By Leighna, Ayla, and Camden
This morning, there were two groups of people: students who woke up early to hit three low-tide beaches and those who elected to sleep in until breakfast. The early risers went to Dead Man’s Bay, Reuben Tarte, and another beach on the north end of the island to collect data. Little did they know that they would see the rare and glorious Fin Whale off of Dead Man’s Bay that day, an elusive mammal that has not been sighted around the area since 2015.
On the other hand, those of us who stayed at the dorms woke up to a rude, loud fire alarm (there was no fire, fortunately). Although no one knows who or what or why the fire alarm went off, but nothing was on fire and nobody was hurt. Some students took that as a sign to wake up and get started on the day, while others fell right back to sleep. We had a lazy breakfast and had until noon to work on our research projects. Derek came back with a tired but happy group of the explorer students, and we immediately went to the classroom to learn about scanning eelgrass with Morgan Eisenlord.
With the guide of the eelgrass specialist, we learned how to properly dispose of and rinse eelgrass scans, as well as how to create new slides and labels for the next scans. These scans are used to measure the prevalence and severity of eelgrass wasting disease. After around an hour, we left for Friday Harbor Labs to watch Tim Dwyer and our very own Derek Smith dive under the docks.
The divers began their presentations by walking us through the gear and how to properly prepare for a cold water dive. They have to wear many layers and weights as well as air tanks to prep for the cold waters and crushing water pressure. When the time for the divers to jump into the water came, all of the students crowded around the one and only diver elevator at FHL. Derek and Tim then began their dive, starting a beautiful underwater show for the rest of us on land watch through the lens of an underwater camera. The duo found many anemones, barnacles, a disregarded iPhone 6, two clown nudibranch, two sea lemons, two blood stars, and even a sunflower sea star! They dove under the FHL research vessel Centennial, showed us around the large sea anemone garden, and taught us about the organisms that thrive under the docks.
After the dive was over, we looked at the organisms the divers caught (the nudibranch, sea lemons, blood stars, sunflower star, and a couple anemones) closer. We learned about where nudibranch’s gills are, the sensitivity and surprising power of sea stars, and the evolution of the number of sea star arms. Those 2-3 hours flew by in the blink of an eye, and we unfortunately had to leave to get back to the dorms for a break and an early dinner at 5:30. (We are writing this blog in this break time.)
The accreditor readiness review team from AdvancEd, Joanne and Nancy, are joining us for the dinner of Israeli salad and barbecue chicken. After the meal, we will head toward to the San Juan Island Library presentation at 7:00 by Thor Hanson, lecturing us about berries for 2 hours.