This morning, we started off the day slow and steady with a cheeky 9:00 AM wakeup, followed by lots of time to work on our rapidly approaching projects. Most people made solid progress on their projects, and by the time our project time was over, we had to pack our lunch as we were off to Mount Grant. Mount Grant is a beautiful mountain owned by the Land Bank Trust, filled with stunning scenery looking over San Juan Island and Vancouver Island. We had around an hour at Mount Grant, before we decided to split up. Some of us decided to head down to various spots across the island for more data collection, while the rest of us headed on down to Jackson’s Beach for a quick dip and a joyous round of beach volleyball. Today’s round of volleyball was chock full of ups and downs; incredible rallies, missed serves, and crazy hits from our star player Philip Yohan “6’2” Miller. Nonetheless, it was a fun time for all who attended. We decided to have an early and casual dinner, consisting of no name tags, brilliant pizza cooked by our very own Barrie, and Tommy being judged by Emma for eating ranch with his pizza. Because we finished dinner early, we were able to make it 30 minutes early to an outdoor viewing of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” Since we were so early, we decided to frolic in the nearby garden for a little while. While the garden was beautiful, the main attraction was truly the play itself. The play was filled with laughs, fun, tragedy, romance, and even deep wisdom. Though we will depart back to our homes soon, we will leave you all with this insight. As Malvolio once said, “some are born with greatness, some achieve it, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

Signing off for now,
The Salish Sailors

We are now in the full swing of our projects. Today, we spread out across San Juan Island and had a slow and steady day, some of us collecting data and resources, while others stayed back at the dorm and did more research.

One of our beloved peers, Hannah, had a full day at Friday Harbor Labs researching her Tunicate embryos under the guidance of Dr. Billie J Swalla. Olivia and Khadija were also at Friday Harbor Labs, searching for decorator crabs. Unfortunately for them, their search proved fruitless and yielded no crabs whatsoever. On the other hand, many people were out in the fields, scrounging San Juan Island’s many beaches for data and materials for their projects and busting with excitement. Maddie and Philip went venturing out into the harsh lands of False Bay, where they encountered trials and tribulations in the form of nasty spikes and heavy water buckets. Tommy and Ethan were also on the great plains of False Bay, scavenging for an assortment of bubble snails. On the other side of the island, Finlee went to the joyous Fourth of July beach, to collect eelgrass specimens and photograph them. Vedha was also with Finlee, and, with the help of Emma, took soil samples and identified different species of seaweed within quadrats.

We ended the day with a presentation from Dr. Tom Mumford, who is an active voice in the kelp community where he stresses the importance of protecting kelp and the species that rely on kelp. His current projects are “Kelp Recovery Plan for Puget Sound, Washington” and the development of the Ocean NOMAD (Nautical Off-shore Macroalgal Autonomous Device) for low-cost production of biomass of food, fuel and feed. We urge anyone who is interested in kelp to check him out.

Today was a truly action packed day, but maybe the real action was the friends we made along the way.

Signing off for now,

The Salish Sailors

We had a quiet and peaceful start to the day with a cheeky 7:30 AM wake-up, however, we were quickly rushed to the van in order to make our 9:00 AM appointment at Friday Harbor Labs. At Friday Harbor Labs, we split into groups and rotated amongst many stations to learn about various student projects. These projects had an emphasis on the ideology of how future generations will maintain their place within the ocean. Shortly after our visit to the labs, we attended a Marine Botany lecture on the diversity of non-articulate Crustose Coralline algae. Then, with our busting excitement, we made our way back to Spring Street International School while blasting Lady Gaga in the van. Once we made it, we settled into the afternoon finalizing our research project ideas and what we want to work on for the next two weeks. Nearing the end of the day, we got to unveil the kelp presses we made a week prior. These works were simply astonishing. The pieces were incredibly versatile, varying from intentionally organized seaweed kelp to abstract pieces of art that would rival even the works of Pablo Picasso. Finally, to end our night, we were all busting with anticipation to have dinner with Doctor Katie Dobkowski, who works in the Department of Biology at Bates College. Her studies also includes ecology, biomechanics, and physiology. After she left, we had so may questions to ask her, luckily we were able to see her the next day for field work at Cattle Point.

Signing off for now,
The Salish Sailors

By: Vedha & Max

Today we woke up early and headed towards Cattlepoint, where we talked to Jessica Lundquist who is a professor at the University of Washington who taught us about coastal fog it was wonderful and very educational, we all learned about electromagnetic radiation and its effects as well as convection cells.

We then headed back to a delicious lunch and brainstormed some ideas for our projects (we all were so excited). After a small break we walked down to the Friday Harbor Marina to investigate the differences in biodiversity in both this area and the Friday Harbor Labs (it was amazing) we saw many different sea animals such as a crab, sea urchins, sponges, kelp, sea cucumbers and more. We then discussed what we saw and prepared for our dinner with Dr. Kenneth Sebens whose interests are in marine benthic ecology, coral reef ecology, hydrodynamic effects on marine benthos and theoretical ecology. After dinner, Dr. Kenneth Sebens presented to us about many of the marine organisms in the Salish Sea. We learned about everything from nudibranchs to bryozoans. Most of us had very little knowledge of marine invertebrates prior to this experience so Dr. Sebens was pretty helpful in teaching us a lot more about them.

By: Khadija, Emma, and Ethan
We start in the late morning allowing everyone the chance to sleep in and have time to exercise. Anticipation is building for our eventual departure on our kayaking trip, which we embark on tomorrow. Shifting gears, we took the Big Candied Red Apple Van for a short jaunt to Friday Harbor’s fabled Whale Museum. Listening to the fascinating information from our glorious tour guide, we learned about different types of mammals. We were encouraged by the conversation messages to protect our orcas across the Salish Sea. However, in the middle of our tour, our hearts sank as deep as the Titanic when we observed the bones of deceased conjoined harbor seal twins. We reflected on our humanity as we moved passed the exit. To kick off the afternoon, we had a quick, and zippy lunch. Followed by an eloquent speech done by Dr. Rebecca Guenther, Ph.D., that used a plethora of hard words that were incredibly hard to spell. As people press flowers, Dr. Guenther taught us how to press seaweed. Everyone worked hard to express their minds through algae. We placed certain seaweeds in certain places to create an image, whether it was organized or abstract. We winded down the afternoon by positioning algae on posters, which gave a contemporary, surrealist look to our modern pieces of art. Finally, we finish off the day packing for our greatest adventure yet: the brilliant 3-day kayak trip. For our jaw-dropping lecture, we have the stupendous Dr. Billie J. Swalla speaking about evolution theory in marine organisms. Dr. Billie J. Swalla’s research is focused on the life cycle of Ascidians, colloquially referred to as sea squirts. These captivating creatures go through an immense amount of physical changes throughout their short lives. Their action-packed lifecycles see them change from petite embryos that are slightly reminiscent of gunnel fish (but more minute) into strange tubular growths on the sea floor. Divergent evolution truly puts life into perspective. The formation of similarly performing traits from completely different ancestry was intriguing to our small little brains. We were bedazzled and bewildered by the bold claims made by Dr. Billie J. Swalla. Truly an experience like no other. Although this experience was incredibly insightful and offered a deep introspective into the world of Friday Harbor Labs, perhaps the real experience was the friends we made along the way.

Signing off for now,
The Salish Sailors