Hey Blog! 

Welcome back to the S(l)a(y)lish Sea Sciences blog written by the amazing group of two: Una and Millie! This morning, a few of us stopped in town for coffee. We went to The Crow’s Nest! I ordered a pistachio rose latte, which I thought would be more floral-y and nutty but it wasn’t, and ended up just tasting like a latte. Props to the barista: she worked like a pro, making 4 different drinks all at once.

After working on our projects for 30 minutes, we went to a local high school to finish up what we did yesterday: PCR for the Invasive Mussel Project! After working carefully to measure out PCR cocktails with micropipettes, letting our PCR tubes run through the thermocycler, and setting up our gel electrophoresis, we waited excitedly to see the results. We expected some cute glowing lines demonstrating gene sequence length that would allow us to determine the mussels’ species when compared to the DNA marker. Instead, we got nothing at all! Other than the important life lesson that science can be frustrating and disappointing, I guess. Sam Garson, who was directing us, guessed that the issue was something that unfortunately we do not remember.

Our guest speakers, Sofia Denkovski and Erin Casellas from Soundwatch, came in at 3 o’clock and talked about Orcas! Specifically near the Salish Seas. They first talked about the different marine mammals in the Salish Seas, then went on to the scientific names of different whales, then talked about Orca identification. We did a fun game of Orca ID, identifying different orcas based on their saddle patches and dorsal fins. We learned that each saddle patch on an orca is like a fingerprint to a human–none of them share the same one.

After the informative presentation, Adam drove all of us down to South Beach. We watched the sunset, ate pie (the rhubarb pie was so good omg??), and climbed the cliffs and logs all while the wind blew in our faces, making us chilly. We took a lot of photos and watched the sky turn indigo. It was the perfect time to reminisce about our trip and all the memories we made, since this was our second to last day.

See you all tomorrow! I can’t believe this is almost over, time flies!

Isabella, Riya, and Stella

Our benevolent dictator, Adam, let us start the day with a late 8:00 AM wake-up. While the extra sleep was greatly appreciated, we all would have liked to sleep for another twelve hours. 

After a quick breakfast, we gathered at the table with our notebooks and pens to reflect upon the kayak trip we had just returned from the day before. Caroline asked us three questions: 1) What did you learn from this experience? 2) What is an anecdote you want to hold onto? 3) How did you grow from this experience? As we all ponder these questions, Caroline explained that we are doing the reflection because moments are fleeting, and if you do not write them down, they fly away, never to be seen again. 

We all piled into the van for our first stop of the day, American Camp National Park. Once we arrived, we were quickly greeted by Emilio Santiago, a park ranger and archaeologist who has worked in several parks over the United States.

Emilio opened the visitor center and gave us a general explanation tour and history of the building. He explained that every plack had gone through all eight tribes that had historically inhabited the Salish Sea. He pointed out the Canoe paddles that had been hung on the wall and that each one had been carved by one of the eight tribes. He gestured towards a mural painted on the wall and told us about how the purple flowing was called Camis and has a humongous significance to the indigenous people of the area because its root was one of the staple foods. After a brief tour of the building, Emilio set the group free to roam around the visitor center. 

After we stopped at the status of the pig who started the Pig War, a war between the English and the Americas started after an English pig was shot by American farmers because he had been eating all his crops. We held a quick photo shoot with the pig and then were off again. 

Emilio led us to a spot with a great view of the park and everything around it. There he motioned toward the burial ground where thirteen soldiers had been buried, casualties of the pig war. He told us how smallpox had devastated the indigenous people and how wooly dogs were used for their fur. Emilio was an endless fountain of knowledge and was happy to answer any questions we had. We were truly lucky to get to speak with such a knowledgeable guide. 

After the American Camp, some of us decided to climb some trees cause we just goofy like that!  

We then hopped into the van and headed to False Bay. On the way down to the beach, we saw many adorable puppies and stopped for a good ten minutes to pet all of them. We also saw a garter snake in the grass! It was super cute!!!!!!!!

Although Millie was a little weirded out, haha! We all enjoyed lunch on the beach, and Stella, Sonja, and me (Riya) were crying and hoping someone would see how lonely we were……… :,((((

After that, you know what time it was: project grind time! Some of us goofballs also decided to dogpile on the couch. 

I slammed my computer closed, the undeniable pressure of perfecting my proposal too much to bare. Luckily, there was light on the horizon: swimming in Egg Lake. Ever since I read the schedule the night before, I knew that this upcoming swim would be entirely and utterly life-altering. I suited up in my swimming suit and a new coat of greasy sunscreen, and we were off!

After a group car singalong performance of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” worthy of a Grammy, we stepped out of the van into the unpleasantly brisk air. I had never experienced such a chill (a low 70° 😨). Although I had my qualms about swimming and making myself even colder, Maya, Keelin, Una, and Cleorr jumped right in.

Eventually, I jumped in, with the support of my bff4lyfe Sonya, and found that 1) It wasn’t that cold, and 2) The seaweed at the bottom of the lake was, in fact, hairy.

After a solid hour of swimming and a toe in William’s mouth (thanks to Caleb), we returned to the dorms and took a much-needed break (trying to drown your friends is downright exhausting).

After an early dinner, we were off to our final event of the day: a talk given by Dr. Rachel Collin. The presentation detailed her research on tropical marine invertebrates, specifically sea urchins. Although the graphs may have hurt my head to look at, we were all completely invested. 

When the talk was over, a woman enthusiastically reminded us for the 4th time that there was an ice cream social after in the commons (I think she might have liked ice cream). The sundaes were the cherry on top of an already great day (haha, I’m so funny).

Goodbye, for now, loyal bloggers!

Xoxo,

Isabella, Riya, and Stella

Hi readers!

Welcome back to another day in the lives of Salish Sea Science’s awesome students. Today we woke up at 7:30 and started our day off by driving to Friday Harbor Labs to view another necropsy. However, when we got there, we discovered that there was no necropsy happening today (GASP). Luckily, Adam’s lightning quick thinking saved us. He drove us down to False Bay, an important spot on San Juan Island where all of the bay water completely disappears during low tide. We walked on some of the flats in the bay and found literally tons of crabs.

When we were done, we returned to the dorms and got some extra time to work on our final projects. Some of us were very productive, but others(me) got distracted playing Wikiraces 3 and spent more time finding Benedict Cumberbatch’s wikipedia page than working on our projects.

After eating lunch, we left for the Friday Harbor Whale Museum and learned about the massive marine vertebrates that call the Salish Sea home. We got to touch a gray whale’s baleen plate and learned about the Salish Sea’s Resident killer whales. But for some reason, everyone’s favorite part of the museum was the coloring pages they had in the kids section. Relatable.

After an eventful time at the whale museum we got to go to the Friday Harbor High School and do some experiments with mussels. Using PCR we will be able to identify which mussels are the invasive species from the Mediterranean, which are native, and which are hybrids of the two. We smashed the mussels (sorry Maya), cut out some membrane, mixed in buffer and proteinase k, and left them to process overnight. 

Although it was just thrilling to be in a school during the end of summer, we were excited to go to the thrift store after and try on some ridiculous outfits (I think William would win if it were a competition). 

Then everyone had the exact same craving for French fries, lizzy and I went to a restaurant down by the pier while Cleo, William, Una, Millie, Stella and Riya got some from the bait shop. We will be testing tomorrow which fries are better, we’re very excited for round two of French fries. We roamed the town a little bit before coming back to campus to do our jobs like dinner, blogging, and research on our dinner guests. Today Justin Cox and Jessica Farrer from the SeaDoc society who would’ve done our highly anticipated necropsy that we sadly did not have. Lucky for us we have an entire dinner to ask as many questions as possible to make up for it!

Today was the final day of our kayak adventure!!!

Since we managed to arrive at Turn Island before setting up camp on Sunday, we were rewarded with a late wake-up of 10am this morning. Despite some hesitation, most of us went to sleep last night on the beach, snug together under the stars and moon rather than a tent and rain-cover. The weather forecast was clear, and this way we were just a short reach away from a nice, warm racoon to snuggle up with. Racoons are so cute. 

The skies, of course, promptly proved all predictions wrong and thoroughly soaked our sleeping bags as soon as the clock struck midnight. While this did leave some a bit chilly this morning, I like to think it was a refreshing start to the day. The rain stopped around 3am, leaving us with enough time to get in some more sleep before waking up a few hours later. 

After we all finally stumbled out of our sleeping bags anywhere from 7-10am, we surveyed the impressive reorganizing skills of the local racoons, retrieving our torn-open pancake mix for a very tasty breakfast. Over the following couple of hours, we packed up our kayaks for the final time before waving a final goodbye to the very smelly toilet on Turn Island as we pushed off onto the water.

Once offshore, we linked together our kayaks, floating while we got some sweet photos. We let the current drive us as it pleased for a bit before paddling onwards for our short trip to shore. The sun really decided to shine down on us for this final stretch, giving us clear skies and slight sunburns. 

We soon stepped out into the relatively warm water at Jackson Beach, pulling up the kayaks onto the beach for a final time and unpacking all our gear. After taking a quick dip into the wonderful water, we set up for a sandwich lunch. The PB&Js were incredible. They were a serious motivator throughout. 

Once completely packed up into the van, Greg and Julia dropped us off back at Spring Street where we raced to take showers and do our laundry. It was a good shower – I would say it may even be up somewhere in my top-20 showers list. We all scrubbed off the built-up grime and dug into the incredible cupcakes that Barrie made. I never want to wear my water shoes again. They are so genuinely gross. Luckily, my bed isn’t, so I can look forward to a comfortable rest tonight.

I think it’s safe to say that we are all a little bit completely pooped-out, so we settled down for a mellow afternoon and evening, readying ourselves for another day of fun.

We all woke up at 8:00 am, ate breakfast, and then spent a long time repacking everything onto the kayaks. We kayaked all the way to Shaw Island, where we stopped for lunch and enjoyed sandwiches and ice cream. Following our eelgrass seed collection experiment (which you can see on day 2), we kayaked to the opposite side of Shaw Island. When we arrived, Greg, our kayak guide, told us that the ranger on duty did not think we would be able to kayak to Turn Island, where we would spend the night.After then, Julia, another member of our kayaking team, stated that the group of individuals who entered their boats the quickest would receive some money. As everyone scrambled to get ready and get into their kayaks in order to earn that money, this led to quite a bit of mayhem.

Photo Cred: millie

Julia said that Sonja and I (Brian) had won and would be receiving the money the following day while we were all in the water. When we got to the island, some of us went swimming, and Caleb, William, Riya, and Kellin all went to the nearby tiny island. However, given how frigid it was, the water may as well have been from the Arctic. After everyone’s dinner, which turned out to be pasta, dinner was ready. opted to argue We even organized a little competition. After that, everyone retired for the night.the sky, where we all hugged or “spooned,” but didn’t fall asleep completely until after 9:00 o’clock.

Photo Cred: millie

Hey Blog, it’s Caleb! The one that keeps getting called out. Anyhow, today we all woke up early, and took two vans. The first took us to a primary location (Port of Friday Harbor), and the second took us to a secondary location (an undisclosed beach). Anyone who has watched a decent amount of John Mullaney would know that Detective J.J. Bittenbinders first rule is to never get taken to a secondary location because if you are taken to a secondary location your chances of getting saved drops to zero. J.J. Bittenbinder apparently isn’t always right because when we arrived at the secondary location they did not handcuff us with zipties, but instead, put us in lovely kayaks! 

Once we had finally finished struggling to pack up the kayaks we suited up in lifejackets and spray skirts and then got our pedals situated for our varying heights and leg lengths. I feared it would be difficult for me due to my larger stature, and my fears were not assuaged when I was referred to as “big guy” by one of the guides.

Anyhow, once we were all situated, we launched and started paddling towards our lunch spot at Turn Island. We stuck close to the coast and coasted on the counter currents to gain a bit of a boost. There was one rock we passed that was absolutely covered in seals that hopped in the water and poked their heads out. The water was covered in little seal head bumps, all rather curious about some dinky teenagers in some weird fiberglass vessels. 

After getting to our lunch location and consuming sustenance we explored the beach we were stopped at and I found some fresh oysters attached to some rocks. I shucked one oyster and ate it raw on the halfshell even though I was warned there was a 50/50 chance of me getting sick from eating it, but you know, life isn’t worth living without a few risks. In this case I lucked out and was perfectly fine. 

After paddling a total of ten miles we finally made it to our campground! After dinner we went on a night hike to the beach where we observed bioluminescence. We enjoyed throwing rocks into the water and watching all of the bioluminescence that was activated. After the bioluminescence we all went to our tents.

BLOG TIME!! It’s stinky crew!! Except William because he is arguing that he’s not smelly. So that just leaves me (Maya) and Elizabeth to hold up our name. 

We started today with a nice hike up Mount Grant this morning. It was very pretty but most of the time we were busy chatting. About half-way up we decided to start playing riddle games, which lasted till we got back to the van. It started with William’s “perfect line” riddle, which was basically nonsence and I’m still not quite sure what it was. He is very proud of it though. It took us a really long time to realize the rule was that we had to say “okay” before we made a line between any two objects. 

Anyways, we also played black magic, snaps, and a couple other tricky games. Keelin had a game called trains, which took William a while to realize was alphabetical. We played snaps pretty much the entire way back.

I learned a new word!! Thigmomorphogenisis. Adam taught us it at the peak of Mount Grant. Basically, it describes when a plant changes its growth or development because of an abiotic factor, like wind or something. So not only is it a cool fact but it’s a funny word.

Hey guys, It’s Lizzy now! I’ll be taking you through the middle part of our day.  

After hiking down, we got into the van and drove to Roche Harbor where we explored the town and got massive amounts of ice cream. We then sat in a small garden and talked for some time until we needed to get back into the van and drive to Lime Kiln Point State Park.

At Lime Kiln we met Erin Corra who works for a non profit organization in collaboration with the state park. She gave us a tour of some of the property. We began our tour by looking at some of the oldest trees along the trails and learning about them. Some of the trees included the Western Red Cedar, the Douglas Fir, the Madrona, and Big Leaf Maple. She explained the special characteristics each tree had and the history of the tree in the area. We also walked to the water and learned about the different types of rocks that exist along the water. We saw basalt pillow rock, which comes from volcanoes, bedrock, and granite. 

We then made our way up the shoreline to the lighthouse. The lighthouse was built in 1919 and we were able to go inside and up to the tower where the light is. The lighthouse is also used for whale watching (specifically Orcas) and they had a big board with a list of all of the sightings of different pods that live throughout the islands. Below the lighthouse is also a hydrophone which can pick up noise that is detected around. This is a cool way of hearing what goes on below the surface of the water and sometimes you are even able to hear whales communicating!

Howdy folks, William here. After our delightful tour of Lime Kiln Park, we drove to Zylstra Lake, which is a gorgeous lake in the middle of the island. Zylstra lake has not always been a lake, it was originally a small river but has been damned for agricultural use. Sadly, we could not swim in the lake due to the prevalence of blue-green algae during the summer months. Regardless, we received a scintillating tour of the ongoing riparian conservation efforts from Shauna Barrows, who we will be lucky enough to eat dinner with tonight. 

Our tour began with a bumble bee petting session, during which I was able to get over my fear of bees. Apparently, bumblebees love physical touch, and if scaled up to cat size, would be similarly affectionate. After saying goodbye to our fuzzy friends we hopped in the van and followed Shauna to a dried-up creek. The creek is normally full of water, but during the dry season remains dry(obviously). She explained her efforts to cull the local reed canary grass population, a task which has proven very difficult, as the grass grows to knee height in just 3 weeks. All of her efforts are focused on keeping the lake clean, currently, the lake has off-the-chart levels of Nitrogen and Phosphorous, but she intends to bring that back down. 

After that delightful tour, we headed back to the dorm, and we all got some free time. Stella’s grandmother was having an art show in town, so some of us when to that, while others went for a dip in the frigid Salish Sea. Caleb will try to tell you it is not that cold, Caleb is wrong, Caleb is not to be listened to. The water is cold, manageable, but cold. Having dinner with Shauna was a pleasure, and the following presentation was enlightening. Today was a very fun day, but it will no doubt be overshadowed by tomorrow. Tomorrow we begin our 2-night 3-day kayak trip, which we are all super excited to begin. The camping will be pretty rough, so don’t be surprised if there are no blogs for the next few days.

_____

Here are some more random pictures from today!

By Una and Millie

Hey Blog! Did you miss us?

Since the last time we chatted, we have acquired the names of many seaweed species. Cattle Point, where we traveled today with Dr. Katie Dobkowski, is home to various species, and the Salish Sea Scientists are now fit to identify them all! After an 8:30 wakeup (more of these please!), we armed ourselves with quadrats, measuring tape, chalk, and ID cards, and set out to survey the seaweeds.

After some tripping and slipping we located the transect D marker. Our brave soldier Caleb ran out the measuring tape, staying impressively upright the whole journey. Shocking! He fell later though. We laid out the quadrats and poked around in each square, determining the approximate percent coverage of each species on the rocks. We saw lots of sea lettuce (ulva!) and rockweed (fucus distichus!).

We also found some more exciting specimens such as tasty sea grapes and petrocelis, which, while looking like spots of tar (or, in my opinion, old sidewalk gum), is actually the encrusting stage of mastocarpus. The data we collected would be used to further a 10-year-long study investigating the changing populations of seaweed on Cattle Point. 

When we returned home, we were met with a cruel reality: PROJECTS! Just kidding, they don’t sound too bad. After a bit of research on those, we rewarded ourselves with a cold swim at Jackson Beach, which feels really good after the initial blast of agonizing, aching, tingling, stabbing, crippling, paralyzing pain. We warmed back up really quickly on our barefoot run back though! We were still 10 minutes late. 

That’s all for now! See ya tomorrow. <3

Hi readers!

After a slightly later wake up than yesterday, we took a trip to the Friday Harbor Labs to watch a necropsy. The Washington Stranded Network found a newly dead seal pup which was luckily able to be preserved enough to have a successful necropsy in order to figure out the cause of death. The workers found strange bumps on the seal neck which could have been from a dog bite and put many pieces of the seals into containers to be shipped to other facilities for research on the animal. 

After an eventful necropsy we made our way to a hiking trail and walked for around 30 minutes to find a sea star surveying location with Dr. Derek Smith. Unfortunately, we didn’t find our pathway down to the beach so we had to venture out into the forest and hurdle over large ferns to get there. A few of us had an interesting conversation about what we would do in the event of a zombie apocalypse. 

When we got to our site, we started trekking over the intertidal area, counting and measuring several types of sea stars. These populations had been severely decimated by the sea star wasting disease, so we were counting them to see if their numbers had increased or decreased since the past few years. Everyone did an amazing job helping the scientists find the sea stars, even though it was a little slippery (poor Caleb!).

After hiking back from the beach, we took a tour of the Friday Harbor Labs. We were able to explore many of the different labs spaces and hear lots about the projects going on. The lab experiments used water pumped directly from the Salish Sea so that all of the subjects are in their natural environment. We also learned about different kinds of microscopes like TEM and Confocal laser microscopes that can show us 3D images of organisms. For all the science nerds out there, GFP, an incredibly important protein in monitoring gene expression in organisms, was first discovered at Friday Harbor Labs! 

By: Stella, Isabella, Riya

Today’s destination was Shaw Island, the smallest of the four San Juan islands. At 6:30 am, we were awoken by Barry’s quiet knock (or by our roommates if the knocking wasn’t enough). We ate breakfast, packed lunch, and debated whether cheddar cheese and strawberry jam were a good combination. We loaded up the van and rushed to the ferry terminal, only to find our ferry was delayed a little over an hour. After some aimless wandering and stopping at the Salty Fox for drinks, we boarded the ferry and proceeded to reenact the Titanic (a rite of passage for ferry rides).

While the ferry was parked at one of the stops before Shaw, we observed a few seagulls and passionately discussed lesbian seagulls. You had to be there. Sorry blog readers (not sorry).

When we arrived at Shaw, we made a quick stop at the best (and only) store on the entire island, the Shaw General Store. We picked up snacks (we were already hungry) and admired the Dr. Bronner’s soap selection (more on this a little later). Once back on the road, we made our way to the beach, excited to collect Eelgrass seeds to assist Dr. Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria, Dr. Cinde Donoghue, and DNR in their conservation efforts.

Half of us suited up in waders, and the other half were left with rubber boots (I’m still salty I didn’t get waders)

We were given a brief on how to identify the flowering shoots and the phases of the seeds to ensure successful collection, and then we were off to work!

Some of us were more successful than others, and some simply provided moral support, like our BBBBBBB (beloved beautiful bashful best bag boy Brian). If you can’t tell from the name, he held the net for the seeds we collected. We lost some steam as we went on, but we were pretty successful (expected as we are such a hardworking, amazing, and cool group). 

After collecting eelgrass seeds, we stripped off our boots and waders. Our gear managed to keep most of us relatively dry, with the exception of Brain, who fully imposed the fact that his boots were filled to the brim with water. As he walked up the path to the parking lot, his boot squelched loudly, and water poured out the sides. 

We ate lunch in a grassy field. It was a much-needed break after the hard work of eelgrass seed collection. Sadly our break was not long because, after about fifteen minutes, we were informed that the tide was too high to go out again and that we had two options: 1) Race across the island to the ferry that left in ten minutes 2) Spend the next five hours on Shaw doing who knows was and get back late. Needless to say, we chose the former. So in the blink of an eye, we packed up our lunches, put our boots in the back of the van, and were off.

Little did we know that when we arrived at the ferry terminal, the ferry still had not reached the terminal. So the group decided to go to The General Store again to see what Shaw’s only store had to offer.

Once again, Caleb was enamored by the bottles of Dr. Bronner’s Soap. He loudly touted the many amazing uses of the bottle of eighteen-in-one of soap. When asked for a comment about the Dr. Bronners for the blog, Caleb said he would be keeping all of his Dr. Bronner opinions to himself for now so that he would be able to later share them on his own. I encourage you, dear reader, to keep a lookout for Caleb’s Dr. Bronner opinions which hopefully will grace the internet soon.

On the way back from Shaw Island (a very fun but tiring outing), the ferry which we ran to catch ended up getting delayed by an hour. We were “sooo disappointed” that the cars couldn’t get out of the ferry because that meant we wouldn’t have to – oh I mean GET to! – go to the Friday Harbor Labs and instead got a chance to explore town.

Me and my gals (and Brian!) decided to check out the various nail-bitingly-expensive goods of San Juan. First, we headed to a toy store appropriately named Toy Box to get some fun games for us to play. 

After that, Cleo joined us and Brian DITCHED US when we went to some boutique shops (wait that makes sense: I don’t know why he’d wanna go to a boutique) that were WAYYYY out of our budget… 

But besides that, we were too broke to afford any clothes or good stuff, even though we found some gems: toddler sunglasses and an overpriced fedora (it was $50)!! 

It’s all good though – we visited a thrift shop right after where Cleo got suchhh a good deal on brand new Levi’s. Like $30 dollars – for a brand new pair! The thrift store was definitely more in our budget. Oh yeah – and the thrift store also had so many Barbie dolls… 

After our shopping, we strolled back to the school and met up with the hardworking essay writers Keelin and Maya and walked home. Super exhausting day, but so much fun!!