jessb14's Journal

This quarter my marine biology class had the opportunity to explore False Bay at night, revealing the lives of numerous benthic organisms that we don't usually see. We got to observe numerous cucumbers, molluscs, worms, and crustaceans in their natural environment exposed due to the tides. The sediment changed drastically between the zones we traveled through and with that the kinds of critters. Along the way we attempted to collect a red rock crab, though it was rather elusive, multiple sculpin, and found the longest lugworms I think I'll ever see.
I'm both disappointed and glad my light was rather weak. Disappointed because I couldn't see quite everything I was hoping to find along the sediment but also glad because then it didn't detract from the absolutely beautiful scene we were exploring. It was one of the clearest skies we have seen at the labs, with stars upon stars upon stars and nothing but clear, flat plains of soft sediment beneath our feet.
It was one of the many great opportunities here in Friday Harbor to see organisms in their environment and way out of ours.

and hailed down in icy fury!
Within five minutes the shower was over but in that five minutes, packed pellets of ice rained down; it sounded like a waterfall just hit the roof of the dining hall!
I personally love hailstorms, so of course I ran outside with my friend. We just stood and marveled at the impact of each tiny ice chunk as they skidded off the roof, ricocheted off the picnic tables, and rebounded off the deck, stinging whatever bare flesh dared to be exposed and crunching delightfully underfoot.
Then moments after the stones were decidedly hazardous, the storms slowed to a halt and it was sunny all over again.
Love crazy Pacific northwest weather.

This makes me hopeful-- maybe prematurely-- for snow!

As this quarter comes to a close, I can't help but think about just how different things are going to be when going back to Seattle. I can't just walk out onto the beach and look up at a sky full of stars. Opens spaces are hard to come by in the city, and when found there's always something interfering or distracting, some hum of traffic, people yelling, or sirens in the distance. Going from Whidbey Island to Seattle was hard, then I fell in love with UW and got used to the city; now after this amazing break in nature it's going to be a culture shock all over again.

HAD I NOT BEEN ON THE FIRE TRAIL TIL NOW?
finally went to hike the fire trail for the first time and I don't know why I haven't until now. It may have been at night when I couldn't see where I was going or what was scraping against my face or tripping me but the end result was worth the twigs found in my hair. And it wasn't even the actual end! I popped out at the water and I guess there's even more along the coast! I plan to actually get out there during the day before I leave, and on the chance that it doesn't happen this is my statement saying I WILL as a visit to the island after this quarter.

My experience in town today was rather pleasant.
It was a BEAUTIFUL morning from about 9 to 12, during which I meandered around town with a clipboard and an official-looking shirt and a smile to greet locals and all those out and about.
At the risk of this journal being quite confusing or vague I'm going to leave the politics out and leave the imagination to take its course.
Though I was one of those scary people with a clipboard, from whom most people run or at least do a great job of looking busy, I found myself thoroughly enjoying talking to the locals about the petition I was pushing in front of them. I try to make this forced experience a decent one anyway but it's much easier when the people around you genuinely care about what you're talking about and are at least willing to listen, much different than other places I have been. It makes me miss the small town feel of my home town, where everyone knew everyone and everything about them, and if you saw a new face they stuck out like a sore thumb. Yes there is something kind of positive about feeling that way, not to ostracize the newcomer but to greet and welcome them as a town. With these small/ tight-knit communities a stranger can be welcomed with open arms and excited to learn everything about you too or fear the change and wonder what you're going to do to their community.
This is not the latter. This is a community that said they hoped to see me around town and looked forward to seeing me later.
Even if it's not true it's kind of nice to be reminded that small towns can be hard to leave for many reasons.

Just another day on the island! Class goes just fine, very focused on learning some ocean circulation.
Until our professor says "oh look, an otter!" and points out the window.
Chaos ensues.
The whole class, all 12 of us, jumped out of our seats and ran out the back door, frantically looking about.
I managed to catch a glimpse of it as it scampered off into the woods up the hill and I'm so glad I did! It was kind of a bizarre sight to see it gallop up into the woods-- related to "fish out of water" but perhaps an "otter out of water"? But most definitely adorable.

Soooooo there's a camel living on this island? Maybe I don't know enough about camels but I thought they mainly lived in the desert, and preferred it there. I'm wondering a) what brought it here and b) how optimal these conditions really are. There really isn't much that is similar between San Juan Island and a desert, it makes me think that the camel can't really be (as ridiculous as this sounds) "happy" here. I'd definitely be curious to find out differences between this camel and others in a more "normal" environment over time.

Back home my dad and I have a freshwater aquarium, and one day we added two pearl cichlids together. Later we noticed that they were behaving rather oddly, circling eachother and seemed like they were "kissing". Not knowing much about these fish, and not knowing how to sex them, I wasn't sure if this was territorial aggression or a mating behavior.
That was answered fairly quickly. A few days later the smaller of the two cichlids had an extremely ratty caudal fin and primarily hid in one of the rock structures, only emerging to eat and was immediately chased by the larger cichlid.
Shortly after this I found something pretty startling; let's just say we renamed the poor small cichlid "Tailless".

I made a floating enclosure by drilling holes into a tupperware and eventually managed to corral Tailless into the enclosure to keep it from further damage and see if acclimating to eachother was a possibility for these two.
After further observation the tail began to heal on Tailless, the caudal fin was completely gone but the dorsal and anal fins began to grow up into where the caudal fin was. After a couple weeks we released Tailless into the main tank again, where he thrived!
It was rather surprising to see how well Tailless was doing, I was constantly getting updates from my dad to show how the dorsal and anal fins had grown and that Tailless was even getting picked on less and managing on his own.
Until... unfortunately... my dad came home from a trip and discovered 3 fish dead- including Tailless- the ammonia tested high :/
So sad that after making it through the fish-eat-fish world of our tank his untimely demise was from improper care.

While in our sea tables the spiny lumpsuckers have been changing color. When they were first caught they appeared to be a "tan"-like color, but most have shifted to a bright turquoise/blue and one dark grey/black. A fellow student suggested that they were trying to camouflage to the white and blue is as close as they can get. Personally I thought it was harder to find them when they were a more "natural" looking color, it made me wonder why the blue or black color has been deemed more fitting.

Last night was absolutely fantastic. During low tide (around 10:30) a group of 13 people with stacks of buckets set assembly lines and started bodily hauling water out of a deep tidepool in Deadman's Cove, San Juan Island. Apparently this isn't just any tidepool, this is the same tidepool that has sheltered one of the most impressive fish I've seen and a fish rarely seen in collection. "Bothragonus swani", or the Rockhead poacher, has a rather astounding feature: a massive crater at the base of its skull. My understanding is that this crater is used for sound amplification and that only about 10 of these poachers have been collected, most of them from this very tidepool. With the knowledge the last few trips hadn't seen any of these fish, we went into the field trip holding onto hopes of MAYBE seeing one.
We were lucky enough to collect not one, but six.
Six.
Absolutely fantastic.

Next comes trying to hear the low humming B. swani is said to produce.