Final weeks of ‘07 – Merry Xmas!

G’Day everyone,

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all have an awesome Xmas wherever you may be in the world, and that it’s a very happy holiday season. I’m hoping mine will be a white Xmas, although it’s a bit rainy here in Vancouver so although it snows, it only last a day or so. There was snow yesterday (22nd) but it’s pretty much all gone now. I’m really hoping I get to see at least some snow on Xmas Day. I’ll be in North Vancouver for Xmas, it’s a bit more elevated there than where I’m staying in Van, so fingers crossed!

It’s been about a month since I’ve written from the cold Maple Leaf land. It’s been pretty much a ‘sort out stuff’ kind of month. I’ve finished all my uni stuff now, and so now have a Bachelor of Innovation and Enterprise degree from Flinders. So now with 2 degrees under my belt I think I’m done with uni, for the moment anyway. I am considering doing post-grad study but definitely not at this stage. I want to get experience out in the work force in my field. I’m actually now living in Victoria on Vancouver Island, moved there last week after being in Vancouver for a few weeks sussing out places to live and work for the new year. The house finding process was an interesting one. I looked at quite a few rooms in shared houses/suites and eventually found one – great location close to downtown Vic and a really good price. Living with 2 guys, they seem pretty cool and clean so I should get along with them fine! When checking out other places, one thing I didn’t realise about British Columbia and it’s “culture”, is that of the use of a certain dried plant substance. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, I just didn’t realise it is almost the norm here, and is socially acceptable. Well not for this bloke anyway. There is no way I could have shared a house with people that frequently do that kind of thing. Anyhoo, so I’ve found a place to live, so now its organising work in the whale watch industry. I’m in Vancouver as I write this and will be here for Xmas. It’s my first Xmas away from the fam but at least I’ll be spending it with a familiar face (Deano) and friends of his. 17 people apparently for Xmas Day so that should be interesting, but definitely fun. As I said, fingers crossed for snow! I have a Canucks game (Vancouver Canucks, NHL Ice Hockey) to go to on the 30th which I’m pumped for, then will head back to Vic for New Year’s. No idea what I’m doing yet! All I know is whatever I’m doing I’ll be welcoming 2008 in with a bang!

I have a couple of 4-day courses to do in January so I’m able to operate the passenger boats over here when the whale watch season kicks in in March. Till then while I’m getting my boat hours logged I’m hoping I can get some casual work in, well I need to to pay for rent and food!

I hope you all have a great festive season and that 2008 is an awesome year for you all. I’m looking forward to what it has to bring for me. Victoria is a really nice city (300-400, 000 people) and I think I’m going to enjoy living there.

Again, Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

Hot, cold, warm, colder – Travelling the US

G’Day people,
Fear not, I have arrived safely back in the land of the maple leaf after 3 weeks of travelling around the US. As most of you know I have posted up my last blog of the Beam Reach Program. The stuff happened 4 weeks ago but I’ve been really busy travelling and haven’t had time. Anyway, Miami was bloody awesome! It was fantastic catching up with people, but unfortunately I didn’t get to catch up with everyone which I was bummed about. It felt surreal walking around campus when it had been 18 months since I was last there but I thoroughly enjoyed the weather! Was around 25 degrees Celsius each day so donned the boardies and shearer’s (singlet) and wore my Coopers thongs (aka flip flops) with pride. I was there for Halloween and wasn’t that an awesome night! I had to dress up with what I had in my backpack so went as an injured Wallaby (rugby player). A friend of mine did makeup on me to make it look like I had cuts and bruises all over my face, and she did a bloody great job. I wore a headband with black electrical tape, my Wallabies jersey and the boxing kangaroo flag round my waist. For pics go to my Facebook account. If you don’t have Facebook then you’re of the minority cos EVERYONE has Facebook these days. If you can’t be bothered getting it then I bet you know someone that has it that knows me that can see the pics. Anyway, we went down to Coconut Grove, they closed off the streets and it was just one big party! People were dressed up as everything you can think of and it was just an awesome night partying with all the old crew. Surprisingly I didn’t bump into any Aussies, which I was almost certain I would as they are on exchange there and would have to have noticed me in the jersey. Still, a few pommies noticed me and one of them said to me “At least you guys got an early flight home”. Bumped into a Kiwi and we talked about the shortcomings of bot our countries World Cup campaign. Ahh well, it was great drinking with the gang again, I had an absolute blast!... until the cab ride home. Just as I was going to pay the fare my camera must have fallen out of my pocket and so yep, I lost it. I didn’t realise it till I got back to the apartment and so called the cab company, we had the driver’s name, and left my details. I called them up several times over the next couple of days but nothing eventuated. I had to file a lost property police report in order to claim it back on my travel insurance, which I am in the process of doing now. It’s not soo much losing the camera, it’s losing all the photos I had on it from that night. Luckily I was able to get other people’s photos but still, your photos are always better in your mind, and I had a photo with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Took me a while to get over how bloody stupid I felt for losing my camera, but it worked out ok because I ended up buying a camera that was better than my old one, and for half the price! Electronics are so cheap in the US! I went to 2 College football games, Canes lost both times. The final game was their last game at this particular stadium as they are moving to the Miami Dolphin’s stadium next season, so the stadium was absolutely packed, and what did they do, they lost by the biggest margin they have ever lost (48-0). At lease they went down in some sort of history for their last game, although the fans left at half time and 3/4time. I don’t know anyone that stayed for the full game, it really was an embarrassment. Miami Hurricanes won the National Championship back in 2001 and quite a few times in the 80’s but they haven’t performed as well in previous years. I was just at the games for the atmosphere, and didn’t really seem to follow the rules. I know what a touchdown is, and what a down is. Show me a game of rugby any day! I went down to Key Largo for the weekend to visit a mate (thanks Big Mike) and we went diving on one of those days. I had dived the reefs plenty of times when I was studying in Miami but of course I’ve forgotten all the names of the fish and corals. Still, it was a nice tropical dive, free might I add as I was able to borrow gear and my mate had a friend with a boat. I went up to West Palm Beach for a couple of days also to visit a mate (great seeing you JD), went wakeboarding as his house backs on to a man-made water ski lake. He showed my Palm Beach, where the rich old people live, and we went to the famous Breaker’s Hotel to have a beer and check it out. That place is amazing! The bar is an aquarium! You put your beer on glass that has little fish and shrimp swimming underneath! It’s a very wealthy hotel and the people that stay there are pretty much in another world. JD and I decided to go for a walk around to check out this posh place, and we saw a couple on a table getting Fosters poured into a glass for them by a waiter. I was dumbfounded. They may be rich but they clearly don’t have expensive taste! The hotel had a series of three pool areas all backing onto the beach, literally 20m from the waterfront. Each area had little cabins at the back with personal bathrooms and a flatscreen TV with couch! It really was another world. JD told me he went to school with kids that had the kind of money to stay at places like this. These are the kids got Porsches (spelling?) for their 16th BDay. Amazing. I’m actually really glad I wasn’t bought up like that. Thanks Mum and Dad for not being insanely rich.
It was just awesome being back in Miami and hanging out with the gang. Big thanks to Shpin for letting me crash on your floor mate and putting on my drinking shoes, you’re a bloody legend, and to Jared, thanks heaps mate for flying down from upstate New York to see me, a dead set champion you are. Was bloody great to see you all and I hope I can catch you again before I head back to Oz.
After Miami I flew up to cold Boston to see Ash and stay with Liz (another chick from Beam Reach) and her bf Dan. We had a great couple of days and I really liked Boston City. It’s a very “pretty city” and quite clean. I’d definitely like to back and check it out more. We checked out Harvard University and saw all the smart rich kids walking round. I got a photo in front of a Harvard University Police car simply because, well, it seemed a bit ironic that highly intelligent, high fee paying students would need law enforcement.
Ash and I parted ways early early on Wednesday 14th Nov. I’m glad we caught up again before she flew back to Oz. We got to know each other really well over the program, became really good friends, and I have no doubt we will keep in touch. So I headed down to the land where the stars at night are big and bright, yep, Texas! Arrived in Waco where I met up with an old high school buddy that is doing his Master’s at Baylor (was bloody great to see you Stoney). We headed down to Austin and checked that out. Found some Cooper’s which made it all the much sweeter. Drinking Aussie beer with an Aussie mate, can’t much better than that! We went out to 6th St which is 4 blocks of just bars and clubs, yep, just barts and clubs. It was insane. I guess Uni of Texas is in Austin which has 50,000 students, yep 50,000 students, so they need lots of places where you can consume fermented vegetable drinks. We went to San Antonio SeaWorld on Sunday and I gotta say, I wasn’t really impressed. Having seen killer whales and other marine mammals in the wild doing their thing and free to swim where they please just makes me feel sorry for those in captivity. Initially when I went to SeaWorld Orlando and San Diego last year I had never really seen marine mammals before and so was really excited, but now that I’ve spent 10 weeks studying them in their natural habitat I appreciate them soo much more, and realise where they truly should be. There is definitely an educational component to having marine mammals in captivity, but the shows they do are quite cheesy and these animals were meant to roam free, not be stuck swimming circles in a tank and jumping out of the water on queue. The amount of revenue they generate for the SeaWorld means they will not be released anytime soon, if at all. I truly believe we will end up having captive marine mammal populations and wild populations. Let’s just hope certain countries can stop live captures for aquaria. Anyway, I could go on for ages about this topic. So I left Texas Monday morning where everything is bigger to head back to the land of the Maple Leaf. I’ve been here 3 days now and yeah, it’s cold. It’s a different kind of cold then back home, even though the temperature is the same. I’ve spent the last few days going to the gym in the mornings thanks to Dean’s membership card. (For those of you that don’t know Dean is Dad’s best man and went to school and trained with my mum, he now lives and works here in Vancouver). I’ve sorted out my uni stuff back home and have got the results from the Beam Reach program and I’m very happy with the results. Now that all my uni stuff is sorted out I’m on the job and accommodation hunt. I plan on basing myself in Victoria on Vancouver Island so will be calling a few businesses that expressed interest in employing me while I was on the program. Will keep you all posted on how I go. Till then, have a good one!

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

P.S. Photos posted up on Facebook soon, I promise!

The last week of Beam Reach ‘07 – Week 10

I know it has been almost a month since the Beam Reach Program finished so sorry for the delay in posting this. I have been travelling around the States and just haven't had time to post it. This is how the final week of the Beam Rach Program went down. Stay tuned for a post on my US travels.

Monday 22nd October
What a bloody busy day! I’ve processed all of my boat data and put them into graphical form for ease of comparison. Still not sure of my stats yet but hope to get some idea for them tomorrow. Work work work.

Tuesday 23rd October to Sunday 28th October
As I write this I am sitting at a table at the airport in Seattle and the Beam Reach Program is now over. Here’s how the one of the busiest weeks of my life went down.
Tuesday to Thursday was the same as Monday. I wake up, go to breakfast, get my laptop, go to the library and work on my project. Some days I would change it up and work half a day in my room and half in the library. Exciting I know! I had meetings with Val everyday and we talked about how my project was going and what direction I’m heading in. Tuesday morning was a little different in that we each gave a quick oral presentation on our Sustainability Reports. As I have explained earlier, mine was on outfitting an existing whale watch vessel with a hybrid biodiesel/electric propulsion system. The sustainability part of it was that it’s using a natural fuel that when used is absorbed back into the carbon cycle, and the electric motor is almost silent underwater when slow motoring with the whales. The beauty of it is that whale watch operators could still be able to get to and from a whale watch site at high speeds and would be able to charge their battery in doing so. All it needs is someone to pioneer it. Granted it would be very expensive but if an operator did it and put a lot of marketing in it, who do you think the public would choose: an operator that is like every other operator, or an operator that has a propulsion system that is environmentally friendly and has minimal noise impact on the whales? I know who I would choose. Pretty soon the other operators would be getting the shits because this particular operator is actually the most “environmentally friendly” and getting the majority of the customers, and so the only way they can compete is to outfit their vessels with a similar system. The beauty with it is that as battery technology and electric power advances, the system can be modified to achieve greater efficiency. If only I had the money to do it myself.
Thursday I analysed 101 individual echolocation clicks which was somewhat time consuming. I really should have done it earlier but I have a system with the way I work. As some of you probably know I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. I like everything to be organised and so when I write projects I think appearance is a vital part. What I mean when I say this, is that I like to have figures and formats all done before I finish the text part of my document. I hate to finish the paper knowing I have to go over everything and make sure it is all formatted. Granted that is probably how u should do it as content is the most important part of a paper, but I like to know when I’ve finished a paper, I’ve finished it (after a proof read of course), and not have to work about making sure all the graphs can be read easily. I started my presentation also, not surprisingly, I have similar “perfectionism” tendencies when creating powerpoint slides.
Friday was crunch time. Up early, worked all day and yep, all night - got 2 hours sleep. Got everything finished of course but I spent way too much time “perfecting” things and could have got a lot more sleep, but I think it was the fact that I’d worked on this project for so long and it was mine, so I wanted everything to be just right. I’m quite happy with the paper overall, but of course, wish I had more time as there are so many more things I could have done with the data I had. Anyway, after 2 hours sleep on Friday night, well, early Sat morning, I got up, practiced my talk again and headed to the Commons at the Labs for the day of talks. Family members of about half the students were there, as were other well respected scientists and members of the industry (Giles, Ken Balcomb, Kari from Soundwatch and others). I was 5th off the rank, last one before lunch, and honestly I thought it went pretty well. It was the first official oral presentation I had done without notes and I was quite satisfied with my effort. I guess it was because I had worked on this paper for 10 weeks and knew it pretty much inside out so was quite comfortable in talking about it. I had to somewhat simplify the contents to make it more understandable to the general public, but I still maintained a scientific yet practical approach to the talk. It was videoed so I’ll be very interested to see what it came out like, as I have never seen what I look like when giving public presentations. During lunch I was chatting to Kari and she wanted a copy of my paper and explained to me the possibility of me going with her over winter to meet with legislators and explaining my science to them, just so they can get a basic understanding on boat noise and echolocation clicks, but particularly vessel types. Granted my work is based on a small sample size but it still really gives you an idea of what different vessels sound like underwater and how they can affect a killer whale’s ability to echolocate. I’m pretty excited as it gives me the opportunity to present science in a way that is different to giving it to an assessor for a grade for a subject. This is something that if happens, will be a fantastic experience.
We finished the talks around 3 and overall they were awesome. It was really good to see exactly what everyone had been working on, as we have all been too busy to explain the specifics of our research, so it was exciting to hear what they had found. The quality of the research overall was awesome. We all had one thing in common, and that was the fact that we needed to increase our sample size. But nonetheless, awesome overall.
After the talks half of the Beam Reach crew left on the 4:15 ferry so it was kind of a rushed goodbye to people I had got to know well over the past 10 weeks. As Ash and I were the only Aussies on the program and in the same group we formed a great friendship over the program and so it was tough to see her go. I know I will see her again back in Oz so I look forward to catching up with her. No doubt we will keep in touch over the next 12 months.
I was absolutely buggered when I got back to the dorms so had to have an afternoon nap (2 hours of sleep will do that to you). We (half of the Beam Reach crew, family and staff) met up after dinner in the dining hall for a Leslie Veirs dessert (always amazing food) and had a bit of a slideshow presentation of some of the awesome photos taken on the program. I’m definitely blowing some of these up and framing them. It was then goodbye to the staff, but I know I will see them again as I’m going to be working (hopefully) only a few miles across the Haro Strait, and I’m confident I will see them out on the water for the Spring and Fall ’08 Beam Reach Programs. I mentioned to Scott about Beam Reach possibly being a co-supervisor for an Honours program I may do in 2009, and he definitely had a positive response so it’s something we can chat about when I settle back down in Canada. I’m excited about the prospect of continuing this kind of work that could potentially have an impact on setting a benchmark for whale watch operator vessels in the future. The operative word however being “potentially”.
Anyway, after having a few drinks with the other students at the labs to celebrate the end of the program, Kenna and I went into town and met Wes and her husband there. I’d never actually been out in Friday Harbor so it was a good night as it was Halloween and pretty much everybody except us had dressed up. It would have been nice if all of us could have been there to celebrate our final night on San Juan Island but it was not to be unfortunately.
Sunday I packed up all my gear, copied photos from the Beam Reach computer, said goodbye to Anne who was the only one left, and made my way to the ferry. Kenna and her family were on the ferry so I chatted to them, and upon arrival into Anacortes I had to go through Customs as it was an International Ferry from Sidney, B.C. US Customs being US Customs I missed my shuttle by 5 mins, which seriously annoyed me because I had booked the shuttle which you would think would wait for people to get off the ferry as the majority of its passengers would be on the ferry, but no, they left without me. I’m going to get almost a full refund so I guess that’s something. So I get out to the parking lot and yep, a woman had told me that the shuttle had just left. Foreseeing this happen I had already asked Kenna’s parents that if for some reason I miss the shuttle would it be cool if I caught a lift down to Seattle with them as they were flying out the next morning. They were more than happy to help me out so after they got through Customs in their car we re-arranged an already full car of luggage and made our way down to Seattle Airport. They dropped me off, we said our goodbyes, and so here I am at the airport writing this final Beam Reach blog.

The Beam Reach program has been a phenomenal experience, one that I will treasure and am very thankful for. It has helped me open up my eyes to what I want to do for the future and has given me invaluable experience to help me path that future. Don’t get me wrong, this experience was a hectic, very full on, sometimes frustrating one, but I’m happy with the outcome and how I conducted myself over the past 10 weeks. It was a great networking opportunity and I was able to make some great contacts in the industry. I learnt al lot about the industry (both scientific in terms of marine mammal biology and bioacoustics, and eco-tourism) and this has definitely helped me get a foot in the door for potential work in the near future. Of course, the marine mammal interactions were fantastic and they will stick with me forever. I learnt a great deal and will be coming back next season to get another fix! Thanks again to everyone at Beam Reach for the great experience and the great memories, and thanks to Flinders University for allowing this program to count as the final part of my undergraduate double degree. I will definitely be promoting Beam Reach to all those that are interested, and would be happy to answer any queries people may have. Although these blog/log book entries have often been long-winded, I hope you have enjoyed reading them. More on my general travels to come. Stay tuned!

A fork in the data road, wildlife rehab & teaching kids – Week 9

Monday 15th October – Tuesday 16th October
I slept in until lunchtime on Monday as lack of sleep had really caught up on me from the last week at sea. I was the last one to bed every night last week and knew it would catch up with me eventually. I’ve vowed to stay active and eat less each meal over the next 2 weeks. It will be easier to eat less but staying active is tougher because the weather has been pretty miserable here and there are not any treadmills or bikes at the labs. Also, the fact that we all have a lot of work to do and most of our time is spent in front of the computer analysing data and writing up, I can’t take too much time off to get a good work out. Guess I’ll just have to make do and do resistant exercises in my room.
Not much to report really. I was meant to go out with Giles today as we were pretty sure there would be whales around today (Tuesday) but nothing eventuated. Going out with Giles is meant to be part of my service project so if I don’t go out with her I’ve organised to go to a place with Ash called ‘Wolf Hollow’ that rehabilitates wild animals that have been injured or separated from their parents. That will happen tomorrow afternoon. Also, I’m going to help out Anne on Saturday at the Whale Museum with an elementary school education thing that she is helping to run. I’m a bit worried because I think the kids may find my accent hard to understand if I am trying to tell them about the whales. Either that or they’ll think it’s funny. Either way it should be fun and interesting. I’m going for a run now. Catcha.

Wednesday 17th October
Today I completed Part “Ichi’ (Japanese for ‘One’) of my Service Project as part of this program. Ash I went to Wolf Hollow this afternoon for 4 hours. It’s a place on a small property in the middle of San Juan Island that takes care of and rehabilitates all wild creatures great and small. We got there at around 1pm and got to see a harbor seal pup that had just come in. It was in the incubation chamber and just looked up at us with it’s beady brown eyes. I know it’s not a very guy thing to say but they really are cute. Then we cut up apples for almost an hour and a half to make apple sauce to bag and freeze for all the critters. Ash and I then cleaned out a squirrel cage. By clean out I mean faecal matter that the little lovelies had left for us, and scrubbing was a priority. We knew the volunteer work would involve these kinds of activities so we just got on with it. The rest of the afternoon was spent going around with Penny (wildlife rehabilitator) feeding the animals. We fed yearlings (young deer) and got to see a white/brown deer that is apparently endemic to Orcas Island (island west of San Juan). It’s colouration is due to a genetic anomaly that apparently shortens an individual’s life span. Currently around campus there are a lot of male deer (bucks), and apparently it is due to the fact that it is coming up on hunting season and so the bucks come onto campus as they know they can’t be hunted here because it is a Biological Reserve. Smart creatures. I thought it was because it was mating season and they’re scoping out the females. I may still be right. Might see if I can film my own nature documentary. Anyway, after feeding the young deer we went to the raccoon enclosure. They had 19 young raccoons in this cage around a tree and it was a sight to see, all climbing, playing, hanging upside down and running around. Penny poured water into their bowls and because raccoons are very tactile creatures they like to rub their hands in the water as if they are washing them. It actually looks pretty funny. Pretty soon all of them were down around the water and coming right up to the fence and staring at us. We had to keep our distance of course as we don’t want to “humanise” them too much. I took some video of these playful, yet sometimes rabid, creatures and then was on my way. Next stop was back to the main house where they have four pools all with harbor seals in them. You must stay quiet while walking around the pools, but the seals always know you’re there, because they haul out onto the platform in the middle and just watch you. We then went inside and fed cut up bits of mice to an injured juvenile short-haired owl, but it just regurgitating the bits back up. There were 3 squirrels in a cage next to the owl that were very feisty. One of the squirrels was holding its acorn ever so tightly and would appear to give off a threat display by coming right up to the cage door and “puffing itself up”. After leaving the angry little squirrels we fed some ducks, fed a crow that had apparently attacked a little kid at a school, and got to see their resident eagles (I can’t remember what types they were, sorry). It’s interesting because Wolf Hollow rehabilitates animals that are from the mainland, then sends them back to the mainland as there aren’t any present on the San Juan Islands (e.g. squirrels, o-possums). Wish I could have seen an o-possum. Anyway, we were invited to a seal release on Saturday arvo so that will be cool.
We had dinner and the JaMi group had docked at the labs as they have been having power issues on the GV. After dinner Shannon gave us a talk about Grad School (i.e. Masters or PhD) and a few things to consider before getting involved in it. Basically I took away from the evening that grad school is not really where I want to be, as research is not where I want to be. The thing about research is, you spend 30% of the time out in the field, and 70% in the lab or at a desk, and I want to be out there almost 100% of the time. I do get excited about the prospects of finding out something “new” and “cutting edge”, but what really interests me is being out there and educating people first hand about marine mammals and marine life in general, which is why I am going to seriously look into running my own eco-tour business. I know I’ve said this before but the conversation tonight made me realise that I don’t want to dedicate another 4+ years of my life to something I’m not completely passionate about. Granted a lot of research and background reading has to go into opening up my own business, but I love the idea of being my own boss and being the driver of my own success. Working in Canada next season will certainly give me experience and I’m sure it will also give me ideas that I can take home to Oz. Watch this space.

Thursday 18th October
A definite data day today. I have gone through all of my sound files and determined at what point in the files I can use to create my spectrums. I had a meeting with Val this afternoon to further discuss how I am going to represent my data. I’m going to use the killer whale audiogram and relate it to all the vessel types at the two distances and speeds and determine which ones lie above or below the audiogram at certain frequencies. From this I can infer which vessels, and at what speed and distance may possibly be masking an orca’s ability to receive echolocation clicks. I’m not sure about what stats I’m going to use yet but I mustn’t get too far out of the scope of this program, as I only have 10 days to finish this, so I must be realistic as to what I can accomplish to a certain level (a high level that I always seem to put on myself). It’s amazing how much my project has evolved over the last 3-4 weeks. My methods for boat sampling advanced quite a bit and I got the time it takes to do a boat recording down to 15min. I guess though that’s how it is with research in the field, it’s a process of trial and error, only this research program is very fast paced and things evolve very quickly. I still have to write the sustainability report that is due on Saturday, so that may be a job for tomorrow as Saturday we have the Whale Museum educational talk for the kids and the afternoon is the seal release. As I said, all systems go! Better get back to work.

Friday 19th October
A somewhat productive day today but no where near as much as I would have liked. I worked on my sustainability/impact reduction report, went into town to get a haircut, then went to the Whale Museum to actually go upstairs and check out the exhibits. It has some really awesome displays up there. A full minke and an orca skeleton hanging from the ceiling, seal skulls and foetuses, video footage, interactive sound boards created by the fearless VaTo instructor, Mr Val Veirs. It was an educational hour or so, but nonetheless a distracting hour or so that could have been spent working on my project. I’m back working now in the library so better get back to it.

Saturday 20th October
I enjoyed today. I went with Anne this morning to the Whale Museum as she had organised as part of her service project to have a few hours of activities to help kids learn about whales. I helped Anne set up activities that involved kids wearing a glove of butter in cold water to see the insulating properties of blubber. Another activity involved little bits of dried parsley (simulating plankton) in a tub of water and using a comb, small plastic bag and a straw to simulate different ways that whales feed. The comb simulated baleen for those whales that are “skimmers”, the small plastic bag for those that are “gulpers”, and the straw to blow bubbles for those that are “bubblers (i.e. humpbacks). Another activity was using olives, butter and staples in a tub of water to get kids to understand buoyancy. There was a whale ID section where kids used the ID guide for the Southern Residents to identify individuals that we had photos of, and Anne had a computer set-up with different underwater sounds that can be heard in these waters (e.g. speed boats, cargo ships, and of course killer whales!). It was just Anne and I in the morning to start with (other VaTo members came later), and that was actually the busiest time of the whole session (11am-3pm). I really enjoyed teaching the kids about whales, but what was even more rewarding was chatting to the parents and actually teaching them a thing or two! I really think I will enjoy working on the whale watch boats next season, as I really want to educate people about marine mammals and having them ask questions that I can answer is something I find very rewarding. This work today will count towards Part “Nee” (Japanese for 'two') of my Service Project, so now I’m all done! At about 2pm Ash and I went a harbor seal release that the Wolf Hollow people were doing. Two harbor seals were being released that had been in rehab for a couple of months after being stranded as pups. It was really satisfying seeing them being released back into their natural environment. Overall it took about 10-15min, as once they were out of the cages they swam around for a little bit, constantly popping their heads out of the water and looking around, then seemed to get further and further away. They were released near a known haul out site so no doubt they will meet other seals there and get on with their fish eating, sun baking, heavy breathing pinniped life.
It’s Saturday night as I write this and I have just finished my Sustainability report. As I mentioned last week, I have chosen to do it on hybrid diesel-electric marine propulsion systems. I have explained basically what the system is, used the Gato Verde as a case study, then stated what would be needed to outfit a whale watch boat with a similar technology, and why this is a sustainable practice. If you would really like to read it then go to www.beamreach.org/wiki and look under ‘Hybrid diesel-electric propulsion systems’. It’s really late, and the JaMi group is coming in pretty early tomorrow, and then we begin the huge Gato Verde clean-up!

Sunday 21st October
An eventful day here at the Friday Harbor Labs. The JaMi group got into the dock at around 9am and the clean-up began. Of course it rained all morning which made things just grand. Shannon was dropped off at the ferry at 8am to leave the Beam Reach program and continue on another path in her life. I said goodbye to her on Wed night. It was bloody great having her on the program, as she brought a good mix to the situation and of course her marine mammal knowledge and paper writing skills were a great resource. Plus the fact the she had lived in Oz for a few years and has been through similar things that I have been through really made my time out on the boat just that much more enjoyable, even more enjoyable than what it already was! I wish her all the best over in the UK and then next season in Antarctica as a Marine Mammal Biologist. What an awesome job that would be! Something I may indeed look into after I have a bit more experience in the field. Anyway, so we were all assigned jobs to do on the GV, and I got galley and pretty much cleaning storage areas in, on and above it, yes that included the ceiling. I don’t mind cleaning, and within about 4 hours (it did take a while) the GV was looking pretty shmick! Cleaner than when we boarded 8 weeks ago anyway! That afternoon, well it ended being after dinner, and after an afternoon of technical issues, I watched the Rugby World Cup Final with Irish Dan up in the Commons. We were able to stream it and then watch it projected from the computer with decent speakers, so it was really like watching it at the pub on the big flatscreen. I was happy the Springboks got up, as I didn’t really want England to win it two World Cups in a row. I was in two minds initially though to tell you the truth; England knocked the Wallabies out so I didn’t like them for that, but half my family is English so I felt I should barrack for the country of my heritage. Still, although it wasn’t a very eventful game, the celebrations from the South Africans were awesome to watch.
I had to move rooms this morning as I shared a room with Heather when we rotated from sea to land, and because the JaMi group was coming back, we the VaTo team moved to the spare rooms in the dorm to make their transition back to land flow more smoothly. I’m writing this knowing that when I wake up in the morning it’s going to be head down bum up to get this paper and presentation done. Bring on the Red Bull!

Last week on the water - Week 8 (at sea)

Monday 8th October
Well, it’s the end of the first day of my last week at sea on the Beam Reach program, and we had whales today! We got some unbelievable recordings, it was literally a chorus of killer whale sounds. I was hearing sounds I’d never heard before – clicks, whistles, calls and sounds that were similar to rubbing two wet balloons together, and ones similar to rubbing two rocks together. It was awesome!
We left Roche Harbor after receiving reports (text messages and phone calls) of whales down near Lime Kiln. Todd successfully detached the cracked generator bracket and we successfully motored on one alternator down to the whales. We could only go around 4 knots but it was better than being stuck at the dock! The whales were heading south so they were at the southern end of San Juan heading towards Hein Bank by the time we got a visual on them. On the route down we had a single Dall’s porpoise ride the bow wave. It was quite calm so I got some awesome video footage as I was able to lie right down on the trampoline and get very close to the surface of the water. The whales then turned and headed back north up the west side of San Juan so we spent the good part of an hour following them in order to position ourselves in front of them (within regulations) so we could vertically deploy the hydrophones. We were able to get in a fairly good position just south of Lime Kiln (about 800m offshore) so we deployed and waited. I had a few issues with ropes detaching and getting tangled but sorted them out just in time for what was a chorus of orca vocalisations. There were around 15-20 boats in the vicinity (whale watch, private and research) and were all powered off as the whales spread out and were foraging. We had J and L pods swimming randomly and surfacing in the vicinity of the GV as I sat there with the headphones on recording frantically the numerous amount of clicks coming in. Anne (who was listening on the array hydrophones) were just looking at each other in awe as to the amount of vocalisations coming through. It literally was like they were singing in a chorus as there were numerous calls at one time. These recordings would be like those played on DVD menus for killer whale documentations. That just gave me an idea… The orcas vocalised for a good 20-30 minutes, then it was as if they’d all been given instructions and then just left the area and headed west. One of the whale watch boats parked next to me was from Canada that I had spoken with and gone out with back in early August when I was checking out Vancouver Island, so I called her up on the radio and had a chat (Liz from SeaQuest Adventures in Sidney B.C). It was actually with SeaQuest that I saw my very first killer whale in the wild and I’m very thankful to Liz for letting me go out with her to see what the business is all about. The whales were travelling off in the distance by this stage, and I had organised with a Vancouver whale watch business to get some boat recordings so we headed slightly in-shore and set up the floating buoys on the man overboard pole and got some recordings at 100m at both speeds. Unfortunately I couldn’t get 400m recordings as they had to head back to Vancouver, but hey, something is better than nothing, and I think that’s how it’s going to be this week as I don’t expect them to come out solely to get boat recordings. I had another business lined up to record but they had to pull out at the last minute so said we would try and organise something this week. While I was recording clicks Todd was on the radio to another wildlife tour business from Pt Townsend that saw us with our hydrophones in and got talking to him, and it turns out this guy would like to get his boat recorded also so Todd got his number, and after chatting to him earlier tonight, I might be able to organise something for the morning. Only problem is, weather is meant to kick in tonight and tomorrow with winds up to 35 knots, so I may not be able to get any recordings done. See what happens when I get up in a few hours for breakfast. We are anchored again in Garrison Bay as it provides good protection from weather and has good anchoring grounds. The JaMi group accidentally ripped the mainsail on Saturday so we have taped it up and are in the process of stitching it up. Quite a lot has ripped so Anne, myself, Val and Todd have all done a bit of sewing, still have a quite a bit to do tomorrow. Shiftwork will be in order I think. We watched ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?” just earlier, and it was very interesting. Makes you think so I would recommend watching it. I still have to see ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ which I’ve been told is a must see. One final thing before I hit the sack – due to the tension and indecisiveness in our group over the past weeks we have now adopted a “leader of the day’’ in which one member of the group organises and makes major decisions throughout the day. It was an idea put forth so we can get jobs done quickly and efficiently and not sit around discussing what we do next. Ash was today and she did a bloody great job. She hasn’t really exhibited any leadership role while on the program so far, but today she proved she was definitely capable. We have a quick “de-briefing” after dinner and give constructive criticism and positive feedback to the ‘leader of the day’ so they can think about areas to work on. I’m not till Wednesday I don’t think so I’ll see how I go. Anyway, its almost 1am so I’m off to my cold birth. Had to sleep fully clothed last night! Fun times.

Tuesday 9th October
What a full on day! We had warnings of gail force winds and 4-6ft swell arriving mid-morning, but that’s all they were, warnings. There was not a single time during the day that it seemed as though a storm was approaching or the winds were picking up, so we had a bloody great day, all day, with the whales. The weather forecasters got it pretty botched up. Anyway, so I started this morning by recording ‘Glacier Spirit’ from Port Townsend at the NW entrance to Roche Harbor. The recordings were awesome and we were all done in 20 min. Glacier Spirit is a whale watching boat based out of Pt Townsend USA and is currently on a 3 day sightseeing trip around the San Juans, and when he saw us out on the water yesterday he contacted Todd (as I mentioned) and so this morning we arranged to meet up, as they were staying at Roche last night, and get some recordings done. After we were done with Glacier Spirit, I opportunistically got a ferry recording and we began our trek down south to where there were reports of whales off False Bay (SW San Juan). Todd had repaired the alternator bracket last night so we were back up to travelling at our normal speed of 5-6 knots. On the way down I chatted to Anna (POW) and she had the all clear from her boss to get boat recordings (with a few quid pro quo’s of course). We headed the whales off heading north at Eagle Point, J’s and L’s, and I decided today that I didn’t need to get any more echolocation clicks as I have literally hundreds and need to get a mean spectrum for each individual one. Instead, I decided I would be on camera and learn to use the Beam Reach camera and try and get some good orca shots. The camera is one of those ones with a really fat long lens that has an awesome zoom so it was pretty easy to get good shots. Anway, so as I was taking photos, a POW boat came onto the scene so I chatted to them on the radio, it was cleared by headquarters, and I was able to record them as they headed back to Victoria. For any future Beam Reach students that wish to do controlled boat noise recordings I suggest getting in touch with the businesses within the first few weeks, NOT the middle few weeks, because it’s really no good getting in touch with the drivers as they ultimately need the all clear from the bosses. Still, it’s worked out well for me in this last week. I plan on getting another recording (Jim Maya’s Peregrin) in the morning, weather permitting of course, as the change is starting to come in now as I write this. So after I recorded Ocean Magic II we continued north up San Juan past Lime Kiln and just parked ourselves, dropped the hydrophones, and listened to the abundance of calls and clicks coming in. There were around 30-40 whales in a 2km radius of the GV and they were primarily foraging and playing with spyhops, tail slaps, and a few observed “business times”. (Listen to “Business Time” by Flight of the Conchords to know what I’m talking about). I ended up getting a photo of the elucid “elf shoe”. Again if you can work out what killer whale “business time” is then you can work out what I mean by a killer whale “elf shoe”. We had whales coming in all directions so literally all we could do was just sit there and wait till it was clear to move. There were only a couple of boats on scene as most of them had figured the weather would be bad today so had cancelled their trips. It was awesome because it was calm and we got the whales almost all to ourself! I did record a few clicks but was quite happy to take photos and help Anne with her vertical array. I have spent most, well pretty much all of my time with the whales sitting on the cabin table with the headphones on, so today was my day to enjoy and watch the whales and get some good photos so I can photo ID them in my spare time. We hung around the whales until well after 5pm, after being with them since 11am, so it was a long day of focussing. I loved sitting there watching them in tight groups of 4-5 individuals spyhopping, leaping, diving and tail slapping. J’s and L’s were together so it was much like a party we would have as humans, just socialising. We know they are very social creatures and just witnessing that today was truly amazing. I really do feel soo lucky to be all the way over here, on the other side of the world, seeing these creatures do things I’ve only seen on posters and documentaries. It makes me want to stick around here even more, which is why I’ll be here next summer.
We are anchored again in Garrison Bay tonight. We were all pretty exhausted after today so a couple of people had naps this arvo. I wish I could have as I’m always last to bed (except when Scott is on board), but I choose to stay up-to-date on my blog. If the weather is bad like it says it will be then I may have a kip tomorrow arvo. I have to ring Ivan from Western Prince first thing tomorrow morning as he can skipper Jim Maya’s boat. Hopefully the weather is ok to get it done, out of the way, in the computer, and ready for analysis. Today was definitely one that will stick in the memory bank.

Wednesday 10th October
I woke up to drips on my head this morning as I had left my hatch on the ventilation setting and rain was dripping in. Fun fun. It was dead calm on the water with a little rain first thing but it soon cleared and we had clear blue sky all day. Awesome October weather! I was leader of the day today so had to be on my game. I called Ivan this morning but he was a bit crook so was unable to get Peregrine recording. We had reports of whales sighted off Pender Bluff (NW San Juans) so rang around to confirm the reports. It seemed as though that was the word on the water so we headed north out of Garrison and parked at Turn Point on Stuart Island and deployed a hydrophone. We sat there floating for a couple of hours, had lunch, by which time other whale watch operators had navigated up to Active Pass into Strait of Georgia and down to Boundary Pass, but found nothing. I really enjoy chatting on the radio, and I think it definitely helps me to get to know the drivers out here, and ultimately assist me in getting employment next summer. As there were no whales and we had to be at Roche at 4 to meet JaMi, we headed back SE to Spieden Channel where Val and I went out in the dinghy and made recordings of the GV. It was dead calm so I was able to get some great recordings. After that was done it was time to head in Roche and meet up with JaMi to get a tour of the Roche Harbor wastewater treatment plant (part of the sustainability component of the course). Surprisingly it was interesting and quite odourless. The guy that runs it there is very passionate about his work and does a great job keeping things natural with basically no environmental impact. When you talk about water conservation I believe it comes down to what people are prepared to do, and I think that what people don’t know won’t hurt them. That may be a crude attitude but I truly believe that we will have to end up drinking treated wastewater, as water really is a precious resource and I’ve known that all my life growing up in the country living off rainwater tanks and having water restrictions. One thing that disgusted me was the fact that Victoria, BC pump their wastewater directly into the Strait of Juan De Fuca, without any treatment at all. I might end up living there! Apparently there is pressure for them to change their ways which is a bloody good thing! It sickens me to think that what goes straight from their toilet ends up directly in the ocean without any kind of breakdown or treatment. Anyway, enough about wastewater. We talked more about water conservation at dinner on the GV and Jason seemed to be interested in things we do Down Under in terms of building houses, harnessing run-off, and financial incentives for doing so. I think Americans can learn a lot from us Aussies, particularly when it comes to water conservation. I mean, the half flush/full flush toilet is apparently only just catching on here! JaMi left straight after dinner so we went and had a much needed shower at Roche. I know we’re trying to be water conscious on the boat but seriously, one shower a week is not much to ask, and I think it’s more a personal hygiene issue rather than a sustainability issue. It’s the last week at sea anyway so it’s a non-issue now. After showers we pulled off the dock and after one failed attempt and pulling up letting out and pulling up almost 200ft (almost 70m) of chain, we were able to anchor securely. I had my ‘leader of the day’ debriefing and pretty much good comments all round. The general consensus was that today was really a day where I couldn’t fully show my leadership potential as it was a day where a lot of the time people were just doing their own thing (mainly data analysis). They said they’ve definitely witnessed me step up to a leadership position in previous weeks so know what I am capable of. I agreed, as the last two days we had whales and so systems were go go go, but today, a lot of people were tired, and so it was pretty unstructured while we were waiting around to hear reports. Comments were also made that when jobs needed to be done I just went ahead and did them, and didn’t delegate them. In my defence, they were just little jobs (pumping out, filling up freshwater, starting dishes etc) and I felt I could do them all myself, and didn’t want to delegate them. It was also stated that they always felt that I knew what was going on and that made people feel comfortable. Overall I guess I was happy with what I did today but I didn’t really get to truly display what I am capable of, but do believe I have already demonstrated this in previous weeks at sea.
On a final note before I head to my hole, when arriving back to Roche today and meeting up with the JaMi group, and Jason and Val were off chatting, and everyone else (i.e. 9 other females) were socialising, I had the major realisation that I didn’t have a bloke to chat to and kinda felt alone. Not that it’s a big issue and I really don’t know why I’m blogging about it, but I guess if there was a situation for a future male Beam Reach student to be in the same situation I am in, he could probably relate to how I feel. Look, I get along with everyone, but being the only guy I still do feel somewhat isolated and don’t feel comfortable in the girly conversations where they’re chatting soo bloody fast and soo bloody loud that nobody can get a word in either ways. I lived with two chicks back home, and when they were with their friends and chatting and laughing I could hear them through 3 doors and 3 walls in the house! There are all things we miss on this program, but I guess for me the major thing for me is to not be able to sit down with blokes my age and just talk about bloke stuff, over a nice cold ale. Just being there when the 2 groups interact it’s an in-your-face reminder of the fact that I’m surrounded by females and really just want to get away for a moment, but can’t. Don’t read into this too much, cos in 2 weeks I’ll be partying it up in the MIA with old mates and will look back at this and laugh. But, this is a snapshot of how I feel right at this moment. Last week was really good ‘cos there is an Irish guy studying back at the labs and we talked World Cup all week. Women probably wouldn’t understand it, but sometimes guys just need to talk “guy stuff”, and it’s bloody great to do it over a cold fermented vegetable drink.

Thursday 11th October
As I write this we are docked in Port Angeles, USA! Not much to report today. I finally got boat recordings of Peregrine this morning (Jim Maya’s boat, although his character of a neighbour was skippering it). What a funny bloke Noris was. Would love to have a beer with that guy sometime. Water was almost dead calm today so we did the recordings at 9:30am just out the front of Mitchell Bay, then made our way south with the hope of getting to Race Rocks to see some pinnipeds life. Realistically it was a bit too far as it’s west past Victoria up into the Strait of Juan De Fuca, which is why we are docked in Port Angeles tonight and plan to catch the ebb to Race Rocks in the morning, cruise around checking out elephant seals and Stellar sea lions, maybe even see a Humpback or two (4 have been in the region the last two days so we are hopeful) then cruise the flood back into San Juan tomorrow night. Today was spent analysing data and finalising my Methods section. I’m finalising to a point that will be just a cut and paste into my final report. They have changed slightly in terms of boat recordings so need to adjust that accordingly. I’m pretty happy with the amount of boat recordings I have but would very much like to get a zodiac if I can this week. If not, then so be it.
We got into Pt Angeles at around 5pm. Anne actually used to live here so she spent the evening catching up with old friends while we went to a coffee shop with free wi-fi and got up-to-date on our emails and the like. Ash and I were on dinner, cooked spaghetti and fake meatballs again. It’s a no-brainer but tastes good so I stick to what I know. Watched a dvd on killer whales in New Zealand that was awesome and now I’m writing this. I’m on breakfast in the morn so better be off. I look forward to seeing elephant seals and Stellars tomorrow! Val promises they will be there! And maybe even catch the southern residents as they come back into the Strait from the open ocean (they have been away since Tuesday, and typically go out for 2-3 days at a time). Fingers crossed!

Friday 12th October
What a marine mammal filled day! These waters are like a marine mammal playground. We saw your regular harbor seals, harbor porpoises and Dall’s porpoises, but we also saw Stellar sea lions and Humpback whales! We left Port Angeles at around 9am and headed NW across to Race Rocks. Now to familiarise you with Race Rocks it’s a place that is very much frequented by whale watch operators when killer whales are not in the region. They have Stellar sea lions, which are the biggest of the sea lions, actually the biggest of the otariids (for you biologists) and Northern elephant seals this time of year (summer fall), and of course harbor seals that are abundant throughout these waters. But, no elephant seals this morning so I was really disappointed. Apparently the Navy had been letting off blasts above the water in the area which may have scared them off. Buggers! So we cruised around Race Rocks and got some great shots of the Stellars then got a radio call that told us that were humpbacks about 5 miles from Race Rocks in the direction we were going to head to get back to San Juan so off we went. We, the Gato Verde have definitely established ourself out on the water in terms of being known and what we’re doing. People call us up to find out where the whales are! In return of course we tell them, it’s all a big network and no-one gives anyone else false reports. I have definitely established myself out there, being the only Aussie on the radio I mean, so it has put me in good stead for recognising drivers and vessels and hopefully aiding in job prospects next summer. So we headed across to the humpbacks and boy did we get a show! They were very active – tail slaps, pec slaps, lunges and really really loud blows. Unfortunately no breaches but that is definitely something special if you witness that. There were several Stellars playing with the 4 humpbacks and we witnessed the sea lions porpoising out of the water. Got some great photos using the Beam Reach camera, a camera that is a million times better than mine for zoom wildlife shots. There were POW zodiacs in the region but it was just too unsafe to get recordings around humpbacks when they can go down for up to 40min and could surface anywhere., so I decided against contacting them. We left the humpys at around 3pm as it was around 3 hours travel to any of our US waters anchoring spots. At about 5pm we got a report of J-pod coming in the Strait of Juan De Fuca and were sighted 2 miles south of Race Rocks, where we were this morning! Grr! Ahh well, we have people monitoring the hydrophones at Lime Kiln and Val’s place in case they come up past Snug where we are anchored tonight. Had bloody great weather today, have actually had bloody good weather most of the week. I really didn’t think our final week at sea was going to be this calm. I guess it means we can’t go sailing as there is just not any wind, so maybe tomorrow we can get a bit of sailing in. Depends if we get whales or not I guess!

Saturday 13th October
‘Twas our last day at sea, and yes, we got whales! Killer whales that is! We woke up at 7:30am to reports from Val’s wife Leslie that she could her vocalisations on the hydrophone out the front of their house, so we hauled anchor and motored out of Snug (Mitchell Bay) to see if we could get a visual on the whales and a direction of travel. As we were motoring out the calls on the hydrophones stopped so it was a bout 15min before we got a visual, well, till I got a visual. I spotted one just off Kellet Bluff heading north around Henry Island, but then they changed direction heading back down south slowly while foraging. I got on the phone to one of the Victorian whale watch operators that had helped us out in getting to the humpbacks yesterday, as we were the only boat on scene. They were very much appreciative! I’m definitely in their good books, ahh job please. We identified them as J pod, which matched reports of them coming in late yesterday afternoon. They were extremely spread out across Haro Strait heading in a southerly direction so we followed them and tried to get in front of them in order to stop completely and drop the hydrophone array vertically. I have enough click data so didn’t deploy the high frequency. We got past Lime Kiln, stopped, deployed and watched J1 (aka Ruffles) surface about 60m off our port stern. Then, the fog set in. I have literally never seen anything like it on the water. I’ve seen it on a footy field back home where you can’t see the other end, but being out on the water with a visibility radius of around 100m is quite daunting. But the cool thing is you can hear the blows of the orcas, and they sound really close, but you can’t see them, and then you see what appears to be ghost of a dorsal fin surface off in the distance. Your eyes play tricks on you. As it was very foggy I volunteered to sound our foghorn every two minutes, only our foghorn was human lung operated, so every two minutes I’d blow into this horn that sounded like a dying bird. We also had an air-horn that after a bout half an hour I decided to start using. We were in the fog for a few hours only encountering a few other J-pod individuals. J27 and J30 (two young males) surfaced together around 40m off our starboard and that was awesome, but it wasn’t until just after lunch that the fog finally lifted, and that’s when the boats appeared. The background noise from the boats was just phenomenal. I had planned on getting a vessel recording of the Western Prince but couldn’t hear it over the abundance of boats (20+ within a few kilometre radius) so I decided to cancel, and have hopefully organised to record first thing tomorrow morning before we do the changeover with JaMi in Friday Harbor. There were plenty of POW zodiacs around but again, background noise was just too prominent so I couldn’t get recordings. At least I have one twin outboard motor recording for my project. J-pod was extremely spread out in the southern Haro Strait so we tried to get ahead of groups and deploy but as their direction was constantly changing it wasn’t long before they were ahead of us again and boats were motoring to catch up with them, thus making recording clicks and calls for other members of the VaTo team very difficult. It was around 3pm that we decided we had to leave to get to an anchorage at a reasonable time. It was kinda sad leaving the orcas, as today was most likely the last day this year we’ll get to see them (I may be able to next week if I go out with Giles to help her). It didn’t bother me too much as I know I’ll be back next season to spend much more time with these awesome cetaceans. We are anchored in North Bay tonight on the east side of San Juan. I will be recording Western Prince in the morning before we head around the corner to Friday Harbor to do the changeover. We had our sailing assessment this arvo, of which I got a perfect score, so I was pretty chuffed. I then had one last cruise on the dinghy with Todd. I opened it right up, and we hit around 20knots as it was dead calm. I parked it quite well this time, no going underneath the cat or anything like that. We watched ‘Whale Rider’ this evening. It wasn’t quite what I expected but still, not a bad movie. I also spoke to Todd tonight about hybrid electric propulsion systems as I want to do that for my sustainability report and look into putting electric motors onto smaller whale watch vessels such as a zodiac, so they can motor silently when in the vicinity of the whales. It’s better for the environment, and better for the whales. As I write this I’m again the last one to go to bed. It’s been bloody cold in my berth the last couple of nights. I’ve been fully clothed with my beanie all curled up in a 0 degrees sleeping bag and a blanket! Oh well, one more night of it then back to a heated dorm room. Today was a great day, and made even greater by the fact that it’s our last day at sea and we got to see whales. I’m gonna miss the GV, as I really did enjoy living on the boat and sailing, although unfortunately this week we didn’t get the winds to sail. It was evident that living on the boat was not for everyone, but I could definitely do it.

Sunday 14th October
Well, the sea component of the Beam Reach Program is now over. I was on breakfast this morning and awoke to a magical sunrise over North Bay. I was leader of the day again today so made a list of all the chores we needed to do for the changeover while I recorded Western Prince just off Turn Island. We pumped out and filled up at Friday Harbor and were 10 min early at the labs dock. Good work team! We unloaded the GV, I had a moments silence and reminisced over the awesome 4 weeks I had out at sea on this vessel, then we went to a friend of Jason’s who have chosen to live their life sustainably as possible. We all sat down and had a chat with them. The interesting thing was, they (parents and a single child) are living very similar to they way I lived when I was a kid growing up in country Victoria. We were on rainwater tanks so were very water conscious, we had a compost and a veggie patch, Mum made a lot of our clothes and we often bought food in bulk as we lived a fair way out of town. So the discussions we were having were not really new to me. I guess the difference is though not everyone can bring a family up in a house that can have a compost or a veggie patch, so we discussed how you can you try and live sustainably when you’re in a flat or a house in the middle of the city. This program has definitely opened my eyes to more things and how not to leave as big a carbon footprint, but a lot of the little things I was already doing, and so will continue to do these things when I get home, and develop even more habits to try and live more sustainably. A lot of the focus though when we talk about sustainability is in regard to an American way of life, and so it is often very different to the situation back Down Under. Anyway, so we headed back to the labs, the JaMi group unpacked their gear onto the GV, we farewelled them off, and it was time for an early dinner and a much needed shower and cold beverage to celebrate the end of our sea component. I’m happy with the amount of data I have so the next 2 weeks will be spent in front of a computer writing everything up. It’s gonna be all systems go! I’ve decided NOT to state business names in my report and presentation, instead just the propulsion systems and vessel specifics. I’ve stated this to the various whale watch operators that I have measured and also that I am not out to say that one vessel is “louder” than another, as that is not the purpose of my research. Hopefully all reply with the all clear. I’m also very happy with how I have established myself out on the water in this region among whale watch operators and researchers, as it will definitely assist me in gaining employment next summer in Canada. I feel very grateful to have been able to communicate with the whale watch operators while out at sea on this program, but even more grateful to Beam Reach for giving me the opportunity to network with people from all over the industry.

Rain, deer and “I feel like…” – Week 7

Monday 1st October to Wednesday 3rd October
It’s been an interesting couple of days back on land. We had our peer and program evaluations due just before we got off the boat and it has become evident that there is a bit of tension within the VaTo group. Now me being the only guy in the group and pretty much oblivious to issues between females, I had no idea that there even was tension between certain members. I thank Ash for bringing it to my attention, otherwise I would have had no idea! When she told me I was really surprised. She just looked at me and said “You’re such a boy”, obviously implying I know nothing about the dynamics of females living in close quarters with each other and how little small things can escalate into big issues. I guess if there was another guy my age on the program, and we clashed in one area or another for some reason, we’d lay it out, sort it out, and move on. Pretty simple. Anyway, we had a discussion last night (Tues) and talked about how we can make the last week on the boat much more pleasant and issues between members of the group seem to have been resolved. Time will tell. I got my peer evaluation back and was very pleased with the results. It seems as though I’m doing everything ok and don’t have any complaints so I’ll just continue on the way I’m going. I think it’s important to laugh and I try to bring that to the group. I want to try and make sure everyone is happy and smiling in what can sometimes be a very stressful environment. The happier we are, the more relaxed we can be, and I think the more productive we can be also. I know I don’t want to be in an environment where people are all quiet and awkward around each other, so I think laughter is the best medicine, and I believe I have the remedy! Anyway, enough of that. I have also received my proposal marking back and there are a few things I need to work on, but overall I’m happy with it. Got some data analysis to do this week, and a couple of exercises due this week so have been working away at those. I’m definitely going to give myself a night off as I think it’s important to just relax so that will probably happen Fri night. I’m hoping to go out with Giles this week also when she gets back from California. We’ve been told to get cracking on our service projects and so I’m really hoping the whales are around so I can get out with Giles and take some boat surveys for Soundwatch. As I write this it’s Wednesday arvo and we may or may not be meeting up with the other group at British Camp (Garrison Bay) as they could be out with the whales and obviously need the data. The pager system is no longer because it finished up at the end of September, so now when we want to find out where the whales are we have to be paying close attention to the radio and get on the phone and ring our “special contacts”.
I’d better get back to work but thought I’d leave with an idea that has been running through my head since I’ve been on the program. I’m pretty sure that research is not where I want to head as a career path, well not bio-acoustics anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy listening to the whales but I just want to get out there and educate people about marine life and not be stuck in front of a computer analysing data. Out on the water is what I love, and so I’ve been thinking I’m going to look at opening up my own business when I get back Down Under. I have Beam Reach to thank though for giving me the experience out on the water. I had a good chat to Todd last week about running your own business, and so I now know basically what needs to be done for me to get on the right path. Watch this space! I’m going for a much needed run through the reserve. Catcha.

Thursday 4th October
In theme with the title of this week’s blog I thought I’d clarify why I named it that. Ok, rain, because we’ve had it every morning and some evenings since we got back on land. Deer, because they are bloody everywhere! Apparently San Juan Island is at carrying capacity for these black tail deer and every morning and every evening you just see them wandering around campus. I was walking to the library the other night and there were 4 deer (one buck, a female and two foals) on a patch of grass between some of the lab buildings. One of the foals was making a ‘bleeting’ sound, so I began to ‘bleet’ back at it, and it started to follow me! I continued on my way and it came round the corner in the dark and was staring at me. I thought it was probably a good idea to stop bleeting as I didn’t want to piss mum off, which may in turn piss the buck off, and he had some big antlers! Anyway, so you’re probably wondering why I wrote ‘”I feel like” as the final part of my blog title, well, it’s because this American phrase seems to be rubbing off on me. Help me! It’s not as bad as you may think, I don’t have an accent or anything, thank goodness, (not that having an American accent is bad or anything ;-S ), but I find myself beginning a thought or idea with “I feel like…” and then say what I want to say. The phrase “I feel like…” seems to be a very common introduction when someone wishes to put forth an idea. For example, when discussing a navigation plan on the boat, someone may put forth an idea by saying “I feel like maybe we should consider heading….” I say it sometimes but immediately stop myself after I say “feel”. It may not come across as a big deal in writing but believe me, it’s certainly noticeable for me, and a habit that I will quickly get myself out of. I’ve started using some American words as well instead of the Aussie ones just so I don’t have to repeat myself. For example, “trash” instead of “rubbish”, “trash can” instead of “bin”, and “fosset” instead of “tap”. It’s bad I know, I’m becoming American-ised! But the accent I will never succumb to I promise you that! I put on a pretty good American accent when I need to though.
Back on track now. Last night we went to British Camp on the western side of San Juan to meet the JaMi group. While having dinner we had a talk given to us by a National Parks historian about the history of British and American Camp on the island and the ‘Pig War’ back in the 1860’s. The history was fascinating, learning about the British and the Americans in these parts back in the day, and how they went about deciding who got what land etc, and how a war almost broke out because someone shot a pig. It turned really cold quite quickly so the JaMi group got back on the boat and we the VaTo group went back to the labs.
Today was spent doing an acoustics exercise that was due in the afternoon. I did mine on the high frequency hydrophone calibration that we recorded early last week. I also had an advisor meeting with Val later in the afternoon. I feel like… (just kidding), that things are on track for my project, I just have to fine-tune my Methods section that is due on Sunday. Off to the Whale Museum in the morning for what is known as ‘Gear-Down’ where local naturalists on board the whale watching vessels on the island get together, listen to talks, and discuss the summer. We as Beam Reach students are on the agenda so will stand up and give a quick spiel about what our research projects are. Should be good.

Friday 5th November to Sunday 7th November
Friday saw us at the Gear Down held in Friday Harbor. Val gave a talk then we stood up and explained our research to the local naturalists and Whale Museum staff. I felt comfortable talking about my research as it’s something that I have planned out all on my own and after 7 weeks, should have a bloody good understanding of it all. We also listened to a couple of other talks on harbor seals and seabirds. I think being a naturalist would be an awesome job, and it’s something that I will essentially be next summer should I get a job with a whale watch company. I know all about the whales, just need to touch up on my seabirds and local natural history. I have all winter! Friday arvo we shopped for decorations and presents for Liz for her 21st that is on Monday 8th. Friday night I spent a lot of my time on Skype chatting to family back home and just generally relaxing.
Saturday we were up ready to shop at 10am for the following week’s food inventory on the boat. It rained all day so after shopping and lunch, I was in desperate need of a nap so went and crashed and woke up just before dinner. If there were whales around I was meant to be going out with Giles but obviously she didn’t call me so there were not around (well not till the arvo I heard anyway by which time I’m guessing it wasn’t worth calling me). Saturday night was spent packing up ready for my final week at sea and fine-tuning more of my Methods section.
It’s late Sunday night as I write this, actually it just turned Monday morning, Happy 21st Liz! We, Team VaTo, decorated Liz’s room this morning with photos, balloons and streamers for her 21st, so when she arrived back at the dorms this arvo she got a pleasant surprise. A call from her late this arvo came through saying she loved it and was very thankful that we did that for her. A 21st is a big deal, so even though we couldn’t be on land to celebrate it with her, we did the next best thing. Earlier on today though a major event happened in the VaTo team. Sam has decided that she was not going to get on the boat this week (for reasons I’m not going to go into), so we’re a person less on the GV this week. The changeover at Roche was a wet one, as it was last week. The other group was really keen to get off (hot showers beckoned), so we had a cake for Liz that Leslie made and sang Happy BDay to her, ate it all cos it was bloody delicious, then JaMi headed off to what I’m sure will be a celebratory night for Liz. We were about to head off when Todd opened up the engine hatch to find the bracket that attached the alternator is cracked, so it needs to be either welded or replaced, so we’ll find out about that in the morning if we can get the part or not. So we may not be going anywhere tomorrow, but fingers crossed it sorts itself out. I haven’t heard back from Anna so wrote her an email this evening and hope to chat to her tomorrow about hopefully (really hoping) that I can get some boat recordings. Shannon arrived back on the boat around 8pm after having almost a week off in the Big Apple. We then all had a chit-chat about the days gone by and why we were one group member short, and then looked forward to the week ahead and what we can do to make it run smoothly and efficiently. It’s going to be a busy week, even if we don’t get whales everyday (which I can pretty much guarantee we won’t). Last week at sea and it’s all happening, so come this time next week I’m going to be in desperate need of a good night’s sleep I’m sure!

Dall’s, Minke’s, and a one orca day - Week 6 (at sea)

Monday 24th September
Today was a bloody cold day! First real cold day out at sea and I guess a taste of the week to come. It’s the end of September so it’s only going to get colder. No whales today unfortunately, but it was a productive with hydrophone calibration and then subsequent data analysis. I created a calibration curve for the high frequency hydrophone so it will be easier to interpret my sound data in the software program I am using for my project, and possibly subsequent students for future programs. Marla has brought her expensive NOAA hydrophone equipment aboard so it was interesting to see how the “professionals” do it. As there were no whales we were up in north Haro Strait and I got some cargo ship and ferry recordings. We positioned ourselves, well Todd did, and did it perfectly so that the ferry would pass us by and get around 400m from us at the closest point (which is what I need). I knew the ferry time as it’s the same one Ash and I caught over to Sidney a few days ago. As we were north of San Juan we went into Reid Harbor, the dock was free so instead of anchoring we just tied up there for the night. I’m going to go for a walk with Shannon in the morn as any opportunity I get to exercise on this boat I’m going to take it!

Tuesday 25th September
Again, no whales today! I’m guessing it may be a similar pattern to our last week at sea, as we had not had whales for the first three days, but then got them the last three. Fingers crossed! Shannon and I went for an early morning walk on Stuart Island, we headed back out into Haro Strait after breakky (aka breakfast) and did some sound propagation calibration with all the hydrophones. Val and I went out on the dinghy, aka ‘Gatito’ which means ‘small cat’, with the underwater speaker and played killer whale calls and fake echolocation clicks at various distances from the GV that had a number of hydrophones deployed (the array, the high frequency, the blue box, and Marla’s array). We did this as a sound propagation exercise as it’s important for our projects and helpful when analysing our data. Val and I then did some drive-bys of the high frequency hydrophone to record data for my project. I thank Anne very much for taking control of the high frequency recorder and getting the data for me while I was out on the water with the wind in my hair. It took a few tries to get the ranges right but we got it in the end. After looking at the data I was annoyed to find that the hydrophone was playing up and almost all of the dinghy recordings were all distorted, so Anne and I did a bit of troubleshooting after lunch and worked out the problem. We created, with the help of Todd, an outrigger to keep the hydrophone away from the edge of the boat and attached it to a weighted rope. It recorded perfectly after that! Val and Sam then went back out on the dinghy and I got some more drive-by recordings. I think Val just loves going at high speeds! It was getting late so we pulled in the gear and headed across to Prevost Harbor (Stuart Island), exactly opposite where we docked the night before. Saw a Northern Elephant Seal on the way into Prevost, well it’s head anyway. Those things sure are ugly! Was on dinner with Anne tonight, and we cooked up a storm, ‘twas a hit all round! Still not a fan of tofu but I can cook it at least!

Wednesday 26th September
No whales again today! Grr! We had reports of a superpod mid-morning resting south of Vancouver Island, which was just too far away from us, plus we had to be back on land to meet the other group mid afternoon, so Todd gave us some sailing classes/revision. I’m all about the sailing classes as it does interest me and I hope to own my own sail boat one day. We had to be back at Snug to drop off Marla and her gear off at 3ish so we did that and then was picked up by Jason at 3:30, with rugby ball in hand! As you know it’s the World Cup right now so I’m trying to keep up to date as best I can but it’s bloody hard when out on the boat and limited or no internet access. Lack of sporting activity has really got to me on this program so having that rugby ball to throw around (even if I was just throwing it to myself) was great. We headed back to the labs as there was a much needed logistics and data collection meeting with the JaMi group. After that was all said and done the VaTo group grabbed a much needed shower and headed to a special dinner put on by the Friday Harbor Labs to introduce all the staff and researchers studying here for the fall quarter. Some really interesting research is being done here (lots of intertidal stuff, worms, crabs and lots of microscope related studies) that I was unaware of, but we are the only group doing killer whale research. After the talks we had to leave the labs, farewell the JaMi group again, and head back to Snug and back to the Gato Verde. When we were waiting at Snug we witnessed a harbor seal mother and it’s pup foraging for fish in the shallows under the dock light. The pup would stick it’s head out of the water and just stare at us. Not to get all girly girl but the pups really are cute. We watched a DVD I had sent over from home called ‘Lolita Slave To Entertainment’, which looks at the only Southern Resident killer whale surviving in captivity after 37 years in the confines of a small tank at Miami Seaquarium. I have seen Lolita at Miami Seaquarium, and there is a big push to have her retired to a bay here on San Juan Island, but it’s going to take a lot to get the owner of the Seaquarium, Arthur Hertz, to give Lolita up. She just makes him way too much money. If you get a chance you should check out the DVD. Scott came aboard tonight, he’s here for a week, so we’re now 9 strong again on the GV.

Thursday 27th September
Well we had reports of a superpod just south of Vancouver today so because we hadn’t seen whales in 3 days and we really need data we decided it was worth the risk to head north in the hope we could cut them off if they began to head south. So after we pumped out and filled up at Roche, we headed north, then on our way motor sailing through the Spieden Channel up to Flattop Island we then got reports of some L’s down on the south side of San Juan Island. Bugger! So we had to make decision which way to go. We got on the phone and rang around to confirm the reports and both were on the money, so we made the decision to head back down south. The wind was in our favour but we had lost an hour and so it was going to be a few hours before we got back down to the west of San Juan. We saw a Minke whale on the way south! My first Minke! Obviously they’re not as agile as the killer whale but can be sometimes, just not this time. Still I saw it surface and breathe so I can say I’ve seen a Minke whale now. Anyway, I had organised with Jim Maya from Maya’s Charters to do some drive-bys later that afternoon (as he is based out of Snug Harbor where we regularly anchor) but as it turned out we didn’t catch up with the whales because they began to head further south, so we did some sailing tacking back and forth down to Lime Kiln instead. Todd tells me I “pinch” the wind a bit too much, which is something I need to work on, but I only do it because I want to get to the destination more directly and tack less. I’ll have to work on it. Jim passed us on his way back from the whales down south so I called him up on the radio as we headed north to Snug also but he only had a spare 15 min so we organised to get the recordings first thing tomorrow morning. Let’s hope I can get some good boat data tomorrow.


Friday 28th September
Well today was a long but very fulfilling day. We got whales!!! And Dall’s porpoises riding the bow wave!!! Twice! And then to top if off I saw a Minke whale!
Ok, I’ll try and make this quick as it was a bloody long day. Leslie (Val’s wife) rang us first thing (8am) this morning saying she could hear whales on the hydrophone out the front of their house (that’s right they live on the western side of San Juan Island overlooking the water where killer whales swim by quite regularly over the summer, tough life I know). So we hauled anchor and made our way round the corner, and it literally is just around the corner from Snug. I had to ring Jim Maya and tell him that I wasn’t able to get the boat recordings as we had reports of whales and hadn’t seen them all week and we all really needed the data. He was cool about it and I said I’d give him a buzz later on. So we first got sight of the whales just north of Lime Kiln, deployed the hydrophone, and began to follow a few individuals south. The whales were travelling at a faster speed than we could go while still towing the hydrophones and getting clear recordings with minimal flow noise, so we had to increase speed, stop recordings, and then position ourselves in front of them (>100m of course and out of their path). Turned out we just weren’t fast enough and they headed south down to Hein Bank which is south-west of the southern end of San Juan Island. I realise as I write all these names of places most of you have no idea where I’m talking about. I should put a note at the top of my blog stating that this blog requires supplementary material for ease of understanding, (that supplementary material being a map of the San Juan Islands!). We spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon checking pager data and making phone calls to see exactly where they were. While all this is happening I get a phone call from Anna (from Prince of Whales in Victoria) saying that she wanted to know more details about my research and had to clarify it with the head boss before I was allowed to get boat recordings of their zodiacs and Ocean Magic. So I spent an hour or so, between recording echolocation clicks, writing an email explaining what my research was about and what I plan to show with the data I collect. That has now been sent off so I hope to hear from her soon and get the all clear to go ahead with recordings if given the opportunity. We sailed south, tacking towards Hein Bank to meet up with the whales, and this is where we had our very first experience with Dall’s porpoises riding the bow wave. It was awesome! These small cetaceans are incredibly fast and agile. They exhibit what is known as a “rooster tail” – when they surface to breath at high speeds water sprays off their dorsal fin and it looks like a rooster tail. The Dall’s didn’t stick around for long and we positioned ourselves in southern Haro Strait as the orcas had now started to head back north. We deployed the array and the high frequency vertically (as opposed to towing it behind) and waited for the whales. Unfortunately upon deployment of the high frequency hydrophone the rope attached to the end (approx. 6ft) drifted into the propeller and got stuck and ripped off (hydrophone was fine). So we had to sail from then on as Todd did not want to engage the propellers for fear the rope would wrap further around and damage the propeller. Lucky we had the winds for sailing, so we were able to keep up with the whales and actually overtook them as they headed back up the west side of San Juan. They seemed to mill south of us but we caught up with J1 (aka ‘Ruffles’) as he often leads the pod by himself quite a distance in front of the rest of the pod. It was interesting to observe a few Dall’s swimming along with J1, so we stopped, checked the starboard propeller, it was fine and clear of the rope, so we re-deployed the hydrophones. Following J1 we came across a group of researchers from Global Research and Rescue that were taking breath samples of individual orcas to analyse bacteria. Apparently they are only allowed to take one breath per orca per year. We got chatting with them on the radio and I asked if they were able to do some drive-bys for me as they were using a jet-drive engine. They were happy to as they wanted to hear what their boat sounded like underwater also. So I set up the floats attached to the man overboard pole and a portable radar reflector and positioned ourselves 100m from the floating device. I communicated with Bob (captain) on the radio and he drove by a couple of times- only problem was I could hardly hear the boat over the echolocation clicks and calls coming from nearby whales and the background cargo ship noise. Guess that says something really good about jet-drive engines! Perhaps this could be something to look into for the whale watch industry... I got Bob’s details in the hope we could re-record in an area of minimal background noise tomorrow. Hopefully I can. We kept the hydrophones deployed and continued to get calls and clicks coming through. It was getting dark but we were still getting great recordings so kept the hydrophones deployed and just floated there on the western side up near Snug Harbor. We were having dinner, next thing we knew two juveniles came right near the boat and vocalised right next to the hydrophone, it was bloody loud! Just when we thought the whales had gone a group of about 15 individuals were heading in our general direction northbound. They must have been milling/foraging further south out of our sight, but unfortunately no vocalisations as they passed. So we decided to call it a night, as it was after 7 and the sun was almost completely behind the Vancouver Island mountains. As I was packing up the gear I saw another Minke pas about 100m from the boat! No one else saw it unfortunately because it didn’t surface it again. Then as we were motoring back up into Snug, Dall’s porpoises began to ride the bow wave! I got right down on the trampoline and could almost touch them as they swam past. Such agile and graceful little creatures. We racked up 37 miles today, what a long day, but what an awesome day.

Saturday 29th September
Well as I write this we are anchored in Garrison Bay and there are 40 knot winds outside. Yep, that’s right, 40 knots! Actually we just hit 42! Let’s go sailing…. kidding. Today was a rough day out on the water, but we got some great sailing and hit the top speed for the Beam Reach program… 9.4 knots! Wonder if the JaMi group will better that next week.
We went up to Roche this morning where we pumped out, filled up, got a caffeine fix (and a meat one ;-o). We had reports of whales way down south off Victoria and so decided to brave the winds (bout 20 knots) and 3ft swell to get to them, as having one day of data (more like half a day actually) was really not enough considering we were a week at sea. We can’t control the whales though and so you must be realistic and accepting of the fact that we may not be able to get to them all the time. Turns out this week the whales were just going to be with us for that one day. Sailing down Haro Strait is began to get quite rough (well, the roughest we have had as a group), and the reports coming in from the pager were somewhat unreliable (suprise surprise). We often get really bad reports from the pager people sitting up on the hill. Sometimes they tell us whales are on land, then they send reports that sorry there weren’t any whales after all, when we never got a page from them saying there were any! I think they’re doing more than smoking cigarettes and drinking water up on that hill. Anyway, we ate lunch, quesadillas, we didn’t go down well. I’ve come to the conclusion that American cheeses are far more oily than Aussie cheeses, so I came up with the saying “oil and swell don’t go well” (genius I know). I had a piece of bread though and I was fine. So we made the group decision to head back, as some of us weren’t feeling that crash hot and the weather forecast was winds picking up 30-35 knots so Todd wanted to be well anchored and settled in by 5pm. So we tacked back up north along the west side of San Juan and that’s where we hit 9.4 knots. Had more Dall’s riding the bow wave, and this time they stuck around for a couple of minutes. Got some great video footage. It was too rough to get boat recordings so I didn’t end up contacting Bob from Global Research and Rescue, nor Jim Maya. We tacked our way back up to Henry Island, each having a turn at the helm. Next time we’re out at sea a lot more will be expected of us in terms of navigating the vessel, which I’m looking forward to. The only way to learn how is to be given more responsibility and I feel I’m up for it. We anchored in Garrison Bay at around 3:30pm and then Anne and I went for a dinghy lesson. I want to get more boat experience so the opportunity presented itself and I took it. Todd, Anne and I got decked out in out waterproof gear (I was yet to christen mine) and away we went just hooning around the bay doing figure of eights and sharp turns to get a feel of how the dinghy handles. Then came “parking” the boat, i.e. pulling up behind the GV. My first attempt was, for lack of a better word, perfect. I came up behind the GV, cut the engine and we coasted smoothly between the two dangling ropes that haul the dinghy in. Todd was impressed and said “Ok, let’s see if you can do that again, no pressure”. Ok, now I was feeling pressured. So I came back around behind the GV and the wind slightly changed and swung the boat slightly so I re-adjusted my path. Just as I was about to put it into neutral and cut the engine, the GV swung slighty so I re-adjusted my direction but accidently put on the throttle a bit and so we accelerated up underneath the hull of the catamaran. Yeah, I know, what an idiot! I felt soo bloody stupid. The pressure really did get to me. We were able to stop as we weren’t going very fast, so I cut the engine and we pushed ourselves back out into the open. It was a huge joke and Todd and Anne were cracking up. I felt like a right twat but at least we could laugh about it. So I came around again and parked the boat a lot better this time, we got out, laughed a bit more as we told the rest of the group of my “accident” and then settled into the cabin for the night. We got up-to-date on the data entry for our science and sustainability log, had dinner, then watched ’40 Year Old Virgin’ for a good old fashioned laugh. It’s late as I write this and I need to be up in the morning as I’m hopefully going to get boat recordings from Jim Maya, although the weather for the morning is still winds of 30 knots so I’m doubtful.

Sunday 30th September
Well I’m back on land after what I would call a very unsuccessfully week of data collection. We got some good sailing in but that’s not going to help us write our paper. It was too windy this morning to get boat recordings of Jim, and he is going away for 2 weeks, but fortunately he has other skippers that can operate his boat so I’ll give them a call this week to tee up something for next week. And hopefully POW gets back to me so I can tee up something up. It was pretty miserable when we woke up this morning so we headed around the corner to Roche, pumped out, filled up, and cleaned up ready for the JaMi group to come aboard. JaMi arrived at around noon, it was still drizzling rain, so we did the change over, loaded the vans, then talked and socialised and had a lecture on transportation and bio-fuels. The afternoon went quickly and it was once again time to farewell the sea group. I really hope they get more whales than we did this week, otherwise our data sets are going to be pretty small. Still, they have 2 weeks left on the boat so even if we didn’t get much data next time we’re out, we can hopefully get more from the JaMi group the following week. I will be at a disadvantage though as none of the JaMi group use the high frequency hydrophone. I feel I have enough clicks to analyse, but the boat recordings are really what I need, so hopefully next week out at sea I can get them all. It’s late, and has been a busy week. I’m all showered up and clean ready for a good night’s sleep. Just spoke to Dad and Matt, but had really dodgy internet connection. I guess it's because we have about 10 more people in our dorm now. Melbourne Storm won the NRL Grand Final! Woohoo! That's the team I go for back home so I don't expect any foreigners to know what I'm talking about. So 3 weeks at sea down, 1 to go. Bugger! Oh how time flies when you’re writing a scientific paper.

Reading, writing, and ‘Oh Canada’ - Week 5

Monday 17th September to Wednesday 19th September
Well its mid week of Week 5 back on land, and it’s been hectic to say the least. When I say hectic I mean we have had reports to do, papers to read, and final proposals to write. Monday morning we went to Lacrover Farm again and did some manual labour, pulling up of pea plants to be exact, but we got to feed the four pigs they have which had grown quite substantially since a fortnight ago, so that was cool. I really do plan on posting pics up on the Beam Reach gallery of my trip so far, but have just been too busy to sit down and wait for them to upload, but I promise I will get on that. So I had hoped to go out with Giles on Mon arvo but no whales were reported. Same thing happened on Tuesday and today (Wednesday), no whales. I felt bad for the other group as they have now had 3 days with an orca sighting, and therefore no data collection. Thankfully though that is an advantage of my project where I’m not relying completely on the presence of whales, all I need is boats, and there are plenty of those around. So I’m writing this as a break from my proposal that is due tomorrow. We have had a few little exercises/reports so far this week, as well as readings for journal club so as I said it’s been a little bit hectic. Had another Whale Museum lecture this week, Giles (Debbie) spoke about her PhD work, but as I had already been out with her I kinda already knew what she was working on. Still, it’s fascinating work and very thorough. So my proposal is due tomorrow so I better get back to the finishing touches. Off to Victoria Canada tomorrow arvo as well! We get 2 days off every fortnight so Ash and I decided we would go to Victoria as she had never been, and I really like it, plus I want to utilise the opportunity to speak to some whale watch operators about doing some drive-bys for me next week when I’m at sea. Well better get back to my proposal.

Thursday 20th September to Sunday 23rd September
I’m writing this on the boat on Sunday night after spending 2 days in Victoria, Canada. So here’s how the last few days went down…
Thursday arvo I handed my proposal into Val after having a chat with him about it. I’m pretty happy with it because I know it’s feasible, and I know what I have to do. It definitely needs some fine tuning but it’s well within the scope of the program, and somewhat original. I mean it changes now anyway as it no longer becomes a proposal, but an actual report. Anyway, it’s in now so will get feedback on it early next week no doubt. So Thurs arvo Ash and I caught the Washington State Ferry across to Sidney, British Columbia, for a total of $6. Bargain! We met a couple on board that we chatted to and they had just been on a whale watching tour earlier that day with a local San Juan operator, Jim Maya, who we have met, and Jim said he would be more than happy to do some drive-bys for me to get some recordings. The couple were asking us about our research and about the killer whales in general, and it was really good to be able to spread our knowledge to members of the general public. So we got into Sidney just after 5pm, then caught a public bus to Victoria. I had done this trip a few times before when I stayed in Victoria and was going to Sidney to speak to the whale watch operators, so knew where we had to get off and how long it would take. Ash and I grabbed dinner and a few drinks and headed out to check out the Victorian night life. We went to a pub called Darcy’s and ended up meeting this guy who was a restaurant manager in town, he had a few connections and after Darcy’s we got into a club for free. It all closes pretty early on Thurs night in Victoria but it was a great night and we had organised on the Fri to go grab lunch at the restaurant this guy manages. So Friday Ash and I grabbed lunch at the restaurant, with a discount from our newly made manager mate, then went down to Prince of Whales whale watching company to speak to them about possibly doing drive-bys for me next week when I’m out on the Gato Verde. Well, it went exceptionally well, much better than I had anticipated. I seriously thought I would have to go to several operators but Laila at Prince of Whales was awesome. I chose Prince of Whales because I had spoken to them 7 weeks ago when I was in Victoria sussing out possible job opportunities for next year (I have a 12 month Canadian working visa) and they said get in touch with them when I finish this program. The woman I spoke to 7 weeks ago that works there also does acoustic research on porpoises but when I contacted her again a few days ago I was unable to get in touch with her. However, that didn’t really hinder me in anyway as Laila (head of land operations) was extremely positive and also a conservationist, so when I explained what I ultimately planned to do in my research she was more than happy to help out. So we teed up next week, Ash and I got chatting to her about all things marine mammals, and she asked if we wanted to go out on the last tour of the day, we didn’t have any plans, so agreed. Oh yeah, should also mention, it was for free! I guess when you think about it it’s pretty funny, we study whales for 10 weeks, then on our days off we go to Canada, and go whale watching! Still, we saved $70 each which is bloody awesome, and what was even more awesome was that it was the best killer whale experience of my life! Yep, it topped the one we had on our second day out on the water. It truly was phenomenal. Here’s what happened:
We jumped into our ‘Mustang’ suits (full-bodied orange suits designed to keep u warm and act as a flotation device should we fall into the drink) and hopped aboard the Zodiac (steel hulled open inflatable boat). The driver, aka ‘Radar’, announced he had some acoustic researchers on board, and Ash and I signalled him with much professionalism as we jumped into the seats up front. Laila said these seats are the best as they are the ones where you get the real ‘Zodiac experience’. We have been travelling a maximum of 6-7 knots out on the water while aboard the ‘Gato Verde’ so we certainly felt the need for speed, and the zodiacs (very common whale watch operator vessel in these parts) certainly zip along (~25-30 knots). The ride out was awesome to say the least. It was spitting with rain so the droplets felt like little pin pricks on your face but it was all worth it with the 2ft swells and the air-time we were getting of the waves. It took about 40 min to get to where J pod and some of the L’s were, but waters were really calm and we were only one of three vessels out there (west side of San Juan Island around Eagle Pt). The ‘Gato Verde’ was out there also so I called them up on the radio and we had a chat then went over to say G’Day. It was just after 5pm by this stage so the GV had to leave to get to an anchorage before dark, and the other whale watch boat left, so we were the only one’s out there with the whales. We positioned ourselves in front of the whales and 100m from their general direction if travel and watched spyhops, breaches, lots of tail slaps, and just general playful behaviour. Next thing we knew a group of about 10 individuals somewhat spread out started heading toward our boat and before we could get out of the way they were right next to us. It was un-bloody-believable! We had a whale swim just under the surface the entire length of the boat (it was as long as the boat) just looking at us, then we had whales surface about 2m from where we were standing, their breaths seeming soo loud and their dorsal fins coming up to my eye level. It was truly spectacular. The water was like glass which just made the experience that much more beautiful. Now when whales decide to come and check you out (it rarely happens but as we were the only boat out there I guess they were curious) the best thing you can do is just let them pass and when you think it is safe, engage the ignition and slowly motor away to a safe distance. In this instance the whales were actually curious and so came right up to us as they swam past. The last thing you should do is try and get out of their way as the ignition of the engine and then the engagement of the gears actually makes quite a large “clunk” underwater, and so may startle the whales. I know this because I felt like I was deafened when I had the headphones on right where a boat engaged its gears. Furthermore, engaging propellers runs the risk of bumping into whales when they are underwater and out of driver sight. So we just floated there silently while killer whales milled around our boat and swam off. Radar (the driver) had a basic hydrophone that he deployed and the vocalisations we got were just unbelievable! Ash and I were amazed and really wish we had a recorder at that time. We were meant to be the “researchers” but we couldn’t contain our excitement and kept telling the others on board that what you are witnessing is absolutely amazing and a one in a lifetime experience. We have been out on the water for 2 weeks and pretty much all of the time the whales are little black dots in the water, so this experience is one I will forever treasure. The passengers on board (7 in total incl. us) were asking us questions all about the orcas and between us, Ash and I could answer them all. The driver kept pretty quiet, whether or not because we were on board I don’t know, but he had been doing it for 12 years so knew his stuff. Anyway, it was great practice for me as the driver could be me this same time next year. I got some great video clips but it was often hard to properly focus as it was cloudy and drizzly for parts of it. One of the highlights I think was when J42 calf and it’s mum (sex of calf unknown) came less than 5m from the boat and the calf was spyhopping and jumping around just playing like a typical child would, and mum was just hanging there in the water keeping a close eye on her playful child. J42 in it’s playful behaviour all of a sudden vocalised as it came up out of the water, and Ash and I just looked at each other in amazement then looked at Radar and he was just as surprised. It was absolutely amazing! We eventually had to leave the orcas and head back to Victoria but it was definitely a memory that will stick with me and one that I’m very appreciative to have witnessed. Some days you just get lucky.
So Ash and I headed out that night to check out more of the Victorian nightlife. It was good to get across to Victoria and head out in the evenings, as you don’t really get the opportunity in Friday Harbor, so let’s just say we enjoyed our two nights away from the labs. Saturday we walked around Victoria, Ash did some shopping, then it was a bus back to Sidney and a ferry back to Friday Harbor in the evening. One would think that the troubles I had the first time I went back in to the US in August would be well behind me and I could expect to go straight through customs and onto the ferry, but ahh, no. I’ve said it before, US Customs is a bloody joke! For some stupid reason the old bloke that stamped my student visa back in mid August when I entered the US from Canada stamped mid September on it, I have no idea why. The woman at the customs desk in Sidney looked at it weirdly and asked me all about it and why it was stamped for September when the program ends at the end of October. Of course I had no idea, but I told her that the old guy at the border that processed my student visa didn’t appear to know what he was doing. She couldn’t work out what was going on as Ash’s documentation was all fine so I had to step aside while she processed everyone else. While that was happening I felt a sense of deja vu, as this is what happened last time in August and I was holding people up on the bus, and now I had scenarios of what the hell I would do if they wouldn’t let me back in to the US. Fortunately enough the woman issued me with a new visa card and I was allowed through. When on the ferry a lot of the people in the line were saying how lucky I was as most US Customs officials aren’t as nice as this woman was. Guess I got lucky, but still, I had all the documentation necessary and it ended up being an error on their behalf… bloody US Customs! Anyway, Ash and I got back to Friday Harbor and pretty much crashed out.
Today, Sunday, we had the changeover from the JaMi group at Roche Harbor. Marla Holt gave us a talk (who had spoken at the Whale Museum a few weeks back) and then she hopped aboard and will be spending the next three days with us. Marla is a post-doc with a great deal of hydro-acoustics knowledge and experience so she will be a great asset to us all these next three days I’m sure. I was hauled up the mast this afternoon, 63 feet above the water, it was awesome! Got a great view of Mitchell Bay (Snug Harbor) and the sunset where we are anchored tonight. If you have seen the film ’28 Days’ with Sandra Bullock and can recall the scene where they must climb a wooden structure all harnessed up, and the gay blonde guy with glasses is climbing… well if you’ve seen it I don’t need to go on. Let’s just say I’m a bit tender at the moment, but it was worth it to be that high up above the water.
So just before I head to bed I have to make sure that I have a towel above and below my mattress as yesterday the JaMi group had some high seas and water splashed into the vents of the forward births and so the mattresses got quite wet. Todd and I spent an hour this afternoon soaking up water in our respective births. Fun times. I plan on getting boat recordings this week so hopefully all goes well.