Beam Reach

Calibrating the vertical array

Reid Harbor to Snug Harbor

The weather today started out cold but became very nice. We tried to pump out at the barge in Reid Harbor, but it wasn’t working so we decided to go to Roche Harbor instead. Before we left, Jason got on the dingy and fed the plug end of the single hydrophone up through the drain for the recycling area so we have an easy deployment of a hydrophone. At Roche we pumped put, filled the propane tank and bought milk, and then were on our way. We drifted down the west side of San Juan Island till about 4:00 when we turned around so we sould make it back to Snug in a reasonable time. While we were drifting we decided to re-try the lightbulb implosion experiment and had much more sucess this time. There were no waves or dodging ships. The 100m test went of beautifuly. The imploding light bulbs made a great sound, kind of like a gunshot. The first snag came on the next test at 200m. The recorders heard 6 sounds and stopped the recording but two of the sounds were taps where the smasher got stuck on the lightbulbs and shortly after stopping the recording we heard a great implosion. The next test was another at 200m and this one set the tone for the rest. It didn’t go as well but good data came from it. All three tests at 400m had problems, but between the three there was usable data. After we pulled up we headed back to Snug Harbor for the night.

Dall’s porpoises and calibration analysis

Mitchell Bay to Reid Harbor

Finally the winds died down enough for us to venture forth into Haro Strait again to look for whales and conduct other research. We enjoyed some breezes in the morning and rode the flood time up to Turn Point on Stuart Island where we positioned ourselves to watch and listen for killer whales. Val came aboard this morning in Snug Harbor which allowed us to have mentor meetings with both Val and Jason and all to iron out some more of the wrinkles in research methods. Science always makes its best progress when multiple minds focus on a problem and discuss the matter at hand.  During the day we were graced with sightings of a number of porpoises, including two different sightings of around 3 Dall’s porpoise in the area of Turn Point. This was a real treat as we have not seen many in these waters during the last several years.  After a wonderful dinner at the dock in Reid Harbor we revisited our calibration exercise to make sure we all understood the process and decide which the most appropriate calibration factors to use were. Nothing like an invigorating discussion of logarithmic decibel scales around the lounge of the Gato Verde to end off the day.

Simulating science in Snug Harbor

Mitchell Bay to Mitchell Bay

We bunkered down in snug harbor today and didn’t even bother to stick our noses out into the Strait. The small craft advisory and warnings of gusts up to 60 mph kept us away and content today. The sun was shining although the wind was blowing, and we were able to avoid all sea-sickness by avoiding everything other than our lovely harbor. We discussed various methods of taking data and send Jason out in La Gatita to pretend to be whales behaving in several manners while we took recordings.It was quite entertaining to see the dingy bouncing around in the harbor and catching enough wind to almost send Jason into the brisk water. Luckily, he made it back just in time to start dinner. Being the responsible one on board, he was sure to serve broccoli, beets, and polenta-lasagna. Oh, we did spot a harbor seal taking a few breaths and resting at the surface just a few meters from the bow. So there’s the reported science from the day. Other than that, we worked on papers and read several scientific articles between the five of us. I think that if you combined all of the knowledge that our brains host, you could form a small acoustic and marine mammal behavioral library.

Searching the San Juans for J pod

Mitchell Bay to Mitchell Bay

We headed out towards the south side of the island in hopes of finding J pod. Not much wildlife sightings today, other than some seagulls. No updates on the phone or email on sightings of J pod either, which was sad for us to hear. We had a general prediction that since they finally came back into the area, they are still looking for the fish to eat. It is like moving back home after college life in the dormitories: the whales have to resettle into the area. We anchored at Mackeye Harbor on Lopez Island to have a quick lunch consisting of grilled cheese sandwiches. At Mackeye, we finished our calibration exercise using the data that we got from the hydrophone calibration yesterday. Afterwards, we headed back up to Mitchell Bay, spotting about 3 seals (unidentified) poking their heads out of the waters. At Mitchell (Snug Harbor), we then enjoyed at nice dinner cooked up by Jason and Nora: chile. Then moved on towards journal club to finish off the night.

Dall’s porpoises and hydrophone calibration

Prevost Harbor to Mitchell Bay

Since J Pod is back in town, our main goal today was to find the whales. We started drifting down the west side of San Juan Island hoping we’d find them in Haro Strait. Around 10 am, several Dall’s porpoises surfaced off of Gato Verde’s stern. Recently, Dall’s sightings have been few and far between, so it was very exciting to see them! Once we had passed Lime Kiln Point State Park without any whale sightings, we decided to calibrate our hydrophones (the array, the “blue box,” and the flat-frequency hydrophone). We rigged them up side by side and lowered them 5 meters below the surface. We made several successful recordings. Later in the afternoon, we decided to try to search for the south hydrophone array with the Splashcam. Unfortunately we had technical difficulties and had to abort our mission, but Jason solved the problem and we will likely try to deploy the Splashcam again soon. After a morning and afternoon of no whales, we made the executive decision to start working our way back up the west side to find someplace to anchor for the night. The Southern residents seem to be swimming clockwise around the San Juan Islands, and we are hoping they’ll loop back around to Haro Strait tomorrow.

Circumnavigation and J pod synchrony

Jones Island to Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island

We started today with the intention of finding the orcas. Once we made it out into Haro Strait we realized that the winds were very strong and that even if we found the orcas it would be very challenging to deploy the hydrophones. We made amazing time riding the tides and sailing at about 10 knots over ground, so we decided to circumnavigate San Juan Island. We got a lot of sailing in and made it up to Stuart Island around 4:30 and had a sailing lecture before finding out that J pod had been spotted heading north at Lime Kiln 1.5 hours prior. We decided to go out to the point to see if we could spot them as they passed by. We went out and at the tip of Turn Point there was a line of white water. It was the convergence zone of the upwellings caused by the tides moving over the rocks near the point. There was a mass of gulls all feeding in the upwellings. We went a bit further and saw some orcas. It was very exciting! We didn’t ID them because they were too far away and they weren’t on the surface in any predictable pattern. We thought that they were foraging so the direction they were moving was hard to tell, but we thought they were moving north.

Bruising and cruising

Friday Harbor to Jones Island

We received a call today requesting assistance in the necropsy of another Steller sea lion. We met Joe at Orcas Island and made the short trip to the sea lion location. This was a lot like the last time, blunt trauma with severe bleeding in the abdominal region, heart, and lungs. The bruising of the tissues is something I have not experienced before, which was pretty neat. Jason and I met up with the rest of the crew in Friday Harbor, finalized packing the boat, and set our sights on Jones Island and the lovely Gato Verde. It feels good to be home on the boat. We had burrittos for the our first night of the first week at sea, and had to uphold the tradition again this first night. Hopefully the whales will join us tomorrow.

Racing as sailors and scientists

Snug Harbor to Jones Island (North side)

We practiced deploying our hydrophones again today, this time during a mock/surprise whale encounter timed by Jason’s watch. Hopefully we will get quicker as the probability of seeing the Southern Residents increases. We were also able to deploy the CT (Conductivity/Temperature) probe down to 100 meters, meaning that Scott Veirs graced us with some sea shanties while hauling the cable. The most exciting part of the day was not very science related, but a chance to test and strengthen our sailing skills in a friendly competition with a local sailing group. What a lovely day! Tonight we are docked at Jones Island and will have a chance to wander around and enjoy the scenery.

Cameras and hydrophones off Lime Kiln

Snug Harbor to Snug Harbor

We woke to a very quiet boat this morning since two of our crew, Jason and Scott, were on land. We picked them up and decided to head down to Line Kiln to try and find the missing hydrophones with the SplashCam. On the way we hit perfect sailing weather and got some sailing practice in preparation for the race tomorrow. When we got to Lime Kiln we deployed the camera and all was going great for about 20 minuets until the cord got caught on the starboard propeller and got damaged. Since it was caught pretty good, Scott had to dive down and unwrap it manually! He managed to successfully unwrap the cable. Then we decided to get some practice deploying the hydrophones. First we deployed the blue 4-hydrophone array, which I call Blueberry. That went smoothly and we got to record around the lighthouse to test if the lighthouse array is getting interference from the lighthouse or from something in the water. After we brought Blueberry back on to the ship we deployed the flat-frequency-response hydrophone, “Hiphone”, which Libby will be using for her project. We tested it at a few different speeds to see what towing speed has the least interference. We had some animal sightings, including an otter and a harbor seal.

Searching the sea on Earth Day

Port Townsend to Snug Harbor
After giving our regards to the mating river otters of Port Townsend, we motor sailed northwards practicing at the helm and sighting two puffins as we passed False Bay. Before entering Snug Harbor we tried out the YSI probe and the plankton net, devising a protocol for monitoring basic physical and biological oceanographic conditions where the southern residents focus their summertime attention. Finally, we tested out the Splashcam video camera while beginning our Earth Day project: searching for our mooring ball which was sunk by growth last winter. The camera wasn’t very useful unless it was resting on the bottom, but we’re hopeful that we can locate the old ball and replace it with our new (more buoyant) one so that we can minimize our impact on the Harbor, a place that we know is swept nearly bare of eel grass by anchor chains.