By Elspeth with Denny, William and Jonathan

Happy late 4th of July! Today, Salish Sea Sciences took a step back from the science once again to enjoy the holiday. We slept in until 8, and finished eating breakfast and getting ready just in time for the San Juan Island 4th of July Parade. Everyone was excited, and it very much lived up to our expectations. All of the floats were wonderful, but the pirate float was a particular favorite.

After the parade, we had lunch at the fairgrounds. There were pulled pork sandwiches and hotdogs along with chips and coleslaw, and the proceeds went to the Kiwanis club. We spent some time watching the games and hanging out before we headed back to the dorms once again to regroup. Soon after that, we all drove to Roche Harbor to see the log rolling competition and have more time off. There were a lot of people, but we managed to find a good spot to watch the competitions. We also found some time to sneak science in when we observed the organisms living on the Roche Harbor docks and compared them to the ones in Friday Harbor. It seemed that the organisms on the docks in Friday Harbor were bigger compared to the ones in Roche, but we’d have to find more data to actually prove it one way or another. Right before we left, we noticed some old generators and went to take a look. The people in charge of them were very nice. They explained how they worked and let us help to get them running. 

We returned back to the dorms to eat dinner and blog before we left for the fireworks show. It was a very impressive end to a very celebratory day.