We left Snug with a series of science goals for the day. We headed south on the ebb tide towards Lime Kiln. On the way there and back we deployed the Biosonics 200 kHz echosounder for the first time. This marks our first forays into using active acoustics. We got so excited that we even lowered a video camera under water to see if the objects we were interpreting as fish and eel grass really were fish and eel grass. We did see a few fish, but for sure the eel grass we saw on the echosounder was real eel grass. We also figured out how we would deploy the hydrophone array along with a high frequency hydrophone. Because some of the student projects involve high frequency clicks, we needed to add a hydrophone with a high frequency response. We figured out a new configuration that would allow us to do that with the regular linear array on the port stern and the single high frequency hydrophone on the starboard stern. After dinner we had our journal club discussion about an article on prey species of Northern and Southern Resident killer whales. All in all a productive science day.
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On Monday of this week the Spring 08 Beam Reach program set sail on the Gato Verde. They’ve been all over the west side of the San Juan Islands including False Bay and Snug Harbor. I’ve gotten several emails and as of Tuesday they hadn’t seen the whales. I hope they are getting to use the tools from Biosonics to check out the salmon. I’m sure they are seeing plenty of other interesting sea life. I’ll post an update once I get more details.
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We awoke to white caps out in Boundary Pass and discussed navigation and weather forecasts. Emerging from Prevost Harbor we ran under jib alone around Turn Point lighthouse, enjoying our first views of Mt. Baker on the eastern horizon. The wind moderated in the lee of Stuart Island and we bore for Roche Harbor with a plan to pump out the sewage tank. Around noon we entered Roche, having noticed an unusual aluminum boat crossing Spieden Channel with us, pumped out and bought some lamp oil. Scott met the Al boat owners who had built it themselves and invited them to visit Gato Verde once we reached Snug. Around 1:15 we transited Mosquito Pass, anchored in Snug Harbor, and began our Earth Day project: creating and deploying an anchoring system that would do less damage to the bottom than spinning on our normal big anchor. About the time we were done, Bob and Helen Oliver (the owners of the Wharram Designs aluminum boat “Sanderling”) joined us for dinner on board and we all indulged in grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.
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We now have another state of the art tool for our students. In a pilot project with Biosonics — a fisheries research equipment manufacturer in Seattle — Beam Reach students will be using a 200kHz hydroacoustic instrument to track salmon (the food of choice for the killer whales).
This will allow students to investigate the whale’s food when the whales aren’t around, which could lead to some answers about where the whales go, when they go, and why. It really opens up a whole new dimension through which the students can investigate why the whale population is declining and what we can do about it.
I’ll continue to post updates, but I also recommend following Dr. Scott Veirs’s entries to see how this unfolds. It will also be interesting to see how the students utilize this new tool.
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After an overview of passage planning (charts, currents, weather) from Todd, we practiced tacking and jibing in 10-12 kt winds, traveling NW between Spieden and Waldron Islands. The wind moderated in the early afternoon and we eventually motored into Prevost. At the dock the students each collected a series of mocked up data to test out their projects. We had everything from pseudo-pectoral slaps and fake socializing orcas. They also collected associated acoustic recordings that they could analyze at a later date. After dinner most of the students took advantage of the land and went for a walk.
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Transited under electric power from FHL dock to SW Jones Island mooring buoy. Todd gave orientation to safety protocols, the Gato Verde, and the practicalities of cooking in the NOLS-style.
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This quarter in an attempt to keep people abreast of our science activities I’ve been asked to post blogs on our science endeavors. Each day we rotate our tasks, one of which is to be the science officer for the day. In addition to taking the lead on the science we conduct that day, the science officer also writes up a short synopsis of what science we did that day. For the science blog online I’ll just be posting these daily synopses, so only every sixth or seventh science blog will have actually been written by me. The others will have been written by the students and other staff, but in many ways this blog will emulate the collaborative science that we do, it’s a joint effort that we are all involved in.
I hope you enjoy following along this quarter.
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We just got back from the FHL dock. The difference between this trip to the dock and previous ones is that this time the purpose was not an acoustic exercise with speakers and hydrophones. It was a swimming exercise/cold plunge. The water temp is about 9 degrees celsius which is cold enough. The idea behind the cold plunge is that if one of us were to fall off the boat, we would know what the water feels like. We all took the plunge, Val and Jason included. I don’t know about everyone else, but I had a lot of fun taking the plunge.
This quick swim was the second coldest water I’ve been in. As a freshman my school has the viking bath which consists of running into the waters on cape cod in late December. It is actually a little bit of a rush which is why I always enjoy swimming in cold water. The cold plunge today brings back a lot of those memories, but at the same time seemed very much different. Thanks to Val’s waterproof camera we will have some good documentation of our plunge.
As for our time at FHL campus, it is slowly drawing to a close for the time being. Sunday afternoon we begin loading our gear on the boat and set sail. As excited as I am about finally being able to go to sea and study the orcas, something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember, it is also very much bittersweet as I start to get ready to go. I’ve gotten so use to seeing the other people here at the labs that it is going to be strange to not be able to see and interact with them as we have the past few weeks. People some times get so caught up with the work they are doing that the forget to notice the people around them who enrich their daily experiences. It is something that is more and more common in todays society and something which I hope I never take for granted.
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in just a few short days we’re finally going to set foot on the Gato Verde!
i had been a bit daunted about how i was going to pull off my research idea as well as understand it all in time, but after meeting with Jason today I now pumped to start getting to work! I decided to go about recording actual masking, so I am going to play clicks from the underwater speaker while boats go by (and a whole bunch of other things too- I’m working on the list…) It finally feels like things are coming together for the trip- like all the food we bagged up at the NOLS center in Skagit, and putting together the watch rotation.
For now I’m going to enjoy FHL while I still have the chance…
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Well the Beam Reach students are about to figure that out. It’s amazing to me how quickly students learn in this hands on program. The instructors provide them with an introduction, show them how things work and why, and then help the students in the field. Some of the students know almost nothing about acoustics when they arrive and leave knowing how to gather acoustical data, interpret it, and use it to draw conclusions.
I’ve been a part of Beam Reach for a little over two years now (I’m in the office) and, while some of this rings familiar, it is still so complicated to me because I’m not a scientist and I haven’t gotten to do the program. (I’m finding it more and more difficult to get away for a week, much less ten of them!)
So it is with true joy and amazement that I watch our students absorb this information and become confident in their abilities. Here’s a sample from a beginning exercise they do. To some of you out there this will make sense, to the rest of us, well we can only be grateful that somebody understands it.
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Dear students,
Congratulations on making it through the calibration and spreading sessions
on the dock this morning, as well as the very brief Matlab tutorial.
For your exercise that you should hand in before 5:30 this afternoon (via
email) you should include the following information:
The metadata for the two experiments.
The calibration factor for each of the 4 hydrophones and an explanation of
how you calculated it.
The received level (in dB re 1 microPascal) of each hydrophone for the
spreading experiment.
A plot of those received levels vs the log of the distance from the source.
A regression line through those data points with the slope, R-squared value
and the source level (in dB re 1 microPascal @ 1 m).
Just in case your confused; the following channels correspond to the
following wav files:
Calibration ex:
A01_1.wav Ch 1
A01_2.wav Ch 2
C01_1.wav Ch3
C01_2.wav Ch4
Spreading ex:
A03_1.wav Ch1 (the farthest hydrophone from the speaker)
A03_2.wav Ch2
C03_1.wav Ch3
C03_2.wav Ch4 (the closest hydrophone from the speaker)
Also as a reminder, the energy exercise is Due at 8:30 on the
16th. Because we will be off island this weekend and again on Tues to pick
up food for our adventures at sea, you should plan on collecting the data
that is needed for the energy exercise today or on Monday (look back at the
excel sheet that Val gave you for a reminder).
I'll post next week's syllabus in S1 so you have an idea of what will be
happening.
Good luck
Jason
Jason Wood, PhD, Instructor
Beam Reach, http://beamreach.org
Marine Science and Sustainability School
jason@beamreach.org
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