Beam Reach

Roche Changeover

Sunday, September 23, 2007

We had a bit of a sleep in and woke up for breakfast at 8:30 am at Roche Harbor. Shannon took her weekly shower as the rest of the team packed up their stuff to move off the Gato Verde. The rest of the morning was spent cleaning up and catching up on data entry. After lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, we joined the land team for a talk by guest expert, Marla Holt. Dr. Holt spoke about studying acoustics in marine mammals. Val, Anne, Ashleigh, Tim, Sam, Alex, and Todd climbed onboard, settled in, and unpacked the food for the week. We disconnected from shore power and motored out of Roche Harbor as the sun was just starting to sink a bit lower in the sky. We pulled into one of our favorite haunts for the night, Snug Harbor. Anne started baking some bread using Jason’s sourdough starter, “Bubbles,” and then started knitting a hat for Ashleigh. Todd hoisted students up the mast, with Sam first in line and Tim second. Alex read, Shannon caught up on email, Val boosted the memory in the Beam Reach laptop, and Tim and Ashleigh prepared veggie burgers for dinner.

K and L pods

Saturday, September 22, 2007

We motored out of Fisherman’s Bay on Lopez early to beat the tides. Jason cooked pancakes as we went through Cattle Pass and soon we hit the largest swells (5-6 ft) we had experienced on BeamReach. We struggled through our morning chores in the high seas and gathered out on deck to get some fresh air. A couple of the students were feeling a bit sea sick, so we had a fairly easy morning as the rest of us practiced knots. Mike had the students practice a couple of man overboard drills. After lunch of egg salad, we headed out past Beaumont Shoals and towards Hein Bank to find K and L pods. When we saw the whale watching vessels, we deployed the hydrophone array and set up to record data. There were some good opportunities for possible localizations and some whales seemed to be investigating the hydrophones, clicking at the array and getting quite close to it. We moved slowly up along the coast of San Juan Island, collecting data and recording vocalizations. In the late afternoon, we saw a group of whales very close to shore that were breaching, tail slapping, and even cartwheeling. After hours of recording, the batteries died on one of the solid state recorders just as it was time to head up to Roche Harbor for the evening. We pulled into our slip as taps was being played at Roche and there was a spectacular sunset. Elise prepared a fabulous dinner of stir fry with veggies and fake chicken and Liz entertained us with stories from Dr. 90210.

Elf Shoe Extravaganza

Friday, September 21, 2007

Wes and Heather prepared scrambled eggs, avocado, and toast for breakfast. After chores and our morning meeting, we lifted anchor at Mackaye Harbor. Wes, Liz, and Kenna hoisted the main and unfurled the screecher. Mike was going over parts of the boat with all the students, while Shannon read over students’ methods for their proposals and Jason worked on amp calibration. Jason got a call from a previous BeamReacher who had spotted whales heading south from Lime Kiln, so we pulled in the screecher and headed north along the coast of San Juan Island. We found members of J and L pods. We spent about five hours with the whales again today—recording calls, whistles and echolocation clicks, and recording surface behaviors, bearing, distance, and identification. We watched spyhops, breaches, tail slaps, and pec slaps. We also caught many glimpses of the highly elusive elf shoes and Elise even snapped a couple of photos.< Just as we were getting ready to head back south for the evening, Tim and Ashley radioed us from Prince of Whales, a whale watching vessel they had joined for the day from Victoria. As the sun was setting, Kenna and Shannon prepared eggplant parmesan for dinner and we headed into Fisherman’s Bay on Lopez Island.

J and L pods are back!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

As Elise and Heather prepared breakfast, we motored out from Garrison Bay to Roche Harbor to pump out our holding tank and fill up our water tank. We heard that J and L pods were near the lighthouse, off the west coast of San Juan Island, so we headed through Mosquito Pass and turned south. We caught up with J pod first and followed them southwest. The day was filled with recording calls, whistles and clicks, as well as collecting data on behavior, bearing, distance and identification. We spent almost 5-6 hours with whales, only breaking for lunch (egg salad). The whales spyhopped, tailslapped, and breached. We were able to successfully identify L2, L88, L67, L78, J1, J2, J16, J17, J26, J27… through binoculars using the photo ID catalog. Towards the end of the day, we watched a large group resting, as individuals from J and L pods caught up with them. At around 5:30 pm, we motored towards our anchorage for the night, back at Mackaye Harbor on Lopez Island.

Sailing and Whale Museum Talk

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

We woke up in Aleck Bay at Lopez Island. Still no whales, but the wind had picked up, so we decided to try our luck and sail west towards Vancouver Island. We raised the main sail and the rolled out the screecher. Mike discussed the use of emergency flares and VHF marine radios. Kenna and Shannon went through the phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Unicorn, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu). The whole group also practiced knots—bowline, clove hitch, figure eight, square knot, round turn and two half hitches, and sheet bend. After lunch, we discussed sustainability and issues such as how to eat meat sustainably, what sustainability means to each of us, and sustainability in different cultures. We then had to prepare dinner for a pot luck with the land team. Jason baked bread and whipped up a veggie curry. We met up with the other group at English Camp in Garrison Bay to catch up socially and further discuss sustainability as we enjoyed dinner. Afterwards, we piled into the van to drive to our weekly whale museum talk. D.B. Giles discussed her thesis dissertation research on biogeography of the southern residents. We toasted Val’s birthday on Thursday and headed back home to clean our dirty dishes.

Practice run

 Tuesday, September 18, 2007

After waking up in Mackaye Harbor, we motored away from Lopez Island and headed north to parallel the west coast of San Juan Island. The students continued to work on their final proposals and some began to read Kenna’s choice for this week’s journal club, Quantitative tools for comparing animal communication systems: information theory applied to bottlenose dolphin whistle repertoires. Once we saw a fleet of fishing boats, the students practiced their roles for data collection. Liz called out with boat, or “whale” to focus on while recording behaviors, Elise listened to “calls”, Kenna took ID photos, Heather measured bearing relative to the Gato Verde, and Wes recorded distance to our boat using the rangefinder. Afterwards, they discussed ways to improve and optimize data collection. Unfortunately, the whale’s locations were not in our favor today, so we headed back to Lopez island as the sun was setting. Wes prepared pasta with vegetables in cream sauce for dinner.

BeamReach Life Aquatic

 

Monday, September 17, 2007

The new sea team (Liz, Elise, Kenna, Heather, and Wes) woke up to a cloudy day in Roche Harbor. After breakfast, we topped up the water tank and motored out of the harbor, while we discussed plans for the day. Unfortunately, there were no whales and no wind. So the students discussed how to optimize data collection as a team and organized who would be collecting what during whale observations. Then the students worked on their final proposals, while Jason and Shannon graded and returned previous assignments. After a delicious lunch prepared by Wes and Jason, the wind picked up enough for Mike to go through the points of sail. After practicing tacking and chicken jibing with the main sail and screecher, the students settled back down to their computers. We arrived into Mackaye Harbor at Lopez Island as the sun was setting and Heather was starting to prepare quesadillas for dinner. After dinner, the students finished up their work and we watched Life Aquatic.

Change over at Roche Harbor

 

Sunday, September 16, 2007

After breakfast, we began preparing for our weekly change-over. We pumped out our holding tank, topped up our water tank, cleaned the Gato Verde, and the students packed up their things. Pulling up the dock at Roche Harbor, we met the land team, who were bringing aboard their weekly grocery supply. Dr. Jim Ha from the University of Washington spoke to the entire BeamReach group about his graduate student, Jennifer Marsh’s thesis work on surface behaviors of southern residents, experimental design for behavioral studies, and using personal digital assistants (PDA’s) to collect behavioral data. After the talks, the students huddled by the heat lamps as they discussed boat and data logistics for the upcoming week. Jason’s group climbed onboard the Gato Verde and Liz prepared artichoke, spinach and mushroom casserole for dinner.

Alex, Sam, Anne, Tim and Ashleigh recording orcas off False Bay

Saturday, September 15, 2007

 

Val cooked veggie omelets for breakfast and just as we were finishing cleaning up, we got a pager that J and L pods were resting near False Bay.  Anne proposed we cut our morning meeting short, and we lifted anchor and headed out of Fish Creek to sail up the coast of San Juan Island looking for orcas.  There were a large number of whale watching vessels out today, despite the wind and grey skies.  We were able to trouble-shoot some worrisome rattling that we had been picking up with the hydrophones and collected our data.  The killer whales seemed to be feeding and were very active at the surface, lunging and rolling.  Alex was more excited about the boats than the whales, as her project is focused on assessing the Whale Watch Guidelines.  Sam jokes about feeling the onset of carpal tunnel after processing far too many numbers for her preliminary data product due tomorrow.  Anne and Tim are finding that they spend most of their time with the whales staring at computer screens and listening to headphones, but are hopeful that we recorded some great calls and echolocation clicks today.  And Ashleigh has been busy learning correct nautical radio-speak and acting as spotter and photographer.  By late afternoon, we reluctantly pulled in the hydrophones, and sailed north to anchor near Roche Harbor for the night.

Killer whales, minkes, Dall's porpoises, harbor porpoises, Steller sea lions, and harbor seals–all in one day

Friday, September 14, 2007

This morning, for a bit of a change of pace, we decided to go for an early morning hike. Ashleigh, Sam, Tim, Anne, Alex, and Shannon walked from Reid Harbor on Stuart Island to the Turn Point lighthouse. It’s a 5 mile return hike, and everyone stopped about halfway at the Stuart Island schoolhouse to buy postcards. After using the mechanical pump out station at Reid Harbor, Alex and Shannon prepared hummus, boiled eggs, veggies and fruit for lunch. We then headed south to try to track J and L pods off the west coast of San Juan Island. Unfortunately, shortly after deploying the hydrophones, Sam got another chance to swim to free one of the cords from the portside prop. Val jumped in to help as well and Dall’s porpoises approached the boat. The hydrophones were redeployed and data was collected on bearings, way points, and photo ID’s. At least one minke whale was spotted. As the sun was setting, we motored into Fish Creek and spotted a number of Steller sea lions and harbor seals hauled out on rocks, as well as harbor porpoises in our wake. We even watched two harbor seals in the water arguing over a large salmon and fighting to keep the gulls from taking their catch.