091 science narrative A text document for drafting and archiving the science blogbook entries. Please include day, location information, and narrative of the day's science deployments/findings. When possible, upload entries as separate (daily) posts with tag "Science BlogBook." e.g.: Sunday 4/19/2009 FHL to Jones Island Transited under electric power... discovered giant squid. Sunday 4/19/2009 FHL to Jones Island Transited under electric power. 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 Kwiat, the center for historical ecology. The journey was a smooth one under partly cloudy skies and we tied up easily to the mooring bouy on the south end of Jones. Monday 4/20/2009 Jones Island to whales to Mitchell Bay Students raised the main sail for the first time on the Green Gato, and we Sailed slowly from JOnes Island to the beginning of Spieden channel. There the wind died, so we started motoring to Roche Harbor, where Val sped off to shore in the dinghy. We continued motoring towards Mitchell bay, and caught the wind for a while. We noticed a little cluster of whalewatching boats in Canada, so we motored over to check it out. There they were on the first full day! Wahoo! It was T40 with four females Transients, frolicking and porpoising with glee. We stayed with them for about an hour, recording behavior and boat numbers. They started travelling north, and we lost 'em. We motored back to Mitchell bay, deploying the hydrophone as a demo on the way. We moored in the sunshine for an evening of swimming, burritos, and Grimm fairytales. -hmm. Tuesday 4/21/2009 Stayed at Mitchell Bay There was a heavy fog all morning. Students went over data sheets and thought about how easy it would be to run statistical tests on data collected and how easy it would be to turn into an excel spreadsheet. We also made a list of science goals. Analyzing our data sheets were at the top of the list followed by behavior recognition improvement, ID the whales from yesterday, practice hydrophone deployment, read the journal article for journal club and possibly deploy the Vemco acoustic tag receiver. At around noon the fog finally cleared out and we had a quick lesson on sailing and how the boat moves using the wind and then we went out to practice. After sailing in about 20 knot winds for an hour or two we came back to Mitchell Bay. We continued our sailing lesson and went over terminology and ended the day with learning how to tie knots. In the evening we read the journal article for our journal club discussion and tried to identify the transients we saw yesterday. We positively identified T40 but could only identify one female, T37b. We need an updated transient ID guide because the guide only has photos of the left side of the saddle patch and most of our pictures were of the right side. EB Wednesday 4/22/2009 Mitchell Bay, SJI to Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island. After stopping at Roche Harbor for lunch and switching captains, we began sailing towards Stuart Island. At 14:00 we deployed the CRT hydrophone. The cable for the hydrophone was very sensitive causing interference and picked up a lot of flow noise. At 14:30, the hydrophone array was deployed. There was still some flow noise interference, but it was much better than the CRT. As we reeled in the hydrophone array at 14:50, a group of Dall's porpoises swam alongside the Gato Verde. There were 5-6 which included a hybrid with a Harbor porpoise. They were seen at latitude 48 deg. 43.08 min. N and longitude 123 deg.14.90 min. W. While the Dal's porpoises were riding around our boat, a male elephant seal poked his head above the water for a minute. MW Thursday 4/23/2009 Prevost Harbor to Mitchell Bay At 09:30 hours Val did a lecture on localization. Right after the lecture we did an exercise on localization involving the 'clangs' at the OrcaSound and Lime Kiln hydorphone's (there are some msyterious clanging/clinking sounds that have been heard intermitently on the hydrophones this winter/spring). Our results indicated that the hyperbola leads to Discovery Island / Beaumont Shoals. This is just an estimate from where the sound source may be. Then at 13:25 hours we had an encounter with three transients whales. We have IDed them as T10,T10B, and T10C. We first saw them at Mandarte Is. and they were traveling northwest. Then at 1400 hours they switched direction and started heading north towards Stuart Island. Then entire time they were traveling. We also found traces of whale poo! It was another interesting encounter with the Transients. It was a surprise encounter as well because they just popped out of the water and shocked us all! Finally at 16:20 hours we did the localization exercise with the array and our sound source on the dinghy. The position of the exercise was at N 98 degrees 34.902 W 23 degrees 11.881. The data was uploaded to the Beam Reach computer and will be analyzed at a later date. PV BLOGPOINT Friday 4/24/2009 Mitchell Bay to Griffin Bay After a hearty breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes thanks to Hilary we had an early start from Mitchell Bay out into Haro Strait. As we headed south in Haro Strait we ended up with a decent breeze from the SE which we took advantage of for some nice sailing. We practiced tacks, chicken jibes and a hove to. The hove to was performed in between Discovery Island and Beaumont Shoals, the area we thought was the potential source of the mysterious clanging on the hydrophones at Lime Kiln and Orca Sound. Although we listened for 15 minutes we heard no clanging, but did hear the numerous container ships passing by. There was not a lot of wind and we were at slack low tide, so it may not have been the appropriate conditions needed to generate the mysterious clanging. The breeze died down in the afternoon, but we did manage to ride what wind was available and the currents towards the south end of San Juan Island and into Cattle Pass. We got to experience Cattle Pass on a raging flood. As we were sucked north by the current we managed to see 16 Stellar sea lions hauled out on Whale Rocks as well as cormorant nests on Goose Island. Rounding the bend Captain Mike showed us how to anchor off the shore of American Camp in Griffin Bay where we worked on our localization exercise using the software Ishmael. Altogether a sunny, breezey and pleasant day. JW