Beam Reach

The spring class embarks!

FHL to Jones Island

OK, we didn’t discover giant squid, but the students did get a chance at the helm of the Gato Verde.  The students were very efficient in moving all of the gear and food out of S1 and onto the Gato Verde so that we made a good start from FHL.  We even got a chance to see Anne Harmon one of our students from 2007 on the dock at FHL.  She is now working for Kwiaht, the Center for Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea.  The journey was a smooth one under partly cloudy skies.  Transited under electric power and tied up easily to the mooring bouy on the south end of Jones.

Fish hydrophones in the San Juans

Today Val and Scott re-deployed a Vemco VR2 fish tag receiver at Lime Kiln State Park. This receiver, provided for this pilot study to Beam Reach by Fred Goetz, will help marine scientists understand how juvenile and adult salmon use the San Juans, in addition to any other passing fish that have been “tagged” (surgically-implanted) with 69 kHz acoustic tags. We at Beam Reach are most interested in the behavior and distribution of adult Chinook salmon, and secondarily any other potential prey of the endangered southern resident killer whales.

The photos above show the mooring prior to being snorkeled down to the pier block that remained from the previous deployment (last November).

Two other VR2s have been provided by Kurt Fresh of NOAA.  (Their serial numbers are: 100910; 100913.)  One will be deployed on the west side of San Juan Island; the other will be placed near Cattle Pass.   We’ve mounted them on short (~2.25m) mooring lines (1.25cm diameter 3-strand poly), supported by single yellow shrimp pot floats (see below).  The base of the receivers will be ~0.75-1m above the bottom.  The floats will be ~1m above the top of the receivers.  The mooring weights are either ~25kg concrete slabs (35cm x 35 cm x 15 cm; see below) or paint buckets filled with cement.  Both types of weights have metal hoops or chain for attaching the mooring line and for lowering during deployments from a boat.

Data and analysis from these deployments will be documented in the Beam Reach science wiki