It’ s time to choose your own adventure with Beam Reach. Decide what to eat for breakfast, contemplate your research priorities, attend to the ship’s systems, and — maybe just maybe — get a chance to study wild killer whales.
Just click here or on a photo below to navigate through a day-long experience as one of the six Beam Beach students.
I know, I have already given my top marine mammal moments, but after some discussion I was granted permission to give more details about one of my favorite encounters, and one that I didn’t even mention in my earlier blog because I was unsure about posting it.
10/03/2010 K21
I briefly mentioned our encounter with K21, Cappuccino, making the S10 call by our hydrophone before, but here I will give you a few more details.
We had been following the whales from East Point, and had almost reached Turn Point. We had been having trouble all day keeping up with the whales because we can only go 2.5 knots through the water so we don’t get very much flow noise on our hydrophones while recording, so we were hanging out with the stragglers of the group which happened to be K21. He was on our port side for quite awhile at about 9 o’clock, when he very abruptly turned 90o towards us.
Look closely, you can see him underwater!
Catching a breath as he headed for us
As he got closer Todd killed the engine and he sure made a B-line for us. He swam right up to our stern, where our first hydrophone was at the time, stopped, made a vocalization, and went on his way. I like to think he was telling us hello or actually trying to communicate with us since his call was so directed to the hydrophone. He was so close that we could see him swimming underwater!
Since he was so close and gave a call at the right moment we got an awesome recording of it. His call is classified as an S10 call, but he combined two of them to make an extra long call. It came out so beautifully on the spectrogram because he was so close, the background noise couldn’t really be detected.
The spectrogram of the S10 call from K21
Here you can listen! —> S10
9/16/2010 Â J28 and her calf, J46
Finally, I have saved the best for last. This special encounter happened on our most bio-diverse day and is still the most vivid memory I have with the whales.
There we were aboard the Gato Verde collecting some great data for our research projects, most of the afternoon we had been with members of J-pod. Of course we thought just being around the whales was cool in itself, which it is, but we were in for a special treat. J28, Polaris. and her calf J46, Star, had been trailing us for a while, but they were getting some speed and catching up to us on our starboard side. They were probably about 100-150 meters away milling around, and we were all stood on the deck just staring at them. J46 did a couple tail slaps and gave Mama some kisses, it was just too cute.
Kisses!
All of a sudden they both directed their travel towards us, Todd killed the engine and we all observed with excitement.
J28 (left) and J46 (right) swimming towards us
As they approached the boat together, J46 sped up and pulled away from his mama as if she was curious about us. I was standing right on the edge staring into the water as J46 came up to us, turned over on her side, basically gave the boat a hug with her peck fins, and opened her mouth as if she was smiling at us. I even made eye contact with her! As weird as it may sound, I felt like we made a connection of some kind during that moment. We were also able to see his teeth when he smiled at us. I mean, she was RIGHT THERE!
YOU CAN SEE THE TEETH!!
J28 followed behind her, and they both swam off behind us. All this happened in about a matter of two to three minutes, and it all seemed so unreal! Everyone on the boat was so excited, even Todd said that had never happened to him before.
Just to clarify, during all of our time with the whales we follow the Washington State Law and the Be Whale Wise guidelines, but sometimes the whales can surprise us by being curious.
Read MoreIn support of a collaborative study of how fish use the San Juan Archipelago (headed by the University of Washington and funded through the Salmon Recovery Board), the fall Beam Reach students deployed a new fish tag receiver at the mouth of False Bay. The wind and wave conditions were worsening, ultimately reaching 30 knots and 4′ waves in Haro Strait, but we managed to launch the dinghy safely in the lee of the point that bounds the southern side of the Bay.
Waves were moderate enough (1-2′) at mouth of False Bay that we were able to deploy a 2nd Vemco VR2 receiver (SN 101006) with the dinghy. Waves were too rough to get ashore to secure a tether, so we deployed two pier blocks connected with ~100′ of crab pot line about 20m WSW of the highest point on the islet.
The inshore block is in about 4-6′ of water and was deployed at 11:29 at 48 28.785, 123 04.406 (WP 265) after being tied via the galvanized ring to the 100′ connector with a rewoven figure-8 knot with a double stopper safety. Garrett thought the inshore block may have been in a depression between the main islet and a subtidal boulder. The connector line was deployed more or less linearly through the abundant kelp and then tied to the bottom loop of the offshore block. The offshore block and mooring was lowered with a slip line (attached to the uppermost loop, above crab pot float) in ~25′ of water at 11:37 at 48 28.774, 123 04.417 (WP 266), still well within the kelp forest. Water depth was measured by halving the total slip line length (30′) and adding it to the mooring height (~3m).
Mooring details can be ascertained from the photos, but the spacing between block and receiver was about 1.5m and the space between the receiver and the float was about 1m. Both blocks were fixed with crab pot line run through hole with double figure-8 knots, each secured with a double stopper knot.
Double pier-block mooring ready for deployment
We will have to return at a lower tide and in calmer conditions to again search for the shore tether used in the previous deployment. With luck, a snorkel or short SCUBA dive will lead to the recovery of the previously deployed receiver (SN 100910 at 48 28.748, 123 04.411). There isn’t much hope, however, for using a grapnel in that kelp forest!
The side of the False Bay islet where the mooring was deployed
Being on a boat for over a month really gives you some eye opening experiences with amazing creatures. I’ve seen more marine mammals in the past 5 weeks than I have in my entire life! I’ve loved marine mammals most of my life and never thought I would get to experience all this in such a short time. So I have picked out the top moments to share with you.
9/14/2010
The second morning on the boat we were in Snug Harbor on the west side of San Juan Island, we had been getting texts throughout breakfast that the whales were at Lime Kiln, the Orca Sound. What we didn’t realize is that those are just south of Snug. We started getting everything ready to go and kept an eye out for some whales (it was really foggy that day) as we headed out. Just as we came out of the harbor someone shouted “WHALES!†and the frenzy began to put hydrophones in to start our data collection, which we weren’t really sure how to do, all while trying to watch the whales because we were all so excited. During the day we got to follow them for a couple hours, and we had them to ourselves, but lost them in the fog. This was my first Southern Resident experience, and we were lucky enough to have them literally at our front door in the morning, I don’t think I have ever been that excited, but it was only the first of many experiences to come!
9/16/2010
Okay, so this day has to be the best marine mammal day I have ever experienced and the most diverse, species wise. We spent the night at anchor on Lopez Island so as we started heading North in hopes of catching up with whales, we came across a Minke whale!! This was my first Minke whale experience, so that in itself was awesome. Â 
Just as the Minke whale was escaping us a Harbor seal pup was swimming around the boat. Even though we had seen Harbor seals before, this one was a baby, and you could see it swimming underwater! It swam around our stern for a bit, then under the boat to the bow and back around to the stern where it approached our stairs and looked like it wanted to jump aboard and join us. You could see its little fins trying to hard but he was unable to make it up. I guess this was for the better, but it was just so cute.
Oh, and amongst all of this Val was able to get a shot of a puffin! Not a marine mammal, but awesome nonetheless since they are so rare around this area.
After all that excitement, we figured we had already had a great day, but that’s not all that was in store for us. We later came across Orcas! This was our 3rd day in a row with them, but the excitement had not worn off. We got great recordings, and saw some amazing behaviors! This was definitely the best orca day yet.
Baby Kissin' Mama
As we were recording, we saw a Stellar sea lion!! He was lucky those were Southern Resident killer whales around, and not Transients. We were moving away from him so we didn’t get much time with him.
On our way to our final destination we came across both Harbor Porpoises and Dall’s Porpoises at about the same time, and some were bow riding the boat nearest to us.
9/18/2010
On our voyage back to Friday Harbor Labs for re-provisioning some Dall’s porpoises decided to bow ride OUR boat. This is very rare due to the fact that our top speed is 6 knots while motoring. Todd said that it hadn’t happened to him in a few years. They hung around for a good 20 minutes before they found another boat that was near us. Basically when animals bow ride boats, they are literally surfing underwater. This was the first time I got to see a Dall’s up close, and it kind of looks like a little killer whale. We felt so lucky that we were getting all these amazing and rare experiences already!
9/21/2010
It seemed we had spent so much time with the whales already and had had so many awesome encounters, but as we were approaching them at East Point they were breaching all over the place. We thought we were going to be in for a good show, but when we finally reached them we got a different kind of show. This was the first time we got to witness them resting in Boundary Pass. It was so cool how close they were to each other while rising for synchronized breaths. There had to be about 20 of them in tight group. They would sporadically do a few breaches or tail slaps here and there, but it was mostly a day watching them rest. This was actually kind of creepy to watch because very slowly their dorsal fins would make their way out of the water.
10/03/2010
We had spent the day with the whales and recording in Boundary Pass. All of a sudden K21 started heading right for us off our port side from about 100 meters away. Todd killed the engine as he kept approaching. As we were drifting K21 approached one of our hydrophones, stopped right in front of one, produced an S10 call, or as I like to say he was really excited to say hi or maybe he just wanted to speak his peace, and went on his way. Since he was right next to one of our hydrophones we got a great recording of it! Have a listenS10
10/06/2010
No whales on my birthday, they must have been busy or forgotten, but they sure made up for it when they came back the day after! We were heading for Discovery Island when we first saw them and when we actually got to them (and out of the way of a tanker) they gave me a great belated birthday show! We documented 19 spy hops in 2 minutes on Val’s camera, but there were definitely more. They were in a tight group as they usually are while resting, but they were active. Seeing so many spy hops all at once was spectacular. Not only did we got spy hops on top of sky hops, we had cartwheels, tail slaps and breaches as well!
On this same day we were able to witness the Dall’s porpoise and Southern Residents interact! We couldn’t tell if they were enjoying each other’s company or if the Dall’s were annoying the Orcas. I like to think they had a mutual relationship and were just having a play date. It was amazing seeing two different species interact and “get along†in this crazy world.
10/12/2010
Living in Hawaii I get the pleasure of seeing Humpbacks every winter, but when we were in Canada for the acoustic conference and got word of “humpies†near race rocks, I was just as excited about being able to see them as I was the first time I ever saw one! (Maybe ever more excited) The day worked out perfect, we went into Victoria Harbor to clear Canadian customs, and raced back out to find them basically right there. I forgot how gigantic they were, and so graceful. There was one moment where it was about 100 meters from our boat, and you could see its fins underwater. We thought it would come up again and we would be able to see the whole thing underwater, but he came up at our stern to meet up with another whale. They went for a deep dive together and as they did that they showed us their flukes. It was breath taking.
Transients- We have come across transients a couple of times. A couple times on the boat and a once from land, which was actually my first Orca encounter ever. We have tried to catch them while they are hunting, but we always seem to be a little late and see them right after they have eaten. Our research focuses on Southern Residents so when we see transients it is purely for enjoyment.
Transients and Mt. Baker
My breach photo!
Double Tail Slap!
Ithaca
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy –
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you’ll have understood what these Ithakas mean.
By Constantine P Cavafy (1863-1933, Greece)
Read MoreOkay so I admit, coming into this program I didn’t think I would actually get into sailing, but I also didn’t know much about it. I was completely wrong, I LOVE IT! Aboard the Gato Verde, Captain Todd teaches us a variety of things about the boat and sailing like: how to tie knots, points of sail, right of way while sailing, parts of the boat and the list could go on. Sailing is definitely up there with being around the whales, it’s THAT fun! Here just are just a few of my top moments:
1. So, here we are in a program called Beam Reach. Well beam reach is an actual point of sail! This is known as the fastest point of sail where the wind is perpendicular to the boat. Although it may be the fast and some people say it’s the “best sailing† but Todd doesn’t agree with that so we spend most of our time in a close reach, which is a zone, instead of a point of sail. I must admit I was rather excited to learn this!
Here is a video Scott posted on the Beam Reach facebook page, that I was completely blown away by. This kite surfer is at the point of sail;Â beam reach.
2. Living on the Gato Verde we are considered part of the crew. We don’t sit back and relax while Todd does all the work. After he shows us how things work and what to do, we get a chance to try it ourselves. The best moment for me thus far would have to be hoisting the mainsail. I was really nervous before I started, but after that first pull I was into it. I got it most of the way up before my own body weight couldn’t pull the rope anymore and I had to wench it the rest of the way.  It’s actually a full body work out too!  There is always a sense of accomplishment after hoisting the mainsail, or even just helping with a tack, or chicken jibe.
Todd teaching us how to reef, and hoist the mainsail
3. While under sail Todd gives us each a turn at the helm. (Actually, the first time he let us take the helm was the very first day on the boat, talk about some real trust!) I’ll admit during my time at the helm, I’m rather nervous and stressed, there is so much to pay attention to, and if you move the wheel in the slightest bit, the boat really turns, and dodging the kelp really throws me off sometimes. But, once you get a hang of it, it is rather fun.
4. If the wind gets above 30 knots we have to stay in at anchor, but we have had a couple very windy, stormy days under 30 knots. On these days we bundle up in layers and waterproof gear and go sit out by the trampoline. It’s almost like being on the Disneyland ride, Splash Mountain, but so much better! The waves come breaking over the bow, up through the trampoline and we get covered in water. I feel like a little kid on my first rollercoaster! It brings laughter amongst the group, smiles, and a whole new type of joy.
Garrett Cat and I enjoying getting splashed
Waves crashing over the bow
Canada may be my new favorite place. Here’s why:
WE SAW HUMPBACKS!!!!!!! It was INCREDIBLE! It was my first time seeing humpbacks, and they got pretty close to our boat–they’re HUGE!!! We also got to see some characteristic fluke shots (they dove deep enough that their entire flukes came out of the water. We got some pretty incredible photos and even video! How many cool/awesome/amazing/gorgeous/inspiring moments can I keep having?!?!?! we also got to see transient killer whales, which we haven’t seen before. They look and behave so differently than the residents we’ve been seeing and it was so cool to compare them. Plus, I found a buddy with the transients: there was one that has scoliosis, so I bonded with it and feel especially attached to it (I have fairly advanced scoliosis so I feel bonded to all creatures, besides snakes, which a curvy spine!)! I’m in love with all the amazing creatures I’ve been getting to see!! Everyday is absolutely spectacular!
We were in Victoria for an acoustics conference, which was very interesting. It’s really cool to hear about how many ways acoustics is being used for different types of projects. Â Many of the abstracts are up online at http://www.caa-aca.ca/victoria2010/index_en.html. It was also held at Canada’s only carbon-neutral hotel, which was pretty cool.
The city of Victoria is gorgeous and fun to go out and explore, although we were all pretty overwhelmed coming into a city after having been on the boat (and out of contact with much of civilization).
Today we’re heading out for our final (!!!!!) week on the water. I have absolutely no idea where the time has gone. Certainly it’s flown by way too fast! I know I’m going to enjoy absolutely every minute out on the water because I doubt I’ll ever get this chance again. This program has been amazing, and I know the last week on the water will be the same!
What can I say heading over to Canada was anything but uneventful, as we headed to an acoustical conference.Im sure the other blogs will fill you in on the details, but i wanted to talk about our journey there. We set of early on Tuesday morning and having cleared customs in the USA Monday evening. When we first headed into Canadian waters we had to clear customs again, then we were finally free to set of to find the whales. What we actually found was even better than we expected – we found Humpbacks. 
There were two that we followed for a couple of hours and I got my geek on with my microphone and 
recorded them surfacing. They were surfacing in unison with Mount Baker in the background – it was like a painting. However this is where the hatch comes in! I was merily recording away and stepped back to get to a better position away from the cameras, when . . . . . . . . . I fell through the hatch to Hana and Vanessa’s room, which was open! My gosh it hurt, but my first thought was did I break the mic!!!?? That’s when you know you’re a scientist! Megan and Hana were killing themselves laughing! The bruising was instant but it was worth it for seeing the whales. I soon picked myself up again (but left the microphone safely inside) and set about taking some pictures. That was definitely a good decision, as I got some great fluke shots and got a video of a Humpback right next to the boat.
After the Humpbacks had put on that show, we made a group decision to try and catch up with the Transient Orcas that had been reported to be feeding on seals not that far from us. Again this group got lucky and we were able to catch up. We got some great shots of the Whales infront of the lighthouse with Mount Baker again. Hana was really happy because we found a whale counterpart for her (ill let her explain why), I already have one in the Residents. We want to find one for everyone :).
By this point time had slipped through our fingers and it was time to head back to Harbour. On the way back we did a plankton tow, it was very cool and kind of shocking how many different organisms there were in the small amount of water we filtered. Back in Victoria, we made dinner and then went on the hunt for the showers (which were harder to find than you may think). Once clean we explored the city and got ready for the conference the next day.
So to conclude I will always remember our short time in Canada fondly and the words ‘oh Canada’ hold a whole new meaning to me now :).
On a side note it was 10/10/10 for 350 last Sunday and I couldn’t write a blog without mentioning it!! (http://www.350.org) The focus is on the number 350—as in parts per million CO2. If we can’t get below that, scientists say, the damage we’re already seeing from global warming will continue and accelerate. On Sunday the Beam Reach crew decided we were going to join the cause. We wrote a press release to spread our message of sustainability and shared our stories. Not only did we do that but we also took some pictures to send into the website. So check it out and help spread the word!!! 
Last week on the boat, we spent a couple of days in Victoria, B.C. To make friends with our neighbors to the north, we learned a few facts about Canada:
1. Gained independence: 1867 or 1931, depending on who you ask. It’s worth noting that there wasn’t an independent Canadian embassy to the US until 1947
2. Prime Minister: Stephen Harper
3. Currency: Well, they call it a dollar, but there’s not a single President on it. Nor are there any creepy masonic eye pyramids either, so maybe they’re onto something.
4. National Anthem (Music so you can sing along)
O Canada! The land where we saw whales
A whale-less week at sea, ends with a humpback tail
With Transients near the waterfront
And porpoises galore
With Mt. Baker as our photo mat
They swim away from shore!
Chorus:
O Canada! Your conference we attend
O Canada! We duly recommend
O Canada! Jason’s talk at 10
O Canada! Your showers take loonies
What’s one to do, with American currency?
The Mounties nearly chased us down
On the morn we left early
But all was good, for we ate our way
Through our surplus fruits and veggies!
Chorus:
O Canada! Your conference we attend
O Canada! We duly recommend
O Canad
a! Jason’s talk at 10
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