By: Sara, Jaimie, Arielle, Jake—

This morning, we woke up at 7:30 and ate our breakfast before returning to False Bay to collect more earwigs for our final projects that we will present on Thursday.

Once we returned to the dorm, we had time to work on our projects. Some of us were working on graphs and background information, while others were running some trials with the earwigs we collected earlier. After working on our projects for about 1 ½ hours, we had lunch.

After lunch, we departed for the Friday Harbor Labs where we learned about sea urchin and sand dollar fertilization.  Dr. Colette Feehan is an expert on larvae feeding habits and their effect on ocean ecology. Today, Colette and Friday Harbor Laboratories ‘Young Investigator Prize’ winner Beatrice Grauman-Boss were embarking on a new study to learn more about larval predation.

We induced the sea urchins to spawn.

The urchins were not cooperating, it is past their season, so instead, sand dollars were used in their place.

We then placed some eggs and sperm on slides and looked at them under a microscope.

After we all got a chance to look at the microscopes, we walked over to where we had been keeping our invertebrates that we had collected while trawling.

They spent the last several weeks in a wet lab where we could use them to draw or study them. It was time to send them home. We collected our invertebrates and went on a 20 minute hike to a beach near the FH Labs where we released them.

Upon releasing the invertebrates, we kept hiking for another 15 minutes and took time to watch the orca whales passing by the beach.

Soon it was time for the shark necropsy! Last Monday, an 8-foot 6 gill shark washed up on the beach, and Adam Summers’ class will be studying the shark’s morphology.We were lucky to be invited to observe the necropsy too. A few of us were even able to feel the liver of the shark!

Photos by Seth Grant

At 5 PM, we returned to campus and started preparing for dinner with our guests, Drs. Rebecca Guenther and Colette Feehan. For dinner we had quinoa salad, caprese, and roasted chicken.

After we ate, Rebecca, talked to us about ocean acidification, climate change, and her work with coralline algae.

After Rebecca and Colette left, we had more time to work on our projects. When we decided that we were done for the day, we went to bed.

By Sara, Jaimie, Arielle, and Jake —

This morning, we woke up at 7:30 and had breakfast. After breakfast, we headed to the science room and began to analyze our data on algal species and animal species in the intertidal zone of Andrew’s Bay at the SJI County Park. After a couple hours, we had a break that most of us used to visit some pokestops. After our break, we returned to the lab to continue analyzing data and also brainstorm hypotheses for data we will be taking tomorrow at a different intertidal zone location. Soon it was lunch time so we headed back to the dorm and prepared lunch.

Following lunch, we went back to the lab and did more data analysis. We then came back to the dorm and reviewed the vocabulary quiz we took yesterday and addressed our concerns. After our talk, most of us went into town and played PokemonGo for exploration time.

Around came dinner time and since we didn’t have a guest, Caroline picked up some pizza up for us. After dinner, we watching footage of a ROV (remotely operated vehicle) off the coast of California in an unmapped cave. After watching the ROV we then watched Teen Beach Movie and ate ice cream.

By Sara, Jaimie, Arielle, and Jake —

Today we woke up at 8:00am and got ready for the day. We started with breakfast which consisted of the normal: bagels, muffins, and cereal. After breakfast we went to the Spring Street International School’s science lab and learned about the invasive rabbits on the island from Beatrice Grauman-Boss.

Photo by Tom Grauman

Photo by Seth Grant

After learning about the rabbits, we got in the van and went to American Camp to survey the warrens and the number of active entrances.

Photos by Tom Grauman

We learned that there is about 1 rabbit for every sq. ft in American Camp.

Photos by Seth Grant

Photo by Tom Grauman — fenced area is (mostly) rabbit-free

We spent about 2 hours surveying the area and then returned to the dorms for lunch.

The survey with Beatrice was part of a longitudinal study on behalf of the US National Historical Parks Service.

After lunch, we resumed our earwig trials in the science lab.

The focus of our trials today, was to see how much time it takes for the earwigs to acclimatize to sample arenas (Tupperware filled with sand).

Once we finished with our trials, some of us went to return earwigs, while others began to work on dinner prep and blogs.

    Soon it was dinner time and we were joined by Jen Olson, the coordinator for the San Juan County Marine Stranding Network associated with the Whale Museum here in Friday Harbor as well as NOAA and the SeaDoc Society.

Photo by Seth Grant

The Stranding Network is a non-profit organization that researches and helps stranded marine mammals. After dinner, Jen gave a presentation about her work and informed us about the necropsy (animal autopsy) we are going to see tomorrow morning.

By Sara, Jaimie, Arielle, and Jake —

This morning we woke at8:30 am for our normal breakfast. Once we finished eating, we wrote our blogs from the longboat trip and sorted through pictures. We then went to the local farmer’s market where we encountered many stands selling fresh produce and handmade goods.

Photos by Seth Grant

After an hour at the farmers market, we walked back to the dorm for a quick break. Afterwards, we walked to the San Juan Island Museum of Art where we looked at pictures by Ansel Adams, Ernest H. Brooks II, and Dorothy Kerper Monnelly.

Tom, our media consultant, gave us quick lesson on the camera that these photographers use(d). For instance, the brownie camera that Ansel Adams first used. After our lesson from Tom, we had time to browse the museum some more before returning to the dorm.

Back at the dorm, we had a debriefing about the longboat trip, where we talked about what we liked and didn’t like about the trip. We then did a self-evaluation of our team skills. After this time of debriefing, some of us helped prepare dinner, while others had time to explore the town and play board games. For dinner, we enjoyed some burritos as well as ice cream for dessert.

Following dinner, we played a game called ‘Song Wars’ and then the evening resulted in us singing karaoke. The songs selected consisted entirely of Disney soundtracks.

By: Jaimie and Lana—

This morning we woke up at 6 AM to go for our morning dip, eat breakfast, and get the boat ready.

While preparing breakfast, we had a couple of troubles—one being Peder getting a spice in his eye, so we had to get water off the boat to flush it out. Another trouble we had was not being able to find the gluten free oatmeal for Chrissy and Michael, but we found flax muffins instead.

We ate breakfast, packed the boat, and were on our way back to Saddlebag Island.

After rowing for 3 hours we anchored at Guemes Island to eat lunch at around 2:00 PM. For lunch: PB&J. We ate and rested for 1½ hours. Jake fell asleep after eating lunch.

Once we were ready to keep going on our voyage back home, Jake was still asleep, so, as a crew, we decided to let Jake sleep and he woke up after an hour of rowing.

While we were rowing, we encountered four foot wakes and everybody had a blast going over them. We rowed for another hour and we reached the shore of Saddlebag Island.

We then had a little snack and drank some water so we can have enough energy to unpack our gear and dinner. We were on the boat for 7½ hours and rowed for 6 hours.

Once we anchored, our captain told us that we did over 250 perfect power strokes. After unpacking all the gear, the chefs started to make dinner. For our last night all together we had burritos with beans, avocados, cheese, onion, tomatoes, sour cream and garlic.

Since it was our last night together we had s’mores for dessert.

To be able to get s’mores first we had a song war. We played in groups of five people. Group A had Lynn, Jaimie, Peder, Jack and Indeya. Group B had Lana, Sara, Quinn, Jake and Arielle. Group A won so they got to get s’mores first. We gathered around a fire pit and laughed while eating our s’mores. After cleaning up dessert, we went to bed as a crew for our last night together.

By Jaimie, Sara, Arielle, Jake—

Today has been a long but exciting day. We woke up at 6 this morning and promptly headed over to False Bay. False Bay has its name because when the tide is high, it looks like a nice place to anchor a boat. However when the tide goes out, the entire place is drained.

Photos by Tom Grauman

At False Bay we studied the population of Lug Worms (Aberinicola) by haphazardly placing quadrats and then counting the holes inside. We did this 100 times, then dug up 25 randomly chosen holes to get roughly the percentage of the holes that are actually occupied.

After that, we went further up the bay with Vik Iyengar and collected earwigs from under logs before returning to the dorms.

Once back, we went to the science room and wrote down the procedure for measuring the Lug Worm population and collecting earwigs.

After lunch we headed to the labs and practiced doing scientific drawings of the marine life we collected yesterday. We spent about an hour there before returning back to the dorms and sorting the earwigs by sex and size.

Next, we had some exploration time before welcoming our guest for dinner, Will King. Mr. King is a graduate student studying marine ecology. His study focuses on barnacles, and tomorrow we will be joining him in the field. After dinner, Mr. King gave a presentation explaining the effects of climate change on marine ecology, specifically how barnacles will react. Now we have about an hour before we will go to bed, waking up bright and early to work in the field tomorrow with Mr. King.

By Jamie, Sara, Jake, and Arielle—

June 29^th, 2016

This morning, we had an early morning with a wake-up call at 4:45 am. We ate a quick breakfast and left the dorm at 5:15 sharp. We drove to the Friday Harbor Labs’ terrestrial reserve to survey slugs with Dr. Erika Iyengar.

Photos by Seth Grant

We found two types of slugs: the invasive European slug and the native banana slug.

We surveyed 3 different areas until the sun was up. Slugs live in dark and damp places, so the only time that we can see them is before sunrise.

After, we went back to the Friday Harbor Labs. We took a tour of the labs and learned about its history.

After the tour, we came back to the dorm for a well-deserved reflection time. Some of us napped and read books, while others played some badminton and volleyball. After reflection time we all joined together for some lunch.

After Lunch, we hopped in the van and drove to Mt. Young. We were joined by Sharon Massey who taught us the basics of scientific illustration. On the top of Mt. Young, after the somewhat exhausting hike, we took inspiration from the amazing scenery and began drawing. Hiking back down the mountain was a whole different story. Having taken a different route, we encountered a smelly snake and at the end of the hike we discussed different patterns in the mountain’s vegetation.

Back at the dorms, we had some exploration time, which gave us time to clean up and explore the property some more. Soon it was dinner time and we were joined by Derek Smith, a PhD candidate.

He specializes in marine ecology, most especially the ecology of shipwrecks. He shared with us some extraordinary pictures and stories. After Derek left, we played some card games and then it was time for bed. We had a delightful but tiring day. We hope you enjoyed reading about our day!