Alex, Sam, Anne, Tim and Ashleigh recording orcas off False Bay

Saturday, September 15, 2007

 

Val cooked veggie omelets for breakfast and just as we were finishing cleaning up, we got a pager that J and L pods were resting near False Bay.  Anne proposed we cut our morning meeting short, and we lifted anchor and headed out of Fish Creek to sail up the coast of San Juan Island looking for orcas.  There were a large number of whale watching vessels out today, despite the wind and grey skies.  We were able to trouble-shoot some worrisome rattling that we had been picking up with the hydrophones and collected our data.  The killer whales seemed to be feeding and were very active at the surface, lunging and rolling.  Alex was more excited about the boats than the whales, as her project is focused on assessing the Whale Watch Guidelines.  Sam jokes about feeling the onset of carpal tunnel after processing far too many numbers for her preliminary data product due tomorrow.  Anne and Tim are finding that they spend most of their time with the whales staring at computer screens and listening to headphones, but are hopeful that we recorded some great calls and echolocation clicks today.  And Ashleigh has been busy learning correct nautical radio-speak and acting as spotter and photographer.  By late afternoon, we reluctantly pulled in the hydrophones, and sailed north to anchor near Roche Harbor for the night.

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