Wednesday, October 10, 2007
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We started the day making phone calls and connecting with friends to try to figure out where the whales were. There were rumors that whales had been spotted north off Pender Bluff, in between Pender and
Moresby
Islands. As no whales had been found south, we decided to motor north to have a look around. We made it as far as Turn Point on
Stuart
Island, and decided to drop the hydrophone and listen. As we listened, we watched and waited and reconnected with our friends, who had traveled north faster than the Gato Verde, but had not been able to find the whales. Todd finished up sewing the sail, as we finished up lunch at Turn Point. Afterwards, Tim took vessel noise recordings of the Gato Verde from Gatito. The students continued to catch up on data analysis and sustainability reports before heading into Roche in the late afternoon. We pumped out our holding tank, filled up our water tank, and threw in some laundry before meeting up with the other group at Hotel de Haro. David gave us an entertaining and informative tour of Roche’s water treatment facility. We then headed back as a group to the boat for dinner—chicken curry and wild rice from
Friday
Harbor Labs with tempah and root vegetable stew prepared by Anne. During dinner, Jason gave us statistics on water use to ponder over—the average American uses 69 gallons/day, while onboard the Gato Verde we only use 2.61. After finishing up the apple pie from the Friday Harbor Labs, the VATO group grabbed quick showers at Roche before anchoring just outside of the harbor.