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 William, Denny, and Elspeth

Today, we awoke with the luxury of a little extra sleep, since our wake-up time was 9:00. After eating breakfast and going through our morning routine, we headed up to the science classroom to do a Zoom meeting with Sasha Seroy, PhD, a lecturer in oceanography at the University of Washington. She had us go through two activities concerning scientific communication, which in simple terms is how scientists are able to communicate with their audience, as the name suggests. In the first activity, we had to explain how ocean acidification impacted mussels to a politician, kindergartener, grandmother, and several others. This really showed how much you had to change the wording of your messages according to your audience! Next, we drew comics about marine animals. As it turns out, Sasha draws her own comics titled Interviews with Invertebrates! (By the way, you can find her @IWIComics on Instagram.) 

After we bid her farewell, we had lunch and embarked upon our final activity of the day: some time at the beach! People both worked on their projects and enjoyed the beach until it eventually came time to head home. 

The day started off nice and easy to help recover from a long kayaking trip. As everyone got up slowly and ate breakfast, the group worked together to catch up on blog posts from our kayaking hiatus. The slow morning was much appreciated as we counted bug bites, marveled at new tan lines, and nursed sunburns. Unfortunately Shauna Barrows, Field Assistant, from the San Juan County Land Bank had a late change of plans and was unable to take us up  Mt. Grant where we would have started to learn about watersheds; thankfully she was able to reschedule for Friday. Instead, we decided to start at False Bay, which would have originally been our final destination for the lesson on watersheds. At around 11:00 we started with an introduction video to life in False Bay produced by San Juan Conservation and featuring Dr. Drew Harvell of Cornell University, a famous marine biologist and author of the new book Ocean Outbreak. After the video ended we prepared our lunches, and picked out our boots. We then loaded ourselves inside of the van and made our way off to False Bay. When we arrived, the tide had already started to rise again so we had to be fast to observe the life living within the bay. Throughout the next few hours, we saw a lot of crabs, sculpins, mounds of seaweed, and various types of algae. Our handy identification sheets allowed us to notice small differences between various species. After returning from False Bay, we cleaned off our boots and were allotted some more time for free time, which we spent exploring Friday Harbor, napping, and hanging out in the common space to continue the recovery process. Dinner, which was various types of burgers as requested by us on the return day of the kayak trip, was quite enjoyable for all of us.

On day four, we awoke within our tents, the glare from the sun shining through the orange rain flys. As we got out, we saw our guides Sam, and Luke preparing French toast on the camping stove that we had brought. It was a delicious breakfast. After some time of waiting for everyone to get ready, we pulled the kayaks into the water, we were able to put on the spray skirts with some level of difficulty, pushed ourselves into the waves, and headed up to a beach just north of Friday Harbor. As we crossed the harbor openings, we followed each kayak in a single file line like a group of ducklings following a mother duck. Upon arriving at the beach, we tied up the boats and waited for the tides to change before heading back to Turn Island. During the layover, we ate ham and cheese sandwiches with apples, chips and salsa, before waiting for the tide to change. We tide pooled, napped in the sun, and watched the curious harbor seals wander by. The boat and float plane traffic was also fascinating, and the wakes were fun to play in as we meandered through the surf. There was also a small collection of rocks that were nearby which some of us were able to climb and watch the waves. The sea dropped off pretty suddenly which was a very pretty sight. Once the tides changed, we started our return trip to Turn Island. We used how the tides change in reaction to land masses which we learned about in day three to cross easier. We missed J-Pod by about ten minutes, yet only learned about this once we had gotten back to camp. From this point onward, we relaxed on the island, enjoyed group conversations, and several of us went swimming. The tide was high and the water was cool on a hot day which made for a nice combination. Once we had dried off, we enjoyed some artichoke spaghetti and s’mores with a beautiful sunset. Once the sun had completely set, we were treated to a beautiful night sky full of constellations and stars and bioluminescence in the water— phytoplankton that glows in the dark when an object such as small pebbles or a piece of driftwood is thrown into it. We enjoyed playing with the bioluminescence with the company of the raccoons digging for clams slightly down the beach before heading to bed on our last night on this kayaking trip.

Like every good trip we started with a not so early wake up. Most of our group had packed the previous night and as such all that had to be done was get up, eat breakfast, and get out. We walked down to Friday Harbor where we packed all of our belongings into dry bags. Jackson Beach, the place where we would be launching, was only about a 10 minute car ride away. After arriving at Jackson Beach, we offloaded the kayaks for the truck and carried them to the surf where we packed them full of as much gear, food and water as we could manage. The final step was to launch. We pushed off from the beach and the water supported us, the water was cool. A slight breeze tickled the back of our necks and the soft gentle rolling of the waves rocked the boats. As we paddled further down the coast we came across a small grouping of harbor seals, some sitting high and dry sunbathing on the rocks while others bobbed up and down within the cold waves perhaps just cooling down or maybe searching for the fish that hid beneath the waves. We watched them for as long as we could before continuing on our way to the campsite. Our next stop, lunch at Fourth of July Beach where we were treated to peanut butter and jelly  with bananas, chips, and salsa. We had some time to examine the effects of invasive caterpillar species on the local ecosystem before putting our boats in the water again and kayaking north to our final stop for the night. We unloaded our boats and pulled them up to avoid the pull of high tide and the possibility of needing to swim after a boat. After setting up our tents, we helped cook, played frisbee, and watched the foxes run past our camp. We watched the sunset together and helped clean up from dinner before heading to bed, listening to the sound of the San Juan waves.