Beam Reach

Victoria, Whales, Plankton, and the Conference

O Canada!

Last week on the boat, we spent a couple of days in Victoria, B.C.  To make friends with our neighbors to the north, we learned a few facts about Canada:

1.  Gained independence: 1867 or 1931, depending on who you ask.  It’s worth noting that there wasn’t an independent Canadian embassy to the US until 1947

2. Prime Minister: Stephen Harper

3.  Currency: Well, they call it a dollar, but there’s not a single President on it.  Nor are there any creepy masonic eye pyramids either, so maybe they’re onto something.

4.  National Anthem (Music so you can sing along)

O Canada!  The land where we saw whales
A whale-less week at sea, ends with a humpback tail
With Transients near the waterfront
And porpoises galore
With Mt. Baker as our photo mat
They swim away from shore!

Chorus:
O Canada! Your conference we attend
O Canada! We duly recommend
O Canada! Jason’s talk at 10

O Canada! Your showers take loonies
What’s one to do, with American currency?
The Mounties nearly chased us down
On the morn we left early
But all was good, for we ate our way
Through our surplus fruits and veggies!

Chorus:
O Canada! Your conference we attend
O Canada! We duly recommend
O Canada! Jason’s talk at 10

THE WEEK OF MANY WOW’s

Not much to report from the beginning of the week and we were worried the whales had skipped town on us! But the whales soon returned and gave us an amazing show when they did! On Sunday the whales were very friendly. It was really interesting watching the change of behaviour when a large ship went past and all the whales actually swam towards the ship and changed their behaviour from milling to foraging.

On Monday we did a localization exercise, which is always fun as it gives us a chance to get out in the dinghy. We also did a calibration and spreading exercise for in air recordings with the newly improved microphone. The whole boat was ready to keel haul me after about 30minutes of Val’s specially made tone – that was even giving me a headache and I was 500m away.

Tuesday  the 5^th will now be known by all aboard the Gato Verde the day of many porpoises. It was also Megans birthday and what a treat! The Harbor porpoises (at least 20) were foraging all around us while we ate lunch and continued to drift with us for a couple of hours. Once we left them we thought it would be a quiet journey back to anchor, but as always the days here are anything but predictable. A group of Dahls porpoises started to bow ride with us, literally spraying us every time the came to the surface to breath (Porpoises Porpoising). In the evening me and Hana made an amazing cake (if I do say so myself!) that was in the shape of a whale. We all sang happy birthday and danced on the boat, it was amazing fun.

On Wednesday the larger marine mammals returned and we were all very happy about that, the adrenaline was really pumping. When we caught up with them there were at least 20 individuals and we saw 17 spy hops/breaches in 2 minutes. The Dahls and killer whales even ‘played’ together, which is so rare! They were all surrounding the killer whale and he didn’t seem bothered – amazing! The evening was not so fun, the raccoons descended on our boat when we were at the dock for the evening. They tried to get into the compost and even poked their heads through the windows. Needless to say we didn’t have a great nights sleep.

Thursday we came back to Friday harbor and dropped Val off in the morning. We did the fastest turn around yet of only 16 minutes. We then decided to take a gamble and head for the whales before returning to Friday harbor in the evening to do laundry and shower. The gamble paid off!  We had a couple of great hours with the whales before our tired yet satisfied group headed back to the labs and then into town to belatedly celebrate Megan’s 21^st birthday!

Anyway it was another great week here at Beam Reach, next week we head to Canada, so I’m sure ill have lots to report.

Birthdays, Whales, and Sustainability

Our break on land was very useful because it gave everyone a chance to use the wireless internet, and get some things done. The first day back on the water was mostly spent traveling to Port Townsend because reports of whales came in from Puget Sound. Unfortunately, the whales decided to pass directly by where we were staying during the night, and we could even hear their blows despite not being able see them. Also there is a hydrophone installed at at the dock there, and it did an excellent job picking up calls from the whales as they pasted by in the dark. Some of the students took advantage of being on land by taking walks after dinner, and a few even took a cold shower in the morning (I wasn’t brave enough for the shower). During a walk Cat, Hana, and I found the old remains of what once was Fort Warden. This was very interesting stop, however, the next day was spent fighting a extremely strong current to get back to San Juan Island and the whales. It was a good day for everyone to work on their projects because of the long trip. Going North payed off and we found the whales, and in the process we made it close to Cherry Point and Bellingham, which is my hometown, so that was fun so see it from the water. One day when we were with the whales near Victoria we witnessed close to 20 spy hops and whales breaching left and right; this resulted in some excellent pictures and videos.

The group also celebrated our second and third birthdays on the boat with some delicious dinners, and whale shaped cake, and a cheesecake. The birthdays helped pass the days that we didn’t see many whales. For 10/10/10 we decided to write an editorial as a group to advocate for people to make a small sustainable change in their day to day lives. 10/10/10 is an call to action for keeping the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 ppm.

Everyone had strong opinions about this topic, and the group had some interesting discussions while we wrote the piece. On that Sunday Scott had everyone form the number for 350 with our bodies, and he was hoisted to the top of the mast with his camera for some really cool pictures. Now we are getting ready for a conference starting on Wednesday in Victoria Canada. Customs have cleared us in Rouche Harbor and we are planning on leaving bright and early tomorrow.

I’ve eaten porpoise spit, have you???

Ok, now I know what you might be thinking: Porpoise spit?? Disgusting! But, before you judge, consider what I mean. There we were, sailing along on a gorgeous sunny October day (that happened to be Megan’s 21^st birthday—Happy Birthday!) when we were lucky enough to get Dall’s porpoises bow riding the Gato Verde again! How fortunate can one Beam Reach group get! They were so close that Megan and I, who were enjoying some fresh, crisp, amazingly delicious honeycrisp apples, got showered with some of the spray from their blows. HOW COOL IS THAT?? Too amazing. You’re jealous you haven’t gotten to eat porpoise spit, admit it.

How about some more random facts about the current Beam Reach experience:

1) I have now become a measure of temperature for the group. Despite my Midwestern roots, I am by far the coldest member of the boat at any time. I am typically wearing 2-3, sometimes 4 more layers than anyone else. Need an ice pack? Try my fingers!

2) Dave is pulling ahead in the cribbage competition. Which is absolutely not ok with this highly competitive girl…

3) Val Veirs (my current hero) has created a click detecting (aka “click counter”) program for my data analysis. Though this is wonderful and could make my data analysis infinitely easier, I’m still fighting with it, trying to get accurate and consistent results. I will keep you posted on my struggle with technology.

4) I am the first, and only, Beam Reacher to get stuck on an oar while climbing into the dinghy. This occurred while Megan, Cat, and I were attempting to go for a walk while anchored at Prevost. I won’t pretend that I’m the most graceful person, but I may have outdone myself with this stunt: wobble into dinghy, stumble down to the stern to make room for others, find myself (via the back straps of my lifejacket) attached to oar, attempt to free myself, only manage to flail about a bit, and nearly lose the oar in the water. Luckily, Megan had already successfully climbed into the dinghy and freed me from my trap. Whew. I think I impressed even Jason with that one.

5) The log of a number is the power of 10 that gets you the number!

6) When sewage doesn’t go where it’s supposed to go, it’s no fun for anyone. Seriously (thank you Capitan Todd!)

7) There isn’t a cooler view than standing on the roof of the galley. Well, maybe the roof of the cockpit is better. I don’t think you’ve lived until you’ve gotten a chance to experience a sunny day with an ocean full of whales until you’ve done that.

8 ) Orca shaped funfetti birthday cakes are the most delicious of all.

9) I’m running out of random facts.

10) When orcas pass your boat (that is fighting a strong current) and you can’t keep up with them, it feels exactly the same as when bikes pass your car while you’re sitting in traffic. Not a great feeling.

10) Oh oh! October 6, 2010 may have been one of the best days yet (are you sick of me saying that yet??)

So. Here’s why today was awesome. Gorgeous, sunny, (albeit a little chilly) fall day. Lovely trip down to Discovery Island, where we drifted a little and came upon…WHALES! There were like 20 whales all bunched together. So cool! There was a ton of spyhopping, and I mean a TON….we’re talking up to 3 at a time and like 20 in the span of 2 minutes! And even better, DALL’S PORPOISES CAME TO PLAY (would you really play with a predator that can, and has killed your kind??) with the whales!!!! The porpoises were darting around with the whales, even following some of them directly. It looked like a blast, and was such an amazing sight to see two beautiful species interacting like that. Definitely a top 3 moment for me!! That was the most exciting whale adventure for the day, but after a slight wrong turn south at False Bay, we headed north with them and saw some great foraging behavior. After docking at Jones Island tonight, we got to enjoy a warm dinner, leftover birthday cake (some of us may or may not have skipped right to the leftover frosting…), stargazing, and….RACOONS! I know I should be used to how cute they are and accept them for the dirty pests most people see them as, but they climbed up on our boat and were just SO CUTE! They’d press their little faces up against the glass and peer in, we’d scare them away (well, not all of us), and then they’d return for more fun. It was adorable. Granted, now we have to sleep with all our hatches closed since one did attempt to climb in to cuddle with Jason. All in all, a terrific day!

This day deserves its own post because…

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!

10/05/10

My 21^st birthday spent aboard the Gato Verde has definitely been one of my better birthdays. The morning started off with opening the box from my sister, which had the “perfect meal” in it: cheese, fruit, and chocolate in the form of easy mac and dark chocolate raisenets. It was classic. The whales hadn’t been sighted in over 24 hours so in hopes of cutting them off as they came back in, we headed south towards Discovery Island. There were a couple updates about Humpbacks and Transients, but they were too far for us to get to them, so we drifted for a couple hours in hopes they might come closer to us. During our drift we were surrounded by seals in Harbor Porpoises, at least they wanted to say hi on my birthday. No luck with the whales, but the currents and wind were with us to sail back up island! On our journey back north we got a brief visit from Dall’s Porpoises bow riding our boat again! If I wasn’t going to see whales on my birthday, Dall’s were a good substitute.

When we pulled into our anchor spot for the night, Garisson Harbor, Todd gave us a little talk about what to in a man over board situation and taught us how to heave-to in order to retrieve them. That is when I got banished from being inside. Dave and I went to sit on the front deck and he caught me up on the right of way sailing talk that I had missed from being in the clinic the day before. I also took that time to call my parents and catch up on some journaling, and after a bit Dave came to keep me company with his guitar as the sun was starting to go down.

When I was finally allowed back inside (almost 2 hours later) I was welcomed with a best of James Brown dance party and my awesome birthday sign. I had requested Vanessa’s mushroom stroganoff for dinner, which was AMAZING! Then it was time for my surprise that everyone else had been working on…AN ORCA CAKE!! Hands down the coolest cake I’ve ever had.

Along with my Orca cake, Leslie (Val’s wife) and I had made two shoo fly pies  the day before while I was not allowed back on the boat. Shoo fly pie is my favorite pie my grandma makes for me when she comes to visit me, it’s a tradition Amish pie and it’s so yummy! As if the cake wasn’t enough the group all signed a card with words of “wisdom” for being 21, got me an Orca wine glass, and a Bailey’s (non-alcoholic) chocolate bar as a joke since we are on a dry boat.

Click here for a recipe of shoo fly pie, or to just find out what it is!

Shoo Fly Pie

So, even though I was on a dry boat for my 21^st birthday, I would say I had more fun than most people on their 21^st because of the awesome people I was able to spend it with, the memories made, and the laughs that were had.  Plus, how many people get to say they have spent their birthday on a boat surrounded by marine mammals?

From 350 ppm to 350 orcas?

This Sunday (10/10/10) Beam Reach will  be joining thousands of other 350.org activists around the globe to do something about global warming.  If you’d like to help reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from its current level, 390 parts per million (ppm), back down to what scientists say is a safe limit (350 ppm), then use this map to find a local event that interests you.

If you can’t find an inspiring action to join this weekend, we recommend that you use this cool website to make your home more efficient.  Not only does the site provide a prioritized list of actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint, but also it shows you how you can save money through conservation.  It turns out green is gold!

We who live in Washington State have a special obligation to reduce our energy use.  Not only do many of us contribute to global warming by burning natural gas or fuel oil to get through the cold months, but our electricity use is directly impacting the hunger level of one of our most cherished regional icons: the killer whale.  You might think that because Washington Public Utility Districts get 82% of our electricity from hydropower, that we’re pioneers of sustainable energy use in America.

The problem is that we’ve recently learned that our local orcas love eating chinook salmon, particularly the big fish that return to the Columbia and Fraser Rivers.  Unfortunately, the same dams that provide our power are preventing the recovery of chinook populations on the Columbia and Snake Rivers.  Reducing our energy use in Washington is a direct way to allow more water to be spilled over dams in the short term (increasing smolt survival) and more dams to be removed in the long term (giving adult salmon easier access to pristine habitat).  With plenty of salmon to power them through the winter, perhaps our orcas could recover from their current ~85 animals to their historic 150, bringing the combined (southern and northern) resident killer whale population to 350 itself!

On land at Beam Reach headquarters in Seattle, we’re always humbled when the students at sea report their water and energy use levels.  Their typical daily water usage is only 2.5 gallons/person/day!  In comparison, in our typical residential house we use 40 gallons/person/day.   All energy on the Beam Reach boat comes from biodiesel, and the students’ usage is about 0.5 gallons/person/day.

At sea, we’ll be continuing our efforts to practice sustainability science.  We’ll be powering our studies of endangered killer whales with biodiesel bought from local supplier Island Petroleum Services.   Our captain, Todd Shuster, encourages us to burn biodiesel instead of fossil diesel in the 42′ sailing catamaran, Gato Verde, that has a nearly-silent Prius-like hybrid electric propulsion system that enables us to listen to the orcas as we move with them.  We’ll also be discussing the science and ethics of deriving liquid fuels from oceanic plants while filtering some plankton and taking a first stab at extracting their oil for conversion to biodiesel.

If you’re not a home owner or can’t modify your living space, another action we recommend is to try cooking a meat-free meal this Sunday.  Food production from farm to fork is responsible for between 20-30 percent of global green house gas emissions.  Over your vegetarian meal you can discuss joining the meat-free Mondays movement, a way to make small changes in your life that can make a big difference for the planet.

There are many ways to lower CO2 levels and many questions yet to answer.  We hope you’ll join us in considering them creatively while taking a few practical steps forward this weekend.

What happened to Sysaphus? Hopefully it was a happy ending…

Have you ever come so close to your goal that you can literally see it breaching out of the water in front of you, only to have it slip away? Or perhaps you recall the tale of sysaphus, pushing his boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down again just when he got to the top. Or maybe your team had the other pinned deep in their own territory, 4th down and 26 with less than a minute to go, only to watch that victory slip away? Well, not to be too dramatic, but that’s how close we were to seeing some Orcinus orca the last two days but not quite getting there. First we weighed anchor on Friday with the knowledge that fall was really upon us: K-pod was heading down admiralty inlet towards Seattle in search of the fall chinook and chum runs. Off we went, though it would prove to be a five hour trip down there. Admittedly, some of us were secretly pleased that we wouldn’t be recording data right away, given the 5:00 deadline for our proposals. Maybe we dusted ourselves with a little karma with those thoughts. Suffice to say that we pulled in to Port Townsend sans whale sightings (they were too far down Puget Sound). BUT, when we were playing around with our underwater camera and microphone at 10 at night, well fed and relieved to have turned in our projects, checking out the nudibranchs, nutridiums and nerocystis on the ocean floor, suddenly, an S16 call comes in the speaker. We rush up to the dock, turn on the hydrophone up there, and listen as our quarry passes us in the dark, heading north. ALAS!

In the morning, we are hopeful that somehow there might be a few whales still in the sound, or that they turned around and came back in. Did we come all the way down here just for an evening of cell-phone service and flush toilets? We linger, hopeful. That lingering proved too much. By the time we’re sure that no reports will come in from the sound, after we listened to 45 minutes of live internet broadcasts from Lime Kiln (www.orcasound.net, listen to sample orca calls: S17 (possibly) recorded 9/14/10, S6 (recorded 9/14/10), S1 (recorded 9/16/10), S2 recorded 9/22/10, (1st call in 2 hours, preceded a change in direction), S9 (sample file)), we’re fighting currents in our quest to get back to the islands. Reports are coming in left and right: whales at Hannah Heights! Black and whites at Kellet Bluff! K-pod at turn point! Our usual stomping grounds are silly with whales, but we’re dodging shipping traffic in the straight of Juan de Fuca. Then, just as we’re nearing our potential harbor for the night, we hear reports. They’re just around the corner. They’re heading south (towards us!). We change plans and sail off towards them. We get closer and closer. More reports come in: they’re calling a lot! They’re…heading north! (d’oh!) We’re so close we can see spouts and the occassional breach. But now they’re traveling. And the sun is setting. And we have to head to harbor for the night. We settle our stomachs with some gourmet burritos, settle our academic interests looking at the moons of jupiter, and go to bed hopeful for what will be tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and if any of you happen to know (or be) my mother, tell her happy birthday!

A magical day…

Log for September 16^th, 2010. The most bio-diverse day to date in the Beam Reach Experience!

Our days aboard “Gato Verde” (the 42′ state of the art Catamaran that is now our home) have been nothing short of surreal and magical. But on this particular day, the foggy and mysterious 26^th day in September, Poseidon was definitely on our side. It’s a foggy and mysterious morning, sailing with caution we set on our course for the day. Captain Shuster blasts his ‘fog horn’ at 5 minute intervals to warn any ‘invisible” vessels of our presence. By 10:30 am we’ve reached the bird aggregations (way point 168), surrounded by hundreds of birds of various species we are suddenly surprised by a couple of Minke Whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) foraging in the area. They’re  moving slowly among the kelp, giants among the dwarfed birds that rest on the surface. 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 training pays off as he captures an elusive puffin. The exact genus of this fleeting bird confounds the naturalists and scientists aboard the Gato.  The angle of the shot is not ideal, but a puffin it is indeed, that is a fact they can all agree on. Unable to decide between the Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata) , or the Tufted Puffin(Fratercula cirrhata), they leave the matter to rest, but a profound discontent lingers in the air. ‘Tis then when a Stellar sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) is spotted frolicking in the kelp, yet another wonder hiding in the heavy fog that envelopes the bird aggregations. Cat, our young and enthusiastic Britt  scientist, is able to record acoustically some of blows from the Minke’s for later comparison, taking advantage of the very quiet conditions we’d been enjoying on this lonely morning. By 1.30 pm we catch up with the orcas (way point 170). The day is still very foggy and there are fewer boats around than usual, including various small research outboards. In spite of the heavy fog, we are 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 see a calf spy hopping and vocalizing above water. We then enter a fog patch and think to have lost them, but then, all of a sudden, a crazy display of behaviors and vocalizations almost above water surrounded us. The ambient noise is now very low, and the whales and their echoing melodies are heard and recorded with crystal-like quality. The crew is now in a strange trance, no one can believe our luck. This day was to be recorded as the most exciting and biodiverse day in our adventure to date.

By the late afternoon, as the pretty Thea Foss crosses our path, we catch a school of Dall’s porpoises riding their bow wave. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Thanks for reading.

V

I’ll see you all this coming fall…

As we prepare to embark on our second boat tour, I’m reminded of a concept that I first learned about from the Coen brothers but have since discovered for myself.  They made a film around the turn of the century loosely based on The Odyssey about a trio of misfit fugitives on a quest to find easy money.  For each of them it means a different thing.  For one, it’s buying back the family farm, for one it’s the security and self-importance that comes with operating a fine restaurant, and for the Odysseus character, it’s about (of course) winning back his wife from a nefarious suitor but also about finding an occupation and a life path from which he can derive pleasure and satisfaction.  The film opens with an original 1928 recording of Harry McClintock performing The Big Rock Candy Mountains, a song about a hobo’s paradise where the jails are made of tin, where they hung the jerk that invented work, where lakes are made of stew and where you never change your socks while you sit beside a whiskey stream, trickling down the rocks. 

This, then, is the stage we’re at in our time here  We had two weeks of more adventure and learning than one could hope to ask for.  You can read in other posts about our gallavanting with minke whales, breaching orcas, water so calm and clear that you can see whales underwater as they pass and being pushed around the ocean by the wind’s free energy.  Was it real?  Did, as I remember, we really spend every day looking and listening to whales, and then using math to understand our findings?  (Remember, in my past life I was a math teacher, so applications of trigonometry warm my heart a bit).  As we spent the last few days on land catching up with the real world and then working hard with faces in computer screens and headphones on, analyzing our data and putting it in a usable form, the memories have faded a bit.  Can this Big-Rock-Candy-Mountain of the sea really exist?  Or did we make it up?  Wallace Stegner, in a novel he appropriately titled The Big Rock Candy Mountain, has the protagonist “never quite grant that all the good places were filled up.  There was somewhere, if you knew where to find it, some place where money could be made like drawing water from a well, some Big Rock Candy Mountain where life was effortless and rich and unrestricted and full of adventure and action, where something could be had for nothing.”  That’s what he was searching for.  For us these next two weeks, all I can ask for is that same feeling that was described so well on these other posts.  That’s my Big Rock Candy Mountain.  And I’m so excited to get back on that boat to go searching for it again!

If technology is on my side, I’ll leave you with a video we shot that first week.  Just a fleet of porpoises jumping around the boat.  That’s all.  No big deal, really.  Just another day in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.  🙂

Porpoises Porpoising