By Denny Bromley

Today’s activities were entirely focused on students’ individual projects, and as such, there won’t be much to report in this blog. However, after dinner, we will have a special speaker. Dennis Willows is a director of FHL, as well as an aviator, ship captain, and neuroscientist. He’ll be talking about the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to three FHL scientists, as well as the story behind the discovery and development of the GFP first observed in 1972.

By Bryce Ridwan, Ian Connolly, and Sarah White

Last night after the blog had been written we decided to go out in the harbor and drop lights down into the water. At first all we were seeing was a few polychaetas but then something amazing happened. Harbors seals came from all around there were about 4-5 seals one of which was just a pup. We stayed and watched until about 11:30 PM before finally going home.  Today we were woken up at around 9:00 AM and as people started to meander down the stairs and come down to eat breakfast we were told we would be going down to the Farmers Market. After everyone was ready we were given $20 each to go explore and eat whatever we wanted. We walked down to the farmers market which is near the Brickworks building, and there we saw a collection of tents selling all sorts of different products ranging from food to jewelry. After about 2 and half hours we all came back and grouped up to leave for the Pelindaba Lavender farm. Once we arrived at Pelindaba we were greeted by Dr. Stephen Robins, the founder and owner of the farm. We were seated on and around a picnic bench where he told us the story of how the farm was founded. Dr. Stephen Robins was previously a physician and came to the Island to retire. At first he bought 10 acres of land and later 10 more to preserve the land. After the purchases he wanted to make sure the land would stay open far into the future, and the best way to do that was to start farming. Dr. Stephen didn’t know what to plant and had no knowledge in farming, so he started to research. After a time he landed on lavender which fit all four of his criteria: 1) it didn’t need a lot of water since the island is in a rain shadow 2) it couldn’t compete with the local farmers 3) the plants did not need to be fertilized and 4) it needed to be economically viable. Once the decision was made he started to transform the land. The farm is surrounded by French drains to make sure water wouldn’t kill the lavender and the mounds, which make any water that does fall on them funnel away, all faced downhill which leads to a steam. He also told us about all of the amazing properties of lavender. Lavender can be used and an antiseptic, sedative, and an anesthetic and Dr. Stephen has made a swath of products that are sold in both the Pelindaba stores and online website pelindabalavender.com. After he was done telling us all about the farm we got to enjoy all the flowers and products that can be made for about an hour before we finally headed home.

By Eliza and Henry

Whale hello there! Today, the Salish Sea Science students met pod T065A, a pod of 6 transient killer whales with 2 brothers from pod T077. Pictured is  T077D, a male born in 2009. The Salish Sea crew was abruptly awoken at 8 a.m. by the sound of Alex yelling that there were orcas spotted at eagle bay. We all hustled into the van and drove to Land Bank and eagerly awaited the orcas. When they finally made their way to us, we all watched in awe as they swam by together as a pod. Once they were farther out, we hurried over to San Juan County Park and watched as they departed over to Canada. After this exciting event, students went back to the dorm and began working on project introductions. This included blacking out a room for some students, setting up tanks, and heading to a tide pool to collect data. We then planned our night walk to the Friday Harbor docks to look at the different abundance of life present at this time and bioluminescence.