800PST on 10/5.

Searching the home range

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Searched the southwest side of the San Juan Archipelago from Garrison Bay on San Juan Island to Aleck Bay on Lopez Island…

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

We emerged from Prevost Habor after enjoying a quiet night on the dock and the chance to stretch our legs.  We listened with Lon’s single hydrophone while we drifted in Boundary Pass on the flood tide.  After an intercalibration of the array with the Interocean Systems hydrophone, we sailed southward at various speeds using a protractor to understand how the angle of the weighted line changes as function of boat speed.  After pulling the hydrophone the wind picked up.  An exciting moment occurred when attempting to furl the screecher.  It wrapped near the top, but a substantial patch of sail ballooned out and halted the roller furler.  There was a classic rattling of sail as the entire team worked to lower the sail to the deck and control it.  Finally, we had it lashed securely in the nets and headed for Roche.  There we pumped out, dropped Scott off, and the completed our transit to Garrison Bay and our Wednesday evening rendevous with the land group.  Mike Vouri capped the day with a presentation on the history of the San Juan Islands.

Dall’s, Minke’s, and a one orca day – Week 6 (at sea)

Monday 24^th September

Today was a bloody cold day! First real cold day out at sea and I guess a taste of the week to come. It’s the end of September so it’s only going to get colder. No whales today unfortunately, but it was a productive with hydrophone calibration and then subsequent data analysis. I created a calibration curve for the high frequency hydrophone so it will be easier to interpret my sound data in the software program I am using for my project, and possibly subsequent students for future programs. Marla has brought her expensive NOAA hydrophone equipment aboard so it was interesting to see how the “professionals” do it. As there were no whales we were up in north Haro Strait and I got some cargo ship and ferry recordings. We positioned ourselves, well Todd did, and did it perfectly so that the ferry would pass us by and get around 400m from us at the closest point (which is what I need). I knew the ferry time as it’s the same one Ash and I caught over to Sidney a few days ago. As we were north of San Juan we went into Reid Harbor, the dock was free so instead of anchoring we just tied up there for the night. I’m going to go for a walk with Shannon in the morn as any opportunity I get to exercise on this boat I’m going to take it!

Tuesday 25^th September

Again, no whales today! I’m guessing it may be a similar pattern to our last week at sea, as we had not had whales for the first three days, but then got them the last three. Fingers crossed! Shannon and I went for an early morning walk on Stuart Island, we headed back out into Haro Strait after breakky (aka breakfast) and did some sound propagation calibration with all the hydrophones. Val and I went out on the dinghy, aka ‘Gatito’ which means ‘small cat’, with the underwater speaker and played killer whale calls and fake echolocation clicks at various distances from the GV that had a number of hydrophones deployed (the array, the high frequency, the blue box, and Marla’s array). We did this as a sound propagation exercise as it’s important for our projects and helpful when analysing our data. Val and I then did some drive-bys of the high frequency hydrophone to record data for my project. I thank Anne very much for taking control of the high frequency recorder and getting the data for me while I was out on the water with the wind in my hair. It took a few tries to get the ranges right but we got it in the end. After looking at the data I was annoyed to find that the hydrophone was playing up and almost all of the dinghy recordings were all distorted, so Anne and I did a bit of troubleshooting after lunch and worked out the problem. We created, with the help of Todd, an outrigger to keep the hydrophone away from the edge of the boat and attached it to a weighted rope. It recorded perfectly after that! Val and Sam then went back out on the dinghy and I got some more drive-by recordings. I think Val just loves going at high speeds! It was getting late so we pulled in the gear and headed across to Prevost Harbor (Stuart Island), exactly opposite where we docked the night before. Saw a Northern Elephant Seal on the way into Prevost, well it’s head anyway. Those things sure are ugly! Was on dinner with Anne tonight, and we cooked up a storm, ‘twas a hit all round! Still not a fan of tofu but I can cook it at least! Wednesday 26^th September

No whales again today! Grr! We had reports of a superpod mid-morning resting south of Vancouver Island, which was just too far away from us, plus we had to be back on land to meet the other group mid afternoon, so Todd gave us some sailing classes/revision. I’m all about the sailing classes as it does interest me and I hope to own my own sail boat one day. We had to be back at Snug to drop off Marla and her gear off at 3ish so we did that and then was picked up by Jason at 3:30, with rugby ball in hand! As you know it’s the World Cup right now so I’m trying to keep up to date as best I can but it’s bloody hard when out on the boat and limited or no internet access. Lack of sporting activity has really got to me on this program so having that rugby ball to throw around (even if I was just throwing it to myself) was great. We headed back to the labs as there was a much needed logistics and data collection meeting with the JaMi group. After that was all said and done the VaTo group grabbed a much needed shower and headed to a special dinner put on by the Friday Harbor Labs to introduce all the staff and researchers studying here for the fall quarter. Some really interesting research is being done here (lots of intertidal stuff, worms, crabs and lots of microscope related studies) that I was unaware of, but we are the only group doing killer whale research. After the talks we had to leave the labs, farewell the JaMi group again, and head back to Snug and back to the Gato Verde. When we were waiting at Snug we witnessed a harbor seal mother and it’s pup foraging for fish in the shallows under the dock light. The pup would stick it’s head out of the water and just stare at us. Not to get all girly girl but the pups really are cute. We watched a DVD I had sent over from home called ‘Lolita Slave To Entertainment’, which looks at the only Southern Resident killer whale surviving in captivity after 37 years in the confines of a small tank at Miami Seaquarium. I have seen Lolita at Miami Seaquarium, and there is a big push to have her retired to a bay here on San Juan Island, but it’s going to take a lot to get the owner of the Seaquarium, Arthur Hertz, to give Lolita up. She just makes him way too much money. If you get a chance you should check out the DVD. Scott came aboard tonight, he’s here for a week, so we’re now 9 strong again on the GV.

Thursday 27^th September

Well we had reports of a superpod just south of Vancouver today so because we hadn’t seen whales in 3 days and we really need data we decided it was worth the risk to head north in the hope we could cut them off if they began to head south. So after we pumped out and filled up at Roche, we headed north, then on our way motor sailing through the Spieden Channel up to Flattop Island we then got reports of some L’s down on the south side of San Juan Island. Bugger! So we had to make decision which way to go. We got on the phone and rang around to confirm the reports and both were on the money, so we made the decision to head back down south. The wind was in our favour but we had lost an hour and so it was going to be a few hours before we got back down to the west of San Juan. We saw a Minke whale on the way south! My first Minke! Obviously they’re not as agile as the killer whale but can be sometimes, just not this time. Still I saw it surface and breathe so I can say I’ve seen a Minke whale now. Anyway, I had organised with Jim Maya from Maya’s Charters to do some drive-bys later that afternoon (as he is based out of Snug Harbor where we regularly anchor) but as it turned out we didn’t catch up with the whales because they began to head further south, so we did some sailing tacking back and forth down to Lime Kiln instead. Todd tells me I “pinch” the wind a bit too much, which is something I need to work on, but I only do it because I want to get to the destination more directly and tack less. I’ll have to work on it. Jim passed us on his way back from the whales down south so I called him up on the radio as we headed north to Snug also but he only had a spare 15 min so we organised to get the recordings first thing tomorrow morning. Let’s hope I can get some good boat data tomorrow.

Friday 28^th September

Well today was a long but very fulfilling day. We got whales!!! And Dall’s porpoises riding the bow wave!!! Twice! And then to top if off I saw a Minke whale!

Ok, I’ll try and make this quick as it was a bloody long day. Leslie (Val’s wife) rang us first thing (8am) this morning saying she could hear whales on the hydrophone out the front of their house (that’s right they live on the western side of San Juan Island overlooking the water where killer whales swim by quite regularly over the summer, tough life I know). So we hauled anchor and made our way round the corner, and it literally is just around the corner from Snug. I had to ring Jim Maya and tell him that I wasn’t able to get the boat recordings as we had reports of whales and hadn’t seen them all week and we all really needed the data. He was cool about it and I said I’d give him a buzz later on. So we first got sight of the whales just north of Lime Kiln, deployed the hydrophone, and began to follow a few individuals south. The whales were travelling at a faster speed than we could go while still towing the hydrophones and getting clear recordings with minimal flow noise, so we had to increase speed, stop recordings, and then position ourselves in front of them (>100m of course and out of their path). Turned out we just weren’t fast enough and they headed south down to Hein Bank which is south-west of the southern end of San Juan Island. I realise as I write all these names of places most of you have no idea where I’m talking about. I should put a note at the top of my blog stating that this blog requires supplementary material for ease of understanding, (that supplementary material being a map of the San Juan Islands!). We spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon checking pager data and making phone calls to see exactly where they were. While all this is happening I get a phone call from Anna (from Prince of Whales in Victoria) saying that she wanted to know more details about my research and had to clarify it with the head boss before I was allowed to get boat recordings of their zodiacs and Ocean Magic. So I spent an hour or so, between recording echolocation clicks, writing an email explaining what my research was about and what I plan to show with the data I collect. That has now been sent off so I hope to hear from her soon and get the all clear to go ahead with recordings if given the opportunity. We sailed south, tacking towards Hein Bank to meet up with the whales, and this is where we had our very first experience with Dall’s porpoises riding the bow wave. It was awesome! These small cetaceans are incredibly fast and agile. They exhibit what is known as a “rooster tail” – when they surface to breath at high speeds water sprays off their dorsal fin and it looks like a rooster tail. The Dall’s didn’t stick around for long and we positioned ourselves in southern Haro Strait as the orcas had now started to head back north. We deployed the array and the high frequency vertically (as opposed to towing it behind) and waited for the whales. Unfortunately upon deployment of the high frequency hydrophone the rope attached to the end (approx. 6ft) drifted into the propeller and got stuck and ripped off (hydrophone was fine). So we had to sail from then on as Todd did not want to engage the propellers for fear the rope would wrap further around and damage the propeller. Lucky we had the winds for sailing, so we were able to keep up with the whales and actually overtook them as they headed back up the west side of San Juan. They seemed to mill south of us but we caught up with J1 (aka ‘Ruffles’) as he often leads the pod by himself quite a distance in front of the rest of the pod. It was interesting to observe a few Dall’s swimming along with J1, so we stopped, checked the starboard propeller, it was fine and clear of the rope, so we re-deployed the hydrophones. Following J1 we came across a group of researchers from Global Research and Rescue that were taking breath samples of individual orcas to analyse bacteria. Apparently they are only allowed to take one breath per orca per year. We got chatting with them on the radio and I asked if they were able to do some drive-bys for me as they were using a jet-drive engine. They were happy to as they wanted to hear what their boat sounded like underwater also. So I set up the floats attached to the man overboard pole and a portable radar reflector and positioned ourselves 100m from the floating device. I communicated with Bob (captain) on the radio and he drove by a couple of times- only problem was I could hardly hear the boat over the echolocation clicks and calls coming from nearby whales and the background cargo ship noise. Guess that says something really good about jet-drive engines! Perhaps this could be something to look into for the whale watch industry… I got Bob’s details in the hope we could re-record in an area of minimal background noise tomorrow. Hopefully I can. We kept the hydrophones deployed and continued to get calls and clicks coming through. It was getting dark but we were still getting great recordings so kept the hydrophones deployed and just floated there on the western side up near Snug Harbor. We were having dinner, next thing we knew two juveniles came right near the boat and vocalised right next to the hydrophone, it was bloody loud! Just when we thought the whales had gone a group of about 15 individuals were heading in our general direction northbound. They must have been milling/foraging further south out of our sight, but unfortunately no vocalisations as they passed. So we decided to call it a night, as it was after 7 and the sun was almost completely behind the Vancouver Island mountains. As I was packing up the gear I saw another Minke pas about 100m from the boat! No one else saw it unfortunately because it didn’t surface it again. Then as we were motoring back up into Snug, Dall’s porpoises began to ride the bow wave! I got right down on the trampoline and could almost touch them as they swam past. Such agile and graceful little creatures. We racked up 37 miles today, what a long day, but what an awesome day.

Saturday 29^th September

Well as I write this we are anchored in Garrison Bay and there are 40 knot winds outside. Yep, that’s right, 40 knots! Actually we just hit 42! Let’s go sailing…. kidding. Today was a rough day out on the water, but we got some great sailing and hit the top speed for the Beam Reach program… 9.4 knots! Wonder if the JaMi group will better that next week. We went up to Roche this morning where we pumped out, filled up, got a caffeine fix (and a meat one ;-o). We had reports of whales way down south off Victoria and so decided to brave the winds (bout 20 knots) and 3ft swell to get to them, as having one day of data (more like half a day actually) was really not enough considering we were a week at sea. We can’t control the whales though and so you must be realistic and accepting of the fact that we may not be able to get to them all the time. Turns out this week the whales were just going to be with us for that one day. Sailing down Haro Strait it began to get quite rough (well, the roughest we have had as a group), and the reports coming in from the pager were somewhat unreliable (suprise surprise). We often get really bad reports from the pager people sitting up on the hill. Sometimes they tell us whales are on land, then they send reports that sorry there weren’t any whales after all, when we never got a page from them saying there were any! I think they’re doing more than smoking cigarettes and drinking water up on that hill. Anyway, we ate lunch, quesadillas, we didn’t go down well. I’ve come to the conclusion that American cheeses are far more oily than Aussie cheeses, so I came up with the saying “oil and swell don’t go well” (genius I know). I had a piece of bread though and I was fine. So we made the group decision to head back, as some of us weren’t feeling that crash hot and the weather forecast was winds picking up 30-35 knots so Todd wanted to be well anchored and settled in by 5pm. So we tacked back up north along the west side of San Juan and that’s where we hit 9.4 knots. Had more Dall’s riding the bow wave, and this time they stuck around for a couple of minutes. Got some great video footage. It was too rough to get boat recordings so I didn’t end up contacting Bob from Global Research and Rescue, nor Jim Maya. We tacked our way back up to Henry Island, each having a turn at the helm. Next time we’re out at sea a lot more will be expected of us in terms of navigating the vessel, which I’m looking forward to. The only way to learn how is to be given more responsibility and I feel I’m up for it. We anchored in Garrison Bay at around 3:30pm and then Anne and I went for a dinghy lesson. I want to get more boat experience so the opportunity presented itself and I took it. Todd, Anne and I got decked out in out waterproof gear (I was yet to christen mine) and away we went just hooning around the bay doing figure of eights and sharp turns to get a feel of how the dinghy handles. Then came “parking” the boat, i.e. pulling up behind the GV. My first attempt was, for lack of a better word, perfect. I came up behind the GV, cut the engine and we coasted smoothly between the two dangling ropes that haul the dinghy in. Todd was impressed and said “Ok, let’s see if you can do that again, no pressure”. Ok, now I was feeling pressured. So I came back around behind the GV and the wind slightly changed and swung the boat slightly so I re-adjusted my path. Just as I was about to put it into neutral and cut the engine, the GV swung slighty so I re-adjusted my direction but accidently put on the throttle a bit and so we accelerated up underneath the hull of the catamaran. Yeah, I know, what an idiot! I felt soo bloody stupid. The pressure really did get to me. We were able to stop as we weren’t going very fast, so I cut the engine and we pushed ourselves back out into the open. It was a huge joke and Todd and Anne were cracking up. I felt like a right twat but at least we could laugh about it. So I came around again and parked the boat a lot better this time, we got out, laughed a bit more as we told the rest of the group of my “accident” and then settled into the cabin for the night. We got up-to-date on the data entry for our science and sustainability log, had dinner, then watched ’40 Year Old Virgin’ for a good old fashioned laugh. It’s late as I write this and I need to be up in the morning as I’m hopefully going to get boat recordings from Jim Maya, although the weather for the morning is still winds of 30 knots so I’m doubtful.

Sunday 30^th September

Well I’m back on land after what I would call a very unsuccessfully week of data collection.  We got some good sailing in but that’s not going to help us write our paper. It was too windy this morning to get boat recordings of Jim, and he is going away for 2 weeks, but fortunately he has other skippers that can operate his boat so I’ll give them a call this week to tee up something for next week. And hopefully POW gets back to me so I can tee up something up. It was pretty miserable when we woke up this morning so we headed around the corner to Roche, pumped out, filled up, and cleaned up ready for the JaMi group to come aboard. JaMi arrived at around noon, it was still drizzling rain, so we did the change over, loaded the vans, then talked and socialised and had a lecture on transportation and bio-fuels. The afternoon went quickly and it was once again time to farewell the sea group. I really hope they get more whales than we did this week, otherwise our data sets are going to be pretty small. Still, they have 2 weeks left on the boat so even if we didn’t get much data next time we’re out, we can hopefully get more from the JaMi group the following week. I will be at a disadvantage though as none of the JaMi group use the high frequency hydrophone. I feel I have enough clicks to analyse, but the boat recordings are really what I need, so hopefully next week out at sea I can get them all. It’s late, and has been a busy week. Just spoke to my bro and Dad back home, although had really dodgy internet connection. I guess it’s because we now have 10 more people staying in the dorms and so the bandwidth gets used up. They informed me that Melbourne Storm won the NRL (Rugby League) Grand Final! Woohoo! (That’s the team I go for). Well I’m all showered up and clean ready for a good night’s sleep. 3 weeks at sea down, 1 to go. Bugger! Oh how time flies when you’re writing a scientific paper.

Passing in the night

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

We departed MacKaye Harbor at 7:45 after receiving a call from Val who had heard J pod on the OrcaSound hydrophone at 7:00. He mentioned that Ken Balcomb had also heard them at 9:00 pm last night at Lime Kiln (only 2 hours after we dropped anchor!). As the calls grew fainter at OrcaSound and weren’t heard further south at Lime Kiln, Val thought they were headed north, though he couldn’t see them. We motored and sailed up the west side of San Juan Island, stopping to listen intermittently. Half way up Haro, we coordinated with the Western Prince whale watching vessel to search for the southern residents. The orcas apparently continued traveling to the north while we stopped to drop Shannon off for her break and sighted a lone Stellar sea lion. We continued north, sailing fast; Mike hit 9.6 knots and then Wessal topped 10! After rounding Turn Point, we tucked into Prevost Harbor for the night, tying up to the dock and taking the opportunity to run, walk, and stroll on land.

Reading, writing, and ‘Oh Canada’ – Week 5

Monday 17^th September to Wednesday 19th September

Well its mid week of Week 5 back on land, and it’s been hectic to say the least. When I say hectic I mean we have had reports to do, papers to read, and final proposals to write. Monday morning we went to Lacrover Farm again and did some manual labour, pulling up of pea plants to be exact, but we got to feed the four pigs they have which had grown quite substantially since a fortnight ago, so that was cool. I really do plan on posting pics up on the Beam Reach gallery of my trip so far, but have just been too busy to sit down and wait for them to upload, but I promise I will get on that. So I had hoped to go out with Giles on Mon arvo but no whales were reported. Same thing happened on Tuesday and today (Wednesday), no whales. I felt bad for the other group as they have now had 3 days with an orca sighting, and therefore no data collection. Thankfully though that is an advantage of my project where I’m not relying completely on the presence of whales, all I need is boats, and there are plenty of those around. So I’m writing this as a break from my proposal that is due tomorrow. We have had a few little exercises/reports so far this week, as well as readings for journal club so as I said it’s been a little bit hectic. Had another Whale Museum lecture this week, Giles (Debbie) spoke about her PhD work, but as I had already been out with her I kinda already knew what she was working on. Still, it’s fascinating work and very thorough. So my proposal is due tomorrow so I better get back to the finishing touches. Off to Victoria Canada tomorrow arvo as well! We get 2 days off every fortnight so Ash and I decided we would go to Victoria as she had never been, and I really like it, plus I want to utilise the opportunity to speak to some whale watch operators about doing some drive-bys for me next week when I’m at sea. Well better get back to my proposal.

Thursday 20^th September to Sunday 23^rd September

I’m writing this on the boat on Sunday night after spending 2 days in
Victoria, Canada. So here’s how the last few days went down…

Thursday arvo I handed my proposal into Val after having a chat with him about it. I’m pretty happy with it because I know it’s feasible, and I know what I have to do. It definitely needs some fine tuning but it’s well within the scope of the program, and somewhat original. I mean it changes now anyway as it no longer becomes a proposal, but an actual report. Anyway, it’s in now so will get feedback on it early next week no doubt. So Thurs arvo Ash and I caught the Washington State Ferry across to
Sidney, British Columbia, for a total of $6. Bargain! We met a couple on board that we chatted to and they had just been on a whale watching tour earlier that day with a local San Juan operator, Jim Maya, who we have met, and Jim said he would be more than happy to do some drive-bys for me to get some recordings. The couple were asking us about our research and about the killer whales in general, and it was really good to be able to spread our knowledge to members of the general public. So we got into Sidney just after 5pm, then caught a public bus to
Victoria. I had done this trip a few times before when I stayed in Victoria and was going to
Sidney to speak to the whale watch operators, so knew where we had to get off and how long it would take. Ash and I grabbed dinner and a few drinks and headed out to check out the Victorian night life. We went to a pub called Darcy’s and ended up meeting this guy who was a restaurant manager in town, he had a few connections and after Darcy’s we got into a club for free. It all closes pretty early on Thurs night in
Victoria but it was a great night and we had organised on the Fri to go grab lunch at the restaurant this guy manages. So Friday Ash and I grabbed lunch at the restaurant, with a discount from our newly made manager mate, then went down to Prince of Whales whale watching company to speak to them about possibly doing drive-bys for me next week when I’m out on the Gato Verde. Well, it went exceptionally well, much better than I had anticipated. I seriously thought I would have to go to several operators but Laila at Prince of Whales was awesome. I chose Prince of Whales because I had spoken to them 7 weeks ago when I was in
Victoria sussing out possible job opportunities for next year (I have a 12 month Canadian working visa) and they said get in touch with them when I finish this program. The woman I spoke to 7 weeks ago that works there also does acoustic research on porpoises but when I contacted her again a few days ago I was unable to get in touch with her. However, that didn’t really hinder me in anyway as Laila (head of land operations) was extremely positive and also a conservationist, so when I explained what I ultimately planned to do in my research she was more than happy to help out. So we teed up next week, Ash and I got chatting to her about all things marine mammals, and she asked if we wanted to go out on the last tour of the day, we didn’t have any plans, so agreed. Oh yeah, should also mention, it was for free! I guess when you think about it it’s pretty funny, we study whales for 10 weeks, then on our days off we go to
Canada, and go whale watching! Still, we saved $70 each which is bloody awesome, and what was even more awesome was that it was the best killer whale experience of my life! Yep, it topped the one we had on our second day out on the water. It truly was phenomenal. Here’s what happened:

We jumped into our ‘Mustang’ suits (full-bodied orange suits designed to keep u warm and act as a flotation device should we fall into the drink) and hopped aboard the Zodiac (steel hulled open inflatable boat). The driver, aka ‘Radar’, announced he had some acoustic researchers on board, and Ash and I signalled him with much professionalism as we jumped into the seats up front. Laila said these seats are the best as they are the ones where you get the real ‘Zodiac experience’. We have been travelling a maximum of 6-7 knots out on the water while aboard the ‘Gato Verde’ so we certainly felt the need for speed, and the zodiacs (very common whale watch operator vessel in these parts) certainly zip along (~25-30 knots). The ride out was awesome to say the least. It was spitting with rain so the droplets felt like little pin pricks on your face but it was all worth it with the 2ft swells and the air-time we were getting of the waves. It took about 40 min to get to where J pod and some of the L’s were, but waters were really calm and we were only one of three vessels out there (west side of San Juan Island around Eagle Pt). The ‘Gato Verde’ was out there also so I called them up on the radio and we had a chat then went over to say G’Day. It was just after 5pm by this stage so the GV had to leave to get to an anchorage before dark, and the other whale watch boat left, so we were the only one’s out there with the whales. We positioned ourselves in front of the whales and 100m from their general direction if travel and watched spyhops, breaches, lots of tail slaps, and just general playful behaviour. Next thing we knew a group of about 10 individuals somewhat spread out started heading toward our boat and before we could get out of the way they were right next to us. It was un-bloody-believable! We had a whale swim just under the surface the entire length of the boat (it was as long as the boat) just looking at us, then we had whales surface about 2m from where we were standing, their breaths seeming soo loud and their dorsal fins coming up to my eye level. It was truly spectacular. The water was like glass which just made the experience that much more beautiful. Now when whales decide to come and check you out (it rarely happens but as we were the only boat out there I guess they were curious) the best thing you can do is just let them pass and when you think it is safe, engage the ignition and slowly motor away to a safe distance. In this instance the whales were actually curious and so came right up to us as they swam past. The last thing you should do is try and get out of their way as the ignition of the engine and then the engagement of the gears actually makes quite a large “clunk” underwater, and so may startle the whales. I know this because I felt like I was deafened when I had the headphones on right where a boat engaged its gears. Furthermore, engaging propellers runs the risk of bumping into whales when they are underwater and out of driver sight. So we just floated there silently while killer whales milled around our boat and swam off. Radar (the driver) had a basic hydrophone that he deployed and the vocalisations we got were just unbelievable! Ash and I were amazed and really wish we had a recorder at that time. We were meant to be the “researchers” but we couldn’t contain our excitement and kept telling the others on board that what you are witnessing is absolutely amazing and a one in a lifetime experience. We have been out on the water for 2 weeks and pretty much all of the time the whales are little black dots in the water, so this experience is one I will forever treasure. The passengers on board (7 in total incl. us) were asking us questions all about the orcas and between us, Ash and I could answer them all. The driver kept pretty quiet, whether or not because we were on board I don’t know, but he had been doing it for 12 years so knew his stuff. Anyway, it was great practice for me as the driver could be me this same time next year. I got some great video clips but it was often hard to properly focus as it was cloudy and drizzly for parts of it. One of the highlights I think was when J42 calf and it’s mum (sex of calf unknown) came less than 5m from the boat and the calf was spyhopping and jumping around just playing like a typical child would, and mum was just hanging there in the water keeping a close eye on her playful child. J42 in it’s playful behaviour all of a sudden vocalised as it came up out of the water, and Ash and I just looked at each other in amazement then looked at Radar and he was just as surprised. It was absolutely amazing! We eventually had to leave the orcas and head back to Victoria but it was definitely a memory that will stick with me and one that I’m very appreciative to have witnessed. Some days you just get lucky.

So Ash and I headed out that night to check out more of the Victorian nightlife. It was good to get across to Victoria and head out in the evenings, as you don’t really get the opportunity inFriday
Harbor, so let’s just say we enjoyed our two nights away from the labs. Saturday we walked around Victoria, Ash did some shopping, then it was a bus back to Sidney and a ferry back to

Today, Sunday, we had the changeover from the JaMi group atRoche
Harbor. Marla Holt gave us a talk (who had spoken at the

So just before I head to bed I have to make sure that I have a towel above and below my mattress as yesterday the JaMi group had some high seas and water splashed into the vents of the forward births and so the mattresses got quite wet. Todd and I spent an hour this afternoon soaking up water in our respective births. Fun times. I plan on getting boat recordings this week so hopefully all goes well.

Transportation contemplation

It’s a silent night in Roche Harbor — a stark contrast to the tempest last night. Team JaMi is settled down to rest up for a big day on the water tomorrow. Team VaTo is clean and polished back at the labs, surely reveling in the broadband access at the Labs.

The highlight for me today was the afternoon class discussion of sustainability and the transportation sector. After I gave a brief motivational introduction, asking “How should sustainability scientists BE?,” Jason gave some statistics on the relative environmental impacts of different vehicles.

Here are some of the numbers Jason noted:

Mode of transport of freight within the U.S.:  trucks 32%, rail 28%, water 16% — (that’s 76% diesel!)

gCO2 produced per ton-km for different vehicles: boat 15, rail 22, bus 30, heavy truck 90, motorcycle 120, car 275, light duty vehicle 400.

The teams this year have done a much better job of tracking the resources we use and the waste we generate while aboard the Gato Verde.  I’m excited to read what sustainability improvements the students recommend  and to finally quantify with metrics like g CO2/ton-km how Gato Verde compares to other human transportation technologies.  With biodiesel emissions and production properly accounted for, will Gato Verde be close to the boat emmission rate or way below it?

Traveling with transients

Monday, October 1, 2007

Worked our way south through Mosquito Pass after a quiet night in Roche Harbor. Headed southwards with the flood tide, intending to return on the ebb if we didn’t encounter the whales down south. As we passed Lime Kiln mid-Haro, we started hearing VHF conversations about killer whales. We nearly circumnavigated Discovery Island E of Victoria before joining a group of about 7 transients. They proceeded northward in Haro Strait on the western side and we monitored them and the surrounding whale watch fleet with the array. We didn’t hear any calls or clicks (but weren’t listening carefully all the time). The session was recorded, however, to the tune of about 1.2 Gb of data. Just north of Kelp Reef we turned and headed towards the south end of San Juan Island. We knew the southern residents were exiting the Sound around 130pm and our calculations indicated we might meet them near Salmon Bank. It was nearly dark when we finally pulled into Mackaye Harbor. Little did we know that the orcas were likely just a few miles to the south of us at that point!