By Indeya, Lana, and Quinn—

Today, we awoke at five thirty AM and hopped in the van to the SJI County Park. The reason for this early rising was so that we could reach the beach at low tide. This enabled us to create transect lines from high to low tide. In total, we had it stretched 15 meters, ending at the waters edge. We then put our .5 meter by .5 meter quadrats down, starting at each meter and focused on the right side, to record the counted (some estimated) numbers of mobile animals, and percentages of attached animals and algae. A few of the mobile animals our field crew found were limpets, chitons, whelks, periwinkles, hermit crabs, etc. Some attached algae we found were green turf, red turf, green sheet, red sheet, hedophyllum, fucus, etc. And finally, a couple attached animals we found were barnacles, mussels, and other encrusting species. After finishing these transects, we split our transect line into three areas: low, medium, and high. We then used a caliper to measure and record at least 25 specimens in each section.

Photo by Tim Dwyer

Once we got back and had a quick snack, we headed to the science lab to go over the mistakes that sometimes go into data collection, and we all went over each others’ data and corrected any mistakes or writing that was unclear. We then wrote clear procedures of our morning transect and our slug transects from yesterday.

For lunch we enjoyed a mix of sandwiches and fruit/vegetables. After this well deserved meal, we again hopped in the van and made our way to the Friday Harbor Labs to take a ride in the Centennial. We used the Centennial to do a trawling and collect invertebrates (and some vertebrates) so that we could hold them in a tank and study them.

Photos by Seth Grant

We came across some bottom fish and got to look at them for awhile before putting them back in the water. I think this has been the most exciting day for the group thus far. Lots of crabs and fish and scallops came up in the trawl, and we all got to touch and see. It was truly an experience. We actually did two trawls and so we got to go through all the different species twice!!

Once back on the docks, Tim and Derek gave a diving demonstration and actually took a camera down with them so we could see. We had a walkie talkie kind of system and got to ask them to look at specific things or pick up some specimens we liked. A couple of us got sunburns during all this. We won’t forget sunscreen again.

Photo by Tim Dwyer

For dinner, an option between veggie or meat spaghetti and some bomb bread. But the day wasn’t over yet, we next went to an Antarctic photography presentation presented to us by Alasdair Turner called Antarctica: Ross Island and the Future of the McMurdo Sound Region sponsored by the San Juan Island Museum of Art. He showed us beautiful pictures and talked about the real Antarctica, like we would have never seen or heard otherwise. It wasn’t just all about beauty though, he also brought up why the ice was melting, global warming, ocean acidification, food chains, illegal fishing, and more. He was both serious and funny, and we’ve learned quite a lot. Until Tomorrow!!

• Here is Alasdair Turner’s Antarctica photography series.
• Here is Alasdair Turner’s Antarctica blog.