Beam Reach

Cliffs and calls

Our time at sea went from one end of the spectrum to the other. Our first two weeks we had no whales and the last couple weeks we couldn’t get away from the whales. That combined with our sailing curriculum, software problems, and general life on the boat made for some long days. We did have some chances to relax with episodes of the flight of the conchords courtesy of lindsay as well as a copy of the life aquatic courtesy of the staff.

We were also supposed to have some time off to go on a camping trip friday night on doe island. However, what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men is true. After making smores and singing around the campfire things went downhill rapidly. When I say things I mean me and when I say downhill I mean off the side of a cliff. As you can probably guess by the fact I am now blogging about it I survivied. Falling 25 feet down a cliff has left me with many painful cuts and bruises, some very interesting memories, and a new sense of the bigger picture. Although I was very lucky not to suffer any serious injuries (I was even able to climb back up the cliff) it could easily have been much worse. I do want to take a chance to thank everyone who made sure I was alright that night.

Now I have to turn my beat up body to the task of analyzing all my data and trying to draw some conclusions from them. Although I did not get as many socializing events as I would have hoped for, I certainly got more than enough to keep me busy. As much as my body would probably like a rest, science waits for no one and I have lots of whale calls to keep me company as I heal. That said I should get back to work.

final week madness

jeez you’d think after going to a college with 10 week terms I’d be used to chugging along through the final crunch, but I guess not! the work’s definately cut out for us this week, but it will get done … … … … its the getting done part thats the toughie…

the last week on water was an interesting one- who knew that we’d almost wish the whales would give us a break some time so we could analyze some data, or at least in my case wish there were absolutely NO marine mammals around so I could do my light bulb experiments- its quite funny. In total we ended up having 11 days with the whales- not bad for having no days for our first two weeks. And the amount of click day is ENDLESS….I wonder how many clicks total were recorded – I bet like 50,000 at least- what an excellant sample size that could be! (haha, yes note the “could” be). I ended up getting my other desperately needed spreading loss data- because of a certain seal (I lets call him Pesky Pete) I couldn’t do my experiment in Salmon bank, but found some shallow and seal-free waters in Griffin Bay before we headed into FHL for our one last time…

 we didn’t get to sail too much our last week 🙁 but I did get a few chances to sail the Cyprid, which I quite enjoyed, except the wind liked to die-off in rapid bursts and then gust for a few moments while I was in there. My hand-made anemone turned out pretty cool, in a very un-planned way which made it look like a realistic anemone at low tide (the big squishy ones)- I hope the Beach watchers like it (and i also hope it doesn’t get stuck to anything, it’s basically made out of glue), the tentacles actually come in and out!

besides the data collection (and awesome photos of breaches, tail slaps, J1, and yes MORE dork) we had nights of flight of the conchords, excellent food, analyzing data, analyzing problems in our analyzing programs, re-analyzing data after figuring out what we did wrong in our analyzer programs, and cliff diving- and we made it out alive! I also flew Val’s kite again off the Gato Verde, which also almost got lost at sea and it’s tail stuck in the prop, but was rescued (our man-over board drills have been really handy) and got to flying again for one last hurrah! I must say it was sad after our last day, even though we were exhausted after it all and cleaning the whole boat- no more whales or towing arrays for a while 🙁

 and now I am back to work!

Beginning the Countdown

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All of last week seems to be blurred together because so much has been going on. We had a lot of time with the whales, especially when we headed all the way up the Georgia Straight to catch them. I tried to take a plankton tow up there but lost the bottle off the back of the net and ended up using a rubber scraper to get what microscopic life I could from the sides of it. The plankton ID stuff has been a little side project of mine and I was hoping to map the types of plankton along different areas in the San Juans with Robin, a post-doc fellow here at the labs, but I only ended up doing 2 samples all week! Leslie came on with Val yesterday and that was a lot of fun. We had mexican sushi for lunch and homemade pesto pasta(made by Dominique and Laura) for dinner. We cleaned the Gato Verde bottom to top today and even with all that team work it still took around 6 hours. It is a relief to be back in home sweet home S1.

Echosounding the west side with J pod

Snug Harbor to Snug Harbor

This morning we learned one of Newton’s laws of motion, that an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. In this case the object was the wet mooring line and the outside force Lindsay’s face. Still giggling, we headed out of Snug Harbor and surveyed for fish 1/8nm offshore down to Lime Kiln. There we encountered the leader of J pod heading northward. Continuing to collect echosounder data as we began to parallel sub-groups of J pod, we traveled offshore to near Hein Bank before heading back northward to Lime Kiln during a strengthening flood tide. The whales left us around 4pm, so we conducted a bathymetric survey of Lime Kiln. En route to the Sound Watch celebration back at Snug, we collected echosounder data 1/4 mi offshore from Lime Kiln northward and then cooked up rosemary potatoes, steamed broccoli, and a big greek salad.

Orca echos and diatom blooms

Thursday 05/22/08
Snug Harbor to Snug Harbor

This morning we got a voice message letting us know that the whales were spotted at Hein Bank at about 8:00 AM. After an invigorating breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, with a dash of onions and peppers, we set off to go south from Snug to catch up with the whales.

While we were busy beginning to deploy the Echosounder to get some bathymetric data around Lime Kiln, the leaders of the pod got to us first, so we began a scramble to deploy our hydrophones. Unfortunately, the CRT gave us some difficulty, so we spent some time cleaning out the phantom box, and testing different flow noise sources of the hydrophone and by going at different speeds. Eventually solving the problem, we were back on track to re-deploy and gather some data! We began to log Echosounder data as we recorded hydrophone data.

We had a very exciting first session right in the main shipping lane, with one whale breaching twice in a row off our portside stern, proceeding later with more breaches and tail slaps. We were quite astonished. After the spectacular show, the whales seemed to mellow out, and began to slowly travel/rest north along the west side.

At about 1:30 in the afternoon we decided we would tilt the Echosounder 90 degrees in order to try to ensonify a whale and see what a 200 kHz whale echo looks like. With much luck and Scott’s excellent angling abilities, we were able to track a group of whales at ranges of up to 170 meters.

Meanwhile, during this macroorganism action we also had some very exciting microorganism action. Robin and Lindsay used two 20-micron plankton tow nets to collect diatoms off of Lime Kiln. They filtered the water they collected in the homemade single-use coffee press and looked at the remaining diatoms left on the filter paper under the microscope. We found that there was a single species bloom, which is unusual because the samples Robin has taken at the labs have contained many species.

Afterwards we began to record some more hydrophone data, following the resting whales until they reached Boundary Pass, where they began to vocalize and regroup from their scattered positions (we estimated about 9 whales in the group). It was a very interesting display of tail slaps and pectoral slaps, with the whales getting silent as a large ship passed through the scene.

To avoid the growing flood, we made our way back to Snug Harbor (while flying a kite along the way), dropping off the lovely Robin. We ended the evening with some sunset dingy lessons from our wind blown Capt’n Mike.

Double breach video

One of the Beam Reach students, Ryan Spragg, captured this double breach on video today:

It’s a notable clip in part because we were towing 4 hydrophones at the time, one of which is calibrated and sensitive up to about 50kHz. Another student, Lindsay Delp, will use the recorded underwater sounds of the breaches to compute the source levels (after she determines the ranges from the calibrated hydrophone to the percussive sounds).If she succeeds, this could be the first time that the “loudness” of such magnificent breaches is determined. The measurement may help us decide whether breaches (and other percussive behaviors like tail lobs and pectoral fin slaps) have a communicative function or not.

The first spring Beam Reach program is nearing completion. Don’t miss learning about how loud breaches are — along with other interesting recent findings — at the final presentations at Friday Harbor labs this June, 7, 2008. If you can’t make it in person, final papers and talks will be available at the students’ home page — http://beamreach.org/081

Resting on the west side

Garrison Bay to Snug Harbor

After taking Jason to the dock for some well-deserved shore leave we transited to Snug Harbor and welcomed Dr. Robin Kodner.  Emerging into Haro Strait at a very low tide we headed south on advice from Jeanne and were surprised to find about 8 members of J pod (J2 matriline?) resting in a tight group off of False Bay.  We listened to them as they slowly made their way up the west side of San Juan Island, but hear neither click nor calls for more than two hours.  As we passed Kellett Bluff, J1 separated from the group and headed NW across Haro Strait.  We paralleled him and gathered detailed data about how his clicking related to his surfacing and dive times.  The echosounder was on throughout and showed intermittent targets at mid-depths.

Spreading experiments; Js up at Point Roberts

Mackaye Harbor to Garrison Bay

At noon we pumped out at Friday Harbor, refilled propane, and picked up Scott and Ford’s call catalog. Ivan and Jeanne said hello as they headed up towards Point Roberts where J pod was reported about noon. We went up San Juan Channel and discussed whether we should go north to Sucia or west to the west side. Eventually, we decided on Garrison Bay and set a science goal of measuring spreading somewhere in Haro Strait. After passing through Spieden Channel we deployed the array and high frequency hydrophone and recorded four impulsive sounds at a range of about 25-45m. The we transited to Garrison Bay and set anchor, troubleshooting the port prop where we found the saildrive had disengaged. With a sigh of relief, we dined on cheesy potato patties that called for no cheese. Luckily, Ryan and Dominique added plenty along with a green salad and we all went to bed with bellies full of energy for the chilly night.

J pod in the E Strait of Juan de Fuca

Pelican Beach to Mackaye Harbor

Since we had left the southern residents heading north in Rosario the night before, we headed northwards to seek them out again and maybe visit Sucia Island.  Mike got a friendly call telling us they had somehow doubled back, passed us as we slept (with Jason listening to the hydrophone all night), and were actually down south.  We reversed course, came back down Rosario and encountered J pod off the southern end of San Juan Island.  We paralleled them almost half way to Dungeness Spit before leaving them (heading west towards the open Pacific) and seeking safe harbor at Makaye again.

J pod recording in North Rosario Strait

Friday Harbor Labs to Pelican Beach (Cypress Island)

We departed Friday Harbor at approximately 9:30 in the A.M. and headed south through Cattle Pass. Then, on word that J pod were nearing the north end of Rosario Straight, we headed east in hopes of meeting up with them in the process. As the day progressed, we learned more of J pod’s whereabouts and eventually we were able to catch up with them. We started recording at 17:39:30 and captured lots of clicks, calls, and whistles. During our recording, one whale surprised us by suddenly breaching close by. We captured the breach on film and hopefully in the recordings as well. Our evening data-collecting stroll came to a close amidst a sunset and the sound of distant blows as the whales headed north. In short, the day was a productive one despite only recording for about an hour. Hopefully we get some more tomorrow!