Beam Reach

Dinghy Sailing!

April 11, 2009

On this beautiful day, the Beam Pod was taught how to sail in dinghy’s!  One of the dinghy’s was owned by Mr. Val Veirs and it was a nice and new one.  Then the other one was owned by Mr. Jason Wood and his was older and had a classic look.  The afternoon first started off with Val explaining each part of the dinghy, there is the center board, the rudder, the jib, and the sail.  The center board keeps the boat balanced and makes it harder for the dinghy to tip over.  The rudder is at the edge of the boat and it steers the boat in the direction you want it to.  Then the jib hold the sail in front of the dinghy and the sail is self explanatory.  It was very interesting getting into each boat and trying not to fall in before our plunge this week.  I went into Val’s dinghy first and i almost fell in because i was not in the center.  Then Matt got in just fine and then trying to sail the dinghy to the next dock was very difficult.  None of the parts were in the dinghy and i found out that i suck at paddling.  So once matt got us to the dock, Val showed us how to put the sail together and how to sail.  I was first in charge of the rudder and the two terms were tac and jibe.  Tac means to turn into the wind and jibe is to turn away from the wind.  Val said when we are ready to tac scream “Ready to tac” so the rest of the crew can duck!  Then we returned to the dock and Matt came in with Hilary and I.  We all had a great time sailing in Val’s dinghy and i do have to say that Matt is a crazy driver enjoying all the fast turns!

Then things started to change once Hilary and I went into Jason’s dinghy.  First of all, when i entered it almost tipped over and i let some water in!  Once we were situated everything went bad because Jason’s rudder is more sensitive the Val’s and you need to turn it very slightly.  When i was steering Jason’s dinghy it was going all over the place.  We had to stop and paddle because we were going to run into the rocks, but once we got it going it was pretty cool.  After i awhile i got nervous and was scared that we were going to break it, so i got out.  Then Hilary went out by herself and Jason’s dinghy seems more of a one person then a two.  It was a good experience and i hope to ride in Val’s dinghy again and not Jason’s lol.  Sorry Jason but yours is to scary for me, but i had fun!

Sailing is so much fun and i cannot wait until the Beam Squad goes on the Gato Verde!  

We Are All in This Together,

Peter

A Fun Day of Cleaning

A big part of Beam Reach is learning about sustainabilty.  We are learning so much from the resources San Juan Island provides us that it is nice to give back a little.  That was the goal on Tuesday April 7th at the Lime Kiln Lighthouse.  The Whale Museum, located in Friday Harbor, uses the lighthouse to gather data about killer whales and as an outpost to inform the public.   They are able to learn about the killer whales by submerging a hydrophone and listening for whales calls and any other noises under the water’s surface.

Trying to figure out how to reconstruct a desk.

If you would like to learn more about the Whale Museum, you can follow this link: www.whalemuseum.org

Sonar in Haro Strait

With transient killer whales sighted in the vicinity yesterday and the whereabouts of the endangered southern residents unknown, we were surprised and concerned to hear active mid-frequency sonar and distorted underwater voices this evening in Haro Strait.  Thankfully, the broken hydrophone at Lime Kiln State Park had been repaired just hours earlier by Beam Reach students and staff conducting a service project at The Whale Museum‘s acoustic laboratory that is housed within the light house.  Eventually, Jeanne Hyde heard from the Coast Guard that we were likely listening to a U.S. Navy submarine.  (4/9 update from Christopher Dunagan: the Navy confirms it was the USS San Francisco, a LA-class fast attack submarine which ran into a seamount near Guam in 2006.  Since there was clearly damage to the sonar dome and it was replaced with the nose of decommissioned sub, I speculate that it was a higher priority of the Navy to test the sonar while still close to the ship yard than it was to go beyond the call of Naval duty to protect marine mammals.)

An example spectrogram of the voice and a sonar ping

At 18:55 PST, Jeanne first reported someone “talking” into the Lime Kiln hydrophone of the Salish Sea Hydrophone Network.  At 19:10, I started recording the Lime Kiln stream, capturing about 6 sequences of 5-10 distorted human words over about 11 minutes.  The sequences seem to come every 1-3 minutes and begin with the same first few words and then vary in content and length.  Most words had most of their power at 1.5-3.5kHz.  About a minute and 15 seconds after the preceding word sequence, there was a 1.7-second tonal sonar ping at 2.9 kHz.  At right is a screen grab from Audacity that shows the ping and the preceding word sequence.  Here is a concatenation of the sequences and the ping: 090407_1910clips-lk_voice-sonar

Listening to both west side streams at around 19:15 it seemed that the voice and pings were louder at Lime Kiln, though they could be heard after a few second delay at the Orcasound hydrophone.  By 21:00 it seemed the signals were louder at Orcasound than at Lime Kiln.  This suggests that the Navy submarine was moving northward up Haro Strait.  Since we have only a single hydrophone at each node and node-to-node timing isn’t synchronized in the streams, it’s not possible to verify the direction of travel using arrival time differences.

2 pings of a 3.75 kHz sonar

At 21:02 I made another recording from the Lime Kiln stream that contains two of the word sequences.   Then I switched to recording the Orcasound stream.  The voice was clearly audible for the next half hour and there were a few sonar pings interspersed.  By 21:34 the voice was pretty faint and the last time it’s dectable in the sonogram (and by ear, very faintly) is around 10:05.  However, at about 21:59 the final recording caught a couple of unique pings (3.7-3.8kHz, 0.8 second) and their echoes ( 090407_2150_os_375khz-sonar ).  The two pings were spaced 16 seconds apart and had a noticable echo at 3.67 seconds, equivalent to about 5.5 km.  Assuming the echo was off the eastern wall of Haro Strait bathymetry (about 6km from Orcasound), the two-way travel time suggests the submarine was probably pretty close to the San Juan Island side of Haro Strait.

Longer, unedited recordings are available at http://orcasound.net — including:

• Lime Kiln stream recordings (scroll down to date in Flash player)
• Orcasound stream recordings (scroll down to date in Flash player)
• Lime Kiln automated recordings
• Orcasound automated recordings (sonar pings)
• John Boyd’s compilation of sonar sounds (Quicktime movie format)
• OrcaGirl’s stream recordings (start times not apparent)

A single 3.75 kHz ping

The acoustic experience continued on past midnight.  At 00:24:30 on 4/8/09 I heard a series of beeps (back at ~2.9 kHz) and then their echoes at Orcasound.  At 00:30-00:32 I again recorded the voice along with tones and their echoes on the Lime Kiln stream.  Around 00:40-00:45 I heard and recorded what sounded like a conversation, rather than the separated single words of the previous sequences.  At 00:48:30 there was a very loud ping (close to Lime Kiln?) and either an echo or a ping from a separate, more distance location.  This was followed by many repeated word sequences.    At 01:00 things got quiet, but then at 01:11:00 there was suddently another impressive single ping (sound clip: 090408_0038_lk_single-375khz-ping ).  At 01:13, the slow voice started repeating sequences again.  Another single ping came at ~01:22 as two cargo ships came abeam of Lime Kiln and increased the ambient noise levels.  Another at 1:31:00 with a nice echo was followed by more conversing at 01:36.  Then there was an extended sequence of sonar tones and verbal interjections that grew progressively fainter and then stopped ~01:45.   Around 01:50 things picked up again with more conversation and then — most interestingly — what sounded like an exchange of longer tones, possibly between two sources, one near Lime Kiln and one substantially further away.  After about 5 minutes of silence, there were two more loud pings with echoes at 02:00:45.

Recordings made for much of the following hour, but I think I missed two loud pings at ~02:53:00.  More pings heard at: 03:11…

Fisheries and Acoustics at Penn State

After several years of “regrouping” (a.k.a. child-rearing) I will finally take the next step toward my academic goal this coming fall.  I’m entering the Master’s program in Wildlife and Fisheries Science at Penn State.  Thanks to ongoing encouragement from Jason, Scott, Val, and Celia (of course!), and a lucky posting on MARMAM last spring, I found my advisor, Dr. Jennifer Miksis-Olds, who works jointly with the Graduate Program in Acoustics and the Wildlife and Fisheries department at Penn State.  I will be supported through the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State and am excited to be the first master’s student in Wildlife and Fisheries to receive ARL support (thanks to my acoustics background via BR).  I hope to set a good example for that partnership, and also to raise interest in Beam Reach at Penn State.

My research project will use acoustics to study sport fish populations in local Pennsylvania lakes following habitat restoration.  Current study practices utilize “electro-fishing” techniques and will provide a comparison.  Acoustics should allow a less intrusive and more sustainable approach to fisheries management.  How does that relate to Southern Residents?  I plan use the acoustic and fisheries experience I gain from this project to investigate salmon populations in the Salish Sea.  Examining the salmon populations was actually one of my 20 questions on day one in ’05…  imagine that!  🙂

Best wishes to the new Beam Reach spring class of 2009! 

(Hang on to those questions)

Beam Reach transits Port Townsend to home

After a fantastic overview of recent research and very current concerns expressed by the commercial whale-watcher industry, Scott and I parted company with the brand new Beam Reach students and their lead instructor, Jason. They took a very rocky ferry ride from Port Townsend across to Whidbey Island. We watched the little white ferry bobbing in the midst of a sea of angry whitecaps and waves.

A few hours later, Scott and I started north on Cat’s Cradle, our 32′ catamaran. With sails reefed and motor running fast and smooth we fought away from Port Townsend with 30 kt winds, 3-6′ waves and an adverse tide. The boat did well and we braved white knuckles and arrived 16 miles north on Lopez Island about an hour after dark. The last miles were done carefully with radar and GPS.

Beam Reach 2009 – Spring Program – BEGINS!

The Transboundary Naturalists workshop

Standing room only

On Monday and Tuesday this week we attended the Transboundary Naturalists workshop.  While we made our way from Seattle’s Aquarium out to Port Townsend in some very densely packed vehicles, Val and Jason sailed down on Val’s boat from the San Juan Islands.  Captain Todd drove down to Bellingham and we all got to listen to the latest findings in killer whales science, as well as updates on new regulations and enforcement.

The pace of lectures and networking opportunities was intense and the final agenda (PDF) read like a who’s-who of southern resident killer whale experts.  We were able to meet and ask questions of some of the old guard, like Ken Balcomb and John Ford, as well as a bunch of talented youg researchers.  At meals and a Monday night reception, we met many of the naturalists who work aboard whale watch vessels, as well as the vessels’ drivers and owners.  With luck, all these contacts will prove useful — either during proposal development in the next few weeks on land, or at sea when we will need help locating the whales and cooperation while studying them.

April fools with snow!!!!

We are off to a great start of classes for the quarter after a harowing ferry crossing to the islands.  This morning we even had snow!  We can’t wait for the cold plunge in 3 weeks when we get to feel how cold things can be here.