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.

By Elspeth with Denny, William, and Jonathan

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s…driftwood? Today, our second day at Salish Sea Sciences, students went on a scavenger hunt in Friday Harbor, explored the whale museum, and went on a hike in Lime Kiln Point State Park.

Our initial foray into Friday Harbor was a scavenger hunt. We raced across town taking pictures of strangely specific buildings and objects, earning points along the way. When we tallied up the points, our team was very close to the others, with only 250 points less.

Later in the day, we visited the Whale Museum. It was a whale of a time, and the tour pod-sitively blowhole-d our minds. We strode through the museum with porpoise, dol-finding interesting things along the way, such as this cool harbor seal skeleton. We’ve made it
a-pun-dantly clear how much we love puns, but, don’t worry, we’ll stop now.

After we returned, we headed to the Lime Kiln Interpretive Center, where we were shown around by Erin Corra, Founder and Director of FOLKS (Friends of Lime Kiln Society). She showed us many types of native trees and rocks, and the sea view was gorgeous. On the way, we toured the newest lighthouse in Washington State, built in 1919. We spotted a pod of orcas from the top, which ended up being a bunch of driftwood…we were all very disappointed. She then led us to a restored lime kiln – the park’s namesake – and we got a short history lesson on the lime industry in the San Juan Islands. Some of us went down to the beach below the kiln, where we found many hermit crabs and anemones. We headed back to the dorm soon after that, and began to prepare dinner and write this very blog post!

Before dinner, we recognized the history of Juneteenth, particularly as a federal holiday. After dinner, we got a very interesting presentation by Kyra and Henry, who currently work for the whale museum. We then ate ice cream and watermelon.