Science narrative A text document for drafting and archiving the science blogbook entries. Please include: Day of week, date; Start location to end location; narrative of the day's science deployments/findings. When possible, upload entries as separate (daily) blog posts with tag "Science BlogBook." Sept 12, 2010 FHL to Griffin Bay We got the rare experience of loading our gear onto the Gato Verde in the rain! Our group was still fairly efficient and we made it off the dock in decent time to make it down to Griffin Bay for the evening. A great opportunity for us to get aquainted with the boat and how it works. Sept 13, 2010 Griffin Bay to Snug Harbor No Whale sighting/recordings today. Reports indicated they were in Canada. Probably okay as fog was very dense in the morning and we waited for a favorable current at Cattle Pass. We did establish methods for deploying the hydrophones (I predict that these will come in handy in the future). We are deploying the array on the port side and the CRT on the starboard. We plugged the CRT into channel 2 (whose normal hydrophone had proved suspicious during our dock recordings). We made recordings (AC1-09) of the background noise at varying speeds and with the CRT filter off and then on. We tried to set some gains and make science goals. Peace. Sept 14, 2010 Snug Harbor to Snug Harbor Whales in the fog! What a sureal day. We awoke and undertook our chores for the morning, had our morning meeting and were weighing anchor to follow up on reports of whales heading north past Pile Point when we spotted whales right outside Snug Harbor heading north in heavy fog. We managed to scramble and get our acoustic gear into the water without hitches, even though we had only deployed the hydrophones from the boat one other time. We got two seperate recordings for a total of over an hour of recording as we followed the whales from Kellet Bluff past Turn Point on Stuart Island. Along the way we got to hear a number of calls and clicks while watching them forage and then travel in a northerly direction. Todd expertly kept us with the whales while keeping us away from other boats and ships even while we were in thick fog. He used a combination of radar, gps and good old acoustic signals (blasting our fog horn from time to time). At Turn Point we lost the whales making the crossing to Swanson Channel in the fog and decided to turn around and head south to see if we could intercept other whales that were reported to be heading north. We never found the other whales (there was another group of whales heading south past Lime Kiln and beyond) and so decided to head into Snug a little early to avoid the fog. Several students spent a fair amount of time identifying whales from pictures taken. So far they have identified J14 and J19. All in all a great first day with Southern Resident killer whales. Sept 15, 2010 Snug Harbor to Mitchell bay The fog had cleared this morning, but we couldn't head straight for the whales because we needed to pump out our waste holding tanks. We decided as a group that it was better to head to Roche harbor and pump out first then when we found the whales we would not have to leave them again during the day. We joined the whales near false bay and we able to stay with them for around 4 hours, as the slowly headed South. The hydrophones were easily deployed again with no snags. We were able to get recordings on all the hydrophones, despite a dead battery on the CRT in the first recording and seaweed wrapping around the hydrophones a couple of times. we followed the whales South all the way along the West side of San Juan Island towards Lopez Island (our anchorage). Towards the end of the day the fog joined us again, meaning we turned to the radar to guide us. There was some discussion about whether we were picking up whales or birds! We did find the whales again in the fog and made a final two recordings with adapted gain settings. The we headed for our anchorage, worked on our data and watched the sun set. Sept 16, 2010. The most bio-diverse day to date in the Beam Reach Experience! By 10:30 am we’ve reached the bird aggregations (way point 168), surrounded by hundreds of birds of various species we were suddenly surprised by a couple of Minke Whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) foraging in the area. In the middle of our observations a baby harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) visits the stern of our boat, seemingly wanting to get on board. Val’s sniper ‘s (point and shoot not to kill) training paid off as he captured the elusive puffin, which we have not been able to decide between the Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata) , or the Tufted Puffin(Fratercula cirrhata). Stellar sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) were also spotted during our morning in the bird aggregations. Cat was able to record some blows from the Minke’s for later comparison taking advantage of the very quiet conditions we were enjoying. By 1.30 pm we caught up with the orcas (way point 170). The day was very foggy and there were a few boats around including various small research outboards around. In spite of the heavy fog, we were able to observe the whales in very active behavior: tail lobs, rolling, “cart wheels” breaches, porpoising, periscoping, baby tail slapping. Around 2.30 some in the group saw a calf spy hopping and vocalizing above water. We then entered a fog patch and thought to have lost them, but then 4 individuals switched direction and started traveling north towards our boat, two more joined in from port side and at least one more caught up to the congregation around the cat from the starboard side. Being in the middle of the path and having whales approaching us from all sides we proceeded to turn off the engine. Protected by the fog patch, none of the whale watching vessels could see us, which made for very quiet conditions. By 3.00 pm 6 whales were circling the cat, a baby vocalized almost above water while traveling head on towards the port bow, it then traveled to the stern and inspected the ship opening its mouth and turning on its side while diving at about 1 m depth. We had a chance to record crystal clear vocalizations and clicks. The crew was in a partial state of shock, understandably. We were able to identify J 28 clearly. Later around 4.30 pm we spotted some Dall's porpoises riding the bow wave of the Thea Foss. Sept 17, 2010 Snug Harbor to Snug Harbor We started today by heading North because we heard reports of whales in that area. We were hoping to intercept them if they started to travel in a Southern direction, however, we never had a chance to record whales today. While we were traveling North we decided to utilize a head wind to practice our first hands on sailing with the Gato Verde. After sailing for a few hours we decided to calibrate the hydrophone array and CRT with the blue box and the underwater speaker. After the calibration test we pumped out our sewage and refilled the fresh water tank at Rouche Harbor and then continued to Snug Harbor for the night. We have to work over the data from the last few days of recording along with the calibration test data. Tomorrow we are going to stop for the day at Friday Harbor to restock our food supplies and take showers. Sept 18, 2010 Snug Harbor to Friday Harbor We started the day by heading South down the west coast of San Juan Island. Along the way we came upon a group of 5 Dall's Porpoises and one possible hybrid who began bow riding our boat. They stayed with us 20-30 minutes. We didn't see the whales and arrived in Friday Harbor around 13:00. It was foggy and we were not able to raise the sails. Sept 19, 2010 FHL to Reed Harbor We were able to have a relaxing morning before meeting up to some work on the boat (ie cleaning and sorting food). We were under way after a war with some hornets just after 3PM. We were able to do some skreetcher sailing on our way to Reeds Harbor. Sept 20,2010 Reed Harbor to Prevost The whale reports were saying that the whale were up north, so our plan was to ride the currents south then ride the currents back up North in hopes of finding the whales. The winds picked up and we were able to hoist the sails. The winds got up to 27 knots! The waves were about 2-4 feet so the boat was-a-rockin'. While sailing we sailed right into the whales, but because of the wind our boat speed was too fast to record. We had to wait about an hour for the wind to calm down so we could deploy the hyrdophones. Once again the whale surrounded us so we had to move around a lot to avoid them, but we got about 54 minutes of recording before we stopped recording to catch up to the whales. Once we had caught up we were able to starting recording for the second time today. Sept 21, 2010 Prevost Harbor to Prevost Harbor Another fantastic day aboard the Gato Verde! After leaving the dock in the morning we headed north towards the Straits of Georgia. Along the way we discussed the 'rule of twelfths' in regards to tidal exchanges. This helps one predict currents which is important to our navigation planning, but of course a fundamental property of the Salish Sea ecosystem, which allows it to be such a productive and diverse system. As we neared East Point on Saturna Island we spotted Southern Residents who wereheaded in a south-westerly direction. We followed them down Boundary Pass for much of the day while they mostly rested in tight groups. It is always amazing to see many dorsal fins coming to the surface in synchrony. There were even several sightings of Pacific white sided dolphins amongst the Southern Residents. As we approached Turn Point on Stuart the whales woke up, started to do some breaches and then spread out and started to forage. We spent some quality time with some individuals who were foraging back and forth in the tidal eddies right off Turn Point before heading back in to Prevost Harbor for the evening. After dinner a few of us went for a hike, others went for a quick swim and the rest watched the almost full moon rise above a pink/purple hue reflecting from the setting sun. Now for a pleasant evening of data analysis! JW Sept 22, 2010 Prevost to Snug Today we headed north to try and meet the whales. So we spent the morning doing work on our data analysis.By noon 9REC file AC 40) we found the whales aprox 4 miles from the coast, south of false Bay (wp 200). There were aprox 40 whales spread initially into 4 nuclei. Research boats from NOOA and the fecal smapling boats were present, following the whales close by. They then split into two main groups heading for the coast, spread about 500 meters intitially. By 13:22 REC (ac 40) we started a second rec fpr the day. Lots of aerial behavior and persussives were recorded and phototographed, good cand clear calls were recorded as well. the last rec for the day (AC41) was only 30 mins long, but some good calls were captured as well. September 23, 2010 Snug to Garrison Non-whale day. It was the perfect day for sailing. We decided it was too choppy to get recordings so we had a sailing day. It was also a great chance to break out our rain gear. When the winds reached 30Kt we heading for the calm (yet muddy!) waters of Garrison. Sept 24th, 2010 Garrison to Patos We had a good whale recording day. We caught up with the whales by Patos lighthouse. The Strait Watch boat (Canadian version of Sound Watch) came over to say hi. In the evening we stayed at Patos and were the only boat there. We even got to see a seal munching on a salmon. Sept 25th, 2010 Patos to Parks We had a good day with the whales after a couple of hours traveling. We really used our resources today, as we rang round to locate the whales. Val informed us they were outside his house. We stayed with the whales until we needed to head to anchor. On the way back we did a calibration test for the single hydrophone and a localization exercise with the dinghy. It was good fun and really useful. In the evening after a bit of individual work, we got out the critter cam for the first time. It was really cool seeing the underwater activity. Sept 26th, 2010 Parks to Friday Harbor Headed into Friday Harbor for a couple of days onland. Oct 2, We started the day in Fort Warden State Park, Port Townsend. Early reports of whales located them to the North, and so in response we began a long day of fighting a strong current from a flooding tide to make it back to San Juan Island. We made late contact with the whales as they moved North into Canadian waters, and we were forced to pull into Prevost Harbor for the night. Data analysis was under way for most of the day, and verification of metadata about whales position was accomplished using the localization feature in the program Ishmael. Oct 3, 2010- Headed north looking for whales. Used Conventional wisdom that they will head down rosario, but overshot them as they came back down around east point. Turned around and caught up to them at 3:00. Got 1.5 hours of recordings, including a swim-by by K-21, vocalized an S-10 right at the hydrophone array in minute 16 of AC49. Lots of foraging and lots of boats around us. Even though we stopped recording, the whales followed us almost all the way back to Snug. Additionally, the parabolic microphone proved to be a huge boon to capturing blows. Oct 4, 2010- Snug harbor - Snug Harbor Headed south looking for whales, with no luck. There were no reports all day. We motored against the current for a while and then turned off motors and followed the currents back up the island. In the mean time we did a calibration and spreading exercise for the microphone and a localisation exercise for the hydrophones. October 5,2010 Snug Harbor- Garison Harbor Headed South again with no luck. Transients were around Race Rocks, but the currents weren't with us to catch up to them. The group decision was to drift around Discovery Island for more updates, then head up North. While waiting for whale updates we were able to use to CTD to find the speed of sound in water. Getting anxious for a new scene, we sailed back up the island, with a visit from Dall's Porpoises bow riding our boat. October 6, 2010 Garrison Bay to Jones Island We awoke after a rather chilly night with clear skies and dew all over the boat. Always helps for a nice clean of the deck. We snuck out of our habor to beat the flood and make our way backdown to the area of Discovery Island at the south end of Haro Strait. On the way Val started his lecture on tidal energy, but he was cut short by the arrival of J and K pods who had just come past the Victoria waterfront. Sometimes you just make the right decision on navigation and get lucky! We followed them on their traditional dash across Haro Strait to the west side of San Juan. They tried to pump fake us when we got there, which almost worked, but we were watching close enough that we realized that most of them weren't really heading south. So after a short jaunt south we turned north and followed them past Lime Kiln light house, almost all the way up to Turn Point light house on Stuart. We spent most of the day with J and K although there were reports of other K and L pod members further south. There were nice periods of chattiness, with plenty of S1, S16, and a few S10 calls. While there was debate in the evening on what the highlight of the day was, the consensus was when we saw Southern Residents interacting with Dall's porpoises off of Sidney Island. The Dall's seemed quite frisky and were bow riding off several boats, and perhaps wanted to see if they could catch a bow ride froman orca. Another awesome day on the water... Around 16:30 we left the waters of Haro strait to head down Speiden Channel and San Juan Channel to the dock on the north end of Jones Island. Tomorrow we head back to Friday Harbor to reprovision and shower. JW October 7, 2010 Jones Island to Friday Harbor After a fairly extensive morning clean due to raccoon friends that visited our decks during the night, we headed out of Jones at 9:40 and made our way into Friday Harbor. We decided to have a quick pit stop to refuel, and drop off Val. After taking only 17 minutes to load 10 gallons of fuel on the boat and drop Val off, we set off south in hopes of meeting up with some SRKW's who had been spotted off Hein Bank. We made it through Cattle Pass and around 13:30 met up with about four individual. We followed the whales to just north of Eagle POint, and got about an hour of recording time in before having to turn around and head to Friday Harbor for reprovisioning. We arrived back in Friday Harbor around 17:00. October 8, 2010 Friday Harbor to Prevost On the science side of life today, we learned: 2 weeks worth of food takes twice as much space, whales were spotted in Puget Sound, if the currents are going north then we can't go to puget sound, it takes longer than we thought to clean a boat (especially if said boat still has lingering odorific effects from wednesday's septic tank disaster that still need sterilization). But we saw no cetaceans of any sort. Life progresses analyzing data from last week. Also, our boat neighbors' favorite song is "every rose has its thorn." (we're working under the assumption that they like the original poison version. October 9, 2010 Prevost to Snug Harbor We had high winds for a lot of the day, and we got some good sailing in at the north end of the island. The whales left Puget Sound and spread from Discovery Island to Ocra Sound, but they went down island by the end of the day. We all worked on the localization exercise and determined how accurate it is. Also the pizza for dinner was very good. October 10, 2010 Snug Harbor to Prevost Harbor The morning started out with decently high winds, and we sailed South for a bit. We dropped the listening hydrophone, but no whales, so we headed back to Snug Harbor where Scott came back onboard and Jason departed. Just before leaving Snug we made the numbers 350 out of our bodies to support 350.org on 10/10/10. We left and headed to Prevost Harbor in hopes of getting whale reports, but no such luck. During our journey we accomplished the tidal energy assignment, and spent the afternoon in Prevost. October 11, 2010 Prevost Harbor to Roche Harbor by Scott Veirs Patrolled north in Boundary Pass, heaving to for for about an hour near noon and listening/scanning for southern residents. Observed only harbor porpoises en route to Roche Harbor by 4pm to clear customs, add fossil diesel, fill water, pump out, and get final supplies for Dave's birthday dinner. Anchored near the Seattle Yacht Club dock and had a feast of pasta primavera, Greek salad, fresh squeezed orange juice, and cheese cake with chocolate ice cream and caramel. October 12, 2010 Roche Harbor to Victoria Inner Harbor by Scott Veirs Departing Roche Harbor around 7:30, we ran against the flood tide through Mosquito Pass to pick up Jason in Snug Harbor at 8:30. We proceeded down the west side of San Juan Island during passage planning, then turned towards Discovery Island at Andrew's Bay. We picked up a lost float on a tide line mid-Haro Strait, then sailed (at 8 knots over ground) through Baynes Channel where many harbor seals were hauled out. Rounding Trail Island we got word that humpbacks and transients were in the vicinity, so we quickly cleared customs in Victoria and headed for Race Rocks. We observed 4 humpbacks between Race Rocks and Constance Bank, then decided to forego an invitation to tour Race Rocks and instead observed a group of about 6 transients (the T2s?), including one calf, that were foraging as they traveled east along the Victoria coast. We deployed the CRT during both encounters, but did not hear any sounds of cetaceans, despite the fact that humpbacks vocalize during the summer months in Alaska and the transients had reportedly made three kills of harbor seals in the previous three hours. ID photos of at least one humpback's fluke were obtained, possibly two. Video was recorded of both species, as well. We left the transients just E of Trial Island, examined a harbor porpoise that we thought at first might be injured, lost it, and then sought moorage at the Causeway Floats in front of the Empress Hotel. October 13, 2010 Victoria by Scott Veirs Attended Canadian Acoustical Association meeting and gave tours of the Gato Verde. October 19, 2010 Prevost to Snug Harbor Dave Transients! Despite clear weather with calm water and reports of eastbound residents to send us to bed last night, there was not a sniff of residents until 16:00 today when reports from Port Townsend came in. Our intrepid whale watching friends, however, did manage to locate some Transients about 13:00 off of Kelp Reef right outside of Snug. We got a late start pulling out, but did catch up to them for some observations. No sounds were recorded in an hour, but we did note some interesting observations. The big male had the top 12 inches of his dorsal curved left at about 30 degrees. He did not seem to be listed on the transient ID guide, we also got an impression of his dorsal fin almsot facing the wrong way. They also demonstrated a pattern of 4 breaths and then a dive of consistently between 7 and 7.5 minutes in length. October 20, 2010 No whale reports. Spent the day working on personal research goals. October 21, 2010 Snug Harbor to MacKaye Harbor. There was heavy fog in the morning, so we stuck around the harbor until some of the fog burned off. No whale reports, so we headed down island to try to catch the whales if they came back up north from the Puget Sound area. Strong winds were predicted for the night, so we wanted to make sure to have well protected anchor. After seeing no whales, we ended up anchoring in MacKaye. October 22, 2010 MacKaye Harbor to Snug Harbor Weather predictions were for heavy winds (up to 25 knots) so we left the harbor with all the hatches battened and ready for some good sailing in the eastern end of the Straits of Juan de Fuca while we looked for whales. We headed out to Hein bank under sail, but when we got there the wind died and the sun came out. Another gorgeous October day in the Salish Sea. We looked and listened for whales, but saw none so headed north up Haro Strait. On the way we saw several Dall's porpoise as well as a young male deer that was dead. He showed no signs of external trauma, so it may have been swimming from one island to another and been swept away by currents and finally drown. This is the second deer we have seen in the water this quarter. The first was crossing the mouth of Mitchell Bay and very much alive. We headed up to Roche to pump out, get fresh water and a little diesel before heading to Snug for the night. October 23, 2010 Snug Harbor to Waves were moderate enough (1-2') at mouth of False Bay that we were able to deploy a 2nd Vemco 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. 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.