By Tim:

Susan started off our final full day on San Juan Island with a breakfast of blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes, sausages and fruit! Fueled by this high-energy meal, we spent the morning packing our bags and cleaning out rooms to prepare for our guests arriving later in the day.

After we all passed the “white glove” test, the group convened with Tom to finalize project image choices and order, and then to give the script a final read-through before recording voice-overs.

To show our appreciation for all of the numerous scientists, teachers and parents whose assistance and guidance were essential to the program, we hosted a barbecue of steak, shish-kabob and dungeness crab early in the evening. Although though the intermittent rains drove us inside, everyone enjoyed recapping the past three weeks with people they’d met along the way. Becca Guenther even brought us the algae pressings we’d prepared with her during our first week! We concluded the evening by showing off a rough cut of our final documentary entitled “Tide Pools of San Juan Island.”

After our guests departed, we loaded into the van for one last trip over to the Friday Harbor Laboratories to experience the time-honored Labs tradition of night lighting. Our coastal oceans are filled with light-sensing zooplankton and other animals; hanging a waterproof light over the side of the dock slowly attracts them to the surface and illuminates other organisms that happen to be nearby. All were delighted when Labs residents Stephanie Crofts, Orissa Moulton and their colleague Connie Sullivan met us on the docks (at 10:30 pm) to share some insights into the creatures emerging from the darkness.