Tim's Travel and Life Adventures

Tim’s Fijian experience begins… May 2009

2009-06-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

Bula from Fiji!

Well I’ve been in Fiji now for 3 weeks so thought I’d give you guys an update on what I’ve been up to and tell you much how I’m enjoying conducting research on dolphins in a tropical paradise (yep, it’s that good!).

I arrived into Fiji on May 11 and was in Suva for the first few days sorting out some things with my supervisor, then it was off to Takalana Retreat, the place I would be calling home for the next month or so. After over 3 hours in a van, the final hour and a half of which was spent on a butt-cheek numbing rough dirt road, we arrived to Takalana and hopping out of the van and heading down to the two small bure’s (villas if you will) my jaw just dropped. The view from them was absolutely incredible. The place is located on the NW coast of the main island of Viti Levu and overlooks the ocean where you can see various Fijian islands off in the distance. It’s hard to describe in words without actually seeing pictures, so the link below is to my facebook pics that I’ve posted from my time in Fiji so far. I’ve also put the link to the Takalana website (very simple, but if you wanna stay there, which I recommend you do, the contact details are on the site).

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2254551&id=10617245&l=f9e87b91d7

http://takalana.blogspot.com

It really is a magical spot, a best kept secret I guess. It only sleeps 10 in total (2 bure’s of 4 and 6 beds, queen bed and bunks in each). I stay in one of the bure’s when there aren’t guests so I’m lucky to get a queen bed with an ensuite. When we have guests, which are mostly ex pats from Suva on the weekend (during week very quiet), I sleep in a little Fijian hut nearby which is quite cosy, but fine nonetheless. I’m a guest there so I’m treated like one even if I’m the only one there. Food is cooked for me everyday which is delicious. I’m having soo much fresh fish, fruit and Fijian vegetables I’m feeling healthier on the inside as every day goes by! In Suva now as I write this and have been trying to have as much beef as I can because I know when I go back to Takalana tomorrow (Thurs) it’s back to fish and chicken. Been eating a lot of rice and stir fry out there also. There’s no electricity in Takalana, so we have a generator that runs from about 6-10pm each night that is used to power some lights and that’s when I charge my laptop and camera batteries etc. The view from my bedroom window and from the table where I eat and work is pretty much breathtaking. I sit alone and eat most nights because I’m the only guest there. The serenity is very nice, hearing the waves crash on the beach, but I must admit it is nice when guests are around. There is a cook/cleaner named Vule who is always around. Her English is pretty good and we get on really well. When we have more than a few guests a couple of young girls from the local village (of which there are two) they come up and help. The manager is a young Fijian guy (by young I mean 30) named Jay who is the one that takes me out on the boat and we eat together when he’s around. We get on unbelievably well, joking around all the time, and as a result have become good mates. He’s really really appreciative of me being there as I’m teaching him all about the dolphins and about taking tourists out to see the dolphins and how to operate a boat around the dolphins (given the experience I have on tourism boats and the readings I’ve done). The research I’m doing is helping his business out because nothing is known about these spinner dolphins that come to Moon Reef, but I’m still extremely appreciative of my supervisor Cara for organising and liaising with Jay to get this research done. It’s been a lot of work to get this to happen, but it’s a win win for both Cara and myself, and for Jay and his business as he is actually the only official dolphin watch place in Fiji. The business is still very young, and Jay is always learning, and he always thanking me for being here and helping him out, when it’s actually him I should be thanking (which I do of course) for allowing me to stay and conduct my research.

So now a bit about my research. While staying at Takalana I’m looking at a population (30-40 individuals) of spinner dolphins that come into a place called Moon Reef (photo is on Jay’s website) that is approx. 20min by boat from the beach at Takalana. The dolphins come into the protected reef in the early morning and rest (“sleep”) during the daytime, then leave between 3 and 4 pm every day to head to deeper waters to feed at night (similar behaviour has been observed in spinner dolphins in Hawaii). My research is determining if it is the same individuals that are returning to Moon Reef, and I do this by taking photos of their dorsal fins and looking for distinctive markings (nicks, scars, shape etc). I take photos at every encounter every day and then have been using the photos to determine re-sightings and thus site fidelity. So far I have noticed that there are definitely re-sightings, but how many it is too early to determine (you need quite a large data set, and I only have 11 days so far). I’m also looking at behaviour to determine if these animals are actually resting, and for how long during the day. I’m still yet to do a full day of observations and go there really early to see what time they enter the reef, but that will be done in the next couple of weeks. They call them spinner dolphins because they actually jump out of the water and spin on a longitudinal axis, up to seven revolutions before they hit the water again. Pretty spectacular! I have some pretty good shots of this and will send out a link later so you can see these acrobatic animals in action.

Generally after my photo-ID and behavioural observations are done (1-2 hours total a day) I go for a snorkel around the reef. I invested in one of those Olympus utough cameras that are waterproof and shockproof before I came here and man has it been worth it. It’s awesome to take photos of coral and fish underwater. I’m hoping to be able to use it to get some underwater footage and maybe even determine the sex of some of the dolphins. We’ll see. After data collection and some snorkelling (weather dependent of course) I head back to Takalana and then enter the data onto my laptop. I’m keeping very busy with all the work I have to do, but I have been lucky enough to see a few things and get some real Fijian cultural experiences.

There are two villages near Takalana, both on the beach, the closest of which Jay is from and his father is the head (not an official chief like some other villages but pretty much the same). His father is 86 years old, kayaks a couple of kilometres every day dragging a fishing line behind his kayak, no bait, just small pieces of hessian bag around the hook and the line attached to a bleach bottle. He caught 56 fish the other morning! Amazing! When I went kayaking to the mangroves a couple of weeks back I tried my hand at this fishing style, and actually caught two fish! I’ve never caught a fish without bait before, let alone being on a kayak pulling it in with my hands then having to use my drinkbottle to whack the fish on the head so it would stop flapping around in the back of my kayak. It was a really cool experience, and I earnt my dinner, well I actually caught it that night! I think it’s amazing how simply these people in the villages live and how they live pretty much purely off the land. Everything is so fresh, and I’ve had my fair share of Fijian dishes. I went to Jay’s village the other day for Mother’s Day and had a real Fijian village experience. It was the only day of the year where the men cooked and the women ate first. There’s only about 100 people in this village and so I was with the men (the only white man of course, kids staring at me at all the time) and after the women finished we went into the small hall (a big room basically) and sat down on the bamboo mats with the food lined up in two lines. You sat either side of the food, legs crossed, and ate. They gave me a spoon but most men were using their hands to eat off their plate. There never seems to be a shortage of food in the villages as they grow pretty much everything (things like bananas, pineapples, coconuts, peanuts, kasava and taro (roots that tastes like potato) and otta (leafy stringy plant that is really nice in coconut milk). Many fish dishes are had which is one of the reasons I think they live such a healthy lifestyle. I have tried kava, I did so when the local village (the other one) had what is called a ‘meke’ (a traditional Fijian dance) in which dancers from Suva came and asked the chief of the village to be taught the meke (unique to each village) and to stay in the village. They then have a day to learn it and then perform it in the village hall for all the villagers. While this is going the men of the village are in one corner grinding up the kava with water and passing it around. It pretty much tastes like muddy water, and after having a few that night (not feeling much mind you, I think it was fairly weak) I woke up the next day sick in the guts and I reckon it was because my stomach was full of muddy water! After the dancers finish their performance there is much singing and dancing and being a white man the Fijian women just come up to you, tap you and then you’re pretty much obliged to dance with them. Just like a school dance only it’s the women doing the choosing! It was really good fun, and an amazing cultural experience, one of which I was privelidged to experience.

I have also been to the local waterfall which you can slide down the rocks into the pool at the bottom. It’s only small but jumping off the rocks into the water is still pretty cool. I went across to Nagani Island last weekend and stayed at the resort there (that and a village are the only thing on a small island). Jay grew up there as his Dad is a carpenter and used to work there so we got a bloody good deal on accommodation. Of the 18 bure’s that are there, there were only a total of 9 guests in the entire resort, including us. Tourism is very low in Fiji at the moment but seriously people, there is nothing here to worry about. The international media has seemed to instil fear into people which has prevented them from travelling to Fiji and tourism appears to be really suffering. So if you were thinking of coming to Fiji but were worried about the political situation, don’t be! It’s totally fine, and Fijian people are amazingly friendly. The dollar has dropped here as well, giving you even more of an incentive to travel! My scholarship money is certainly going a lot further! Last weekend I also went across to Lavuka on the island of Ovalau (former capital of Fiji) so that was cool to see where Fiji originated officially. It’s awesome to be able to just get on a boat and travel between islands. Jay has an unbelievable amount of contacts all over the place so being with him is making my experience here just that much sweeter. He is a former Divemaster so is going to take me to a place called E6, which is apparently one of the top 10 dive sites in the world, and it’s only an hour from Takalana. I’m hanging out for a dive, and he knows spots where you see sperm whales, short-finned pilot whales and other forms of whale and dolphin, so just the thought of seeing a species of cetacean (whale, dolphin or porpoise) that I haven’t seen before is bloody exciting. That’s the whale nerd in me coming out. I cannot wait to see short-finned pilot whales so I really hope I do while I’m here. Fingers crossed!

So all in all things are going great. I’ve been in Suva almost three day s now and actually can’t wait to get back to Takalana and the dolphins. Suva is ok, but is pretty dirty and I guess I’m spoilt in the tropical paradise of Takalana. The villagers actually know me up there. I went for a run the other day on the dirt road, past the village, and there were two teenage girls sitting on a bridge. “Bula” I said to them as I ran past, they replied “Bula Tim”. I was thinking, how the hell do they know my name?! So I asked Jay and he said that pretty much most people in the village know who I am. I’m the white man staying at Takalana that is studying the dolphins. Some call me ‘dolphin man’. Hey, I can sure deal with that! ;-) It’s soo bloody exciting that in a couple of months I’m going to become an expert (a world expert if you will) on this population of dolphins here in Fiji as no one knows anything about them. The idea of that just pumps me up every day to get out there on the water and collect data.

So I’ll be up at Takalana for another couple of weeks and then we’ll re-assess where I’m at in terms of how much data I’ve collected and that will determine when I will head across to Koro Island to look at spinners over there. It’s looking like around June 20-25 I’ll head across to Koro. Spend a few weeks there (sightings dependent) then head back to Takalana/Moon Reef for a couple more weeks before flying out of Fiji on August 17. If all goes to plan I hope to spend a few days travelling before I fly out. It will be my BDay the weekend before I leave so thought I might treat myself.

Well, this has been an epic email and I need to get back to analysing images of fins, so I will say “modde” (spelling I’m not sure of, but it means bye in Fijian) and hope all is well in your part of the world. Things are going great guns with me in this beautiful part of the world!

All the best from rugby mad Fiji,

Tim, Timmy, Timbo (aka dolphin man)

2009 – Honours begins, see you all in December

2009-03-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

G’Day All,

Hope 2009 is treating you well so far. Thought I would write and give you all a quick update, because as of now I seriously won’t get time to write until December.

When I returned to Adelaide back in December ’08 I worked all the way through until the start of Feb. I was working up at the uni in the lab counting little critters under the microscope for a Coorong and Lower Lakes project that Flinders got through the Department of Environment and Heritage. Those lakes around the Murray Mouth are just soo dry it’s actually devastating to look at. Hence why we’re doing the work to better understand what’s going on in terms of meiofauna (basically organisms bigger then 1mm). I was really lucky to score the work and it certainly helped the depleted bank account resulting from that overseas travel. I also scored work at a place called ‘Temptation Sailing’ down at the bay (Glenelg). Check it out at www.dolphinboat.com.au. We do ‘swim-with-dolphins’ but do it in a way that is non-invasive as we let the dolphins come to us, and they do, they get curious and swim by people hanging off lines off the back of the 58ft sailing catamaran. Not every group of dolphins we find interacts, and so we just let them go. In no way do we harass the dolphins, the interaction is totally up to them, and because of that I feel much more comfortable working there. I really enjoy the work as I get my ‘dolphin fix’ every week (such a whale nerd I know). I just love being out on the water and meeting and chatting to people from all over the world is always great fun.

When February came round, paid work up at the uni ended (still do Temptation on Sunday mornings), and I entered a little room with a little desk to begin my Honours degree. So for those of you that don’t know what an Honours degree is, it’s where 10 months of my life is dedicated to my own research project and I lose contact with all aspects of the outside world because I’m soo busy… (kidding, but no, seriously). I’m pumped about my research project though, as it’s taking me to Fiji to study spinner dolphins! I booked my flights last week and will be there for 3 months (May 11 - Aug 17). There has been no formal research on spinner dolphins done in much of the Pacific Islands Region, and nothing done in Fiji so I’m psyched to be pioneering this research. I have three separate sites so I will get to see the ‘real’ Fiji as some of the spots I’m going to are very remote, and very basic. It’s going to be a bloody fantastic experience! A lot is to be done between now and when I leave. And even more between now and November 9th when my thesis is due, at which time I’ll probably breathe a huge sigh of relief and sink a few brews in celebration. Still, I should focus on the next 8 weeks before I fly out as I have lots of logistics organisation and coursework to do. It’s tough getting the brain back into a research frame of mind as it hasn’t been used like this in well over 12 months, but I’m managing to re-familiarise myself and get back into gear. I’m treating it like a 9-5 job and that way I can get stuff done. Gone are my undergrad days of getting up only when I need to go to a lecture!

So, as I said earlier I’m writing this to give you all an update but also to let you know that I will be extremely busy up until November, and so I’m going to apologise in advance for not being timely in any replies to any emails or messages you might send me. It’s an important year for me this year and I’m going to be working bloody hard so I hope you can all appreciate this. If I don’t reply to you it’s not because I’m dissing you, it’s because I’m up to my eyeballs in papers and data. I will however do my best to get back to you when I can.

I’m pumped for the 9 months ahead, as now is the time when the ball really gets rolling so I’ve gotta work hard to make sure I can keep up with it. I would like to get some sleep in October, well, that’s the plan anyway although they say no matter how much planning you do, that month is still very stressful. Fun times ahead for Tim Timmy Timbo!

Hope you’re all well wherever you are in the world. I’ll see you at the end of the year!

From soon to be spinner dolphin expert,

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

Whale watching, North America travels, & the return to the motherland - December 2008

2008-12-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Well again I know it has been a long while since I have written but I’ve been as busy as a beaver (how Canadian of me I know). The last time I wrote was July and since then quite a bit has happened. July/August was just flat out in the whale watching industry. I ended up doing 31 days straight but the experience gained and the things I saw were just incredible. At one point I was working a lot as a zodiac driver during these months and it was great to clock more hours out on the water and gain that experience. I’ve learnt soo much about navigation, water conditions, weather, and of course, the whales! September slowed down a bit but it was my favourite month for whale watching. If anyone asks me when the best time to go whale watching in the Pacific Northwest is then I’ll say late August/September. The weather was great, waters were flat calm almost every day of the week but most importantly, the whale sightings and diversity was second to none. In one single 3 hour trip I saw orcas, humpbacks, Stellar Sea Lions, California Sea Lions, Harbour Seals, Harbour porpoises, Bald Eagles and an abundance of other marine bird life. To see all that in one trip truly is phenomenal. During my last couple of weeks at work I couldn’t help but think how awesome it was to be out on the water seeing soo much diversity and how I’m going to seriously miss it. I saw some incredible things in my last couple of months out on the water: I witnessed three transients (mammal-eating orcas) attack and kill a California Sea Lion; I saw a huge male orca pursue a harbour porpoise then breach out of the water with the porpoise in its mouth (I have a photo of this, that a passenger took by fluke, but it’s incredible); I had an orca veer of its path, surface right next to my boat and I literally looked it in the eye, just amazing. A lot of the really good photos I have were from passengers and the captains that have decent cameras. I really want to invest in a decent camera as it’s really hard to get good photos from a little pocket one. I plan on making a photo/video presentation when I return to Oz, showing the highlights of my time in the Pacific Northwest, as it really was just an unbelievable experience. I know I keep saying how awesome it was being up there, but really I’m running out of words to describe what an amazing experience it all was. Take a thesaurus, and any word that describes feelings of excitement and amazingness, they all represent my time in the Pacific Northwest. So I finished work at the end of September, and my very last trip was a zodiac trip that had superpod, transients and Race Rocks. I literally couldn’t have asked for a better last trip. After Victoria I headed up Vancouver Island to Tofino for a few days. Now Tofino is on the west coast of Vancouver Island and is the surfing capital of BC. I have much respect for surfers that surf here. Firstly, the water temp is about 10-11˚C, so these guys (and gals) wear full bodied wetsuits, booties, gloves and hoods. Now that’s dedication! I don’t know about you all, but when I go surfing (well, bodyboarding ‘cos I suck at surfing) I just wanna be wearing boardies and a short-sleeved rashie, not a SCUBA outfit, minus the breathing gear! Tofino is also renowned for it’s beautiful scenery, where mountain islands drop down straight to the waters edge, and narrow bodies of water wind around the islands throughout Claquot Sound. It was just breathtaking. While in Tofino I travelled by boat north to Hot Springs Cove and had my first hot springs experience, that really were surprisingly hot. It was surreal to be soaking in these springs while the cold waters of the Pacific flushed in and cooled you down. I also travelled to a place called Meares Island that is an old growth forest with trees over 1000 years old! These old growth forests are found throughout Vancouver Island (although majority have been logged) and the denseness of the forests is just incredible. Good luck trying to get through them off the beaten path, because it just won’t happen. The amount of life in these forests, and the fact that they go right to the waters edge, means everything is interconnected. The natives in these areas had a relationship with the land and sea and were completely self sufficient. Of course it didn’t take long for white man to come along and destroy a lot of it. This seems to be the case everywhere doesn’t it? Since being away I feel as though I have gained much more of an appreciation for nature and how every single little thing is connected in some way. My passion for the ocean has only grown stronger and how I want to conserve the incredible creatures within it. Don’t be inviting me out for seafood unless you know that it’s coming from sustainable stocks, because I’ll be honest, I won’t eat it. It’s a personal choice I’ve now made as we’ve overfished around 70% of the worlds oceans, so I want to know what I eat is not damaging already threatened stocks. Don’t get me wrong, I love seafood but don’t love it enough to take it from those animals that live in the ocean (particularly marine mammals) and rely on it for survival. We humans DON’T NEED it to survive, whereas marine mammals do. I recently found out that the orcas I was studying and working with (the Southern Residents) lost 7 members this year, bringing the total now to a mere 83 individuals. It’s the biggest lost in 10 years and the future of these animals is not looking good. The truth of it all, they’re starving. There’s just not as much salmon around as there used to be, and combining this with toxins in their bodies that have resulted from our actions, the population is struggling. A lot of research is being done on these amazing animals, so we can only hope that the population can bounce back. It’s weird, and saddening of course, to think I was in this part of the world when such a major loss occurred and to think I may have seen this population at it’s highest before a constant decline began. Let’s hope that I am wrong and this is not the case. Well, I’ve gone on about all that for a while now so I’ll continue on with my travels of late. Still, cetacean (whales, dolphins and porpoises) conservation is an issue that I want to pursue as a career and so all that is happening in this part of the world is something that is close to me. Yeah, I’m a self confessed whale nerd, and proud of it!

So after Tofino, I headed back down to Victoria for one final night with the crew (miss you guys) and then it was off to San Juan Island (again) to say goodbye to friends over there that I worked/studied with. After San Juan I headed back to Vancouver and then it was farewell to beautiful British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, and off to Ontario, Canada. While in Ontario I stayed with a good friend I worked with in Victoria who is originally from there (thanks Sheenah!). She lives just outside of Toronto in a little town called Beaverton. Yep, the beaver is Canada’s symbol and they have a town called Beaverton. Awesome eh?! That’s like having a town in Australia called Kangarooton or Emuton. Hilarious! While in Beaverton we went to Niagara Falls, which truly is spectacular. That’s another wonder of the world I can tick off the list! I also checked out Toronto City and went up the CN Tower which is the world’s tallest free standing structure with a public viewing deck. It was awesome being so far up overlooking Toronto and Lake Ontario. While in Toronto I also checked out the Hockey Hall of Fame. Now although I’m not a huge ice hockey fan a mate of mine in Victoria told me to go check out it, so I did and it was actually really cool (excuse the pun). I was fortunate enough to experience a North American Thanksgiving in Beaverton, which was my first Thanksgiving and of course I like an event with lots of grog, food and conversation, so it was a top night. One thing I found hilarious was when members of Sheenah’s family would ask Sheenah (with me sitting next to her) “Sheenah, ask your friend if he would like to get some more food, there’s plenty left”. To which Sheenah replied “Ahh, why don’t you ask him yourself. He’s right here next to me and he does speak English you know.” Good times. I was actually really lucky to be in Ontario at that particular time of year (early/mid October) as it’s Autumn and the colours from the leaves falling off the trees is just spectacular. Hard to think in a month’s time they will have snow, and by Xmas there will be 2-3 ft of the white stuff everywhere. I experienced the smell of dead skunk while travelling on the road, and I gotta say, it’s not something I want to smell again. Thank god we don’t have those pungent little animals in Oz, because if you hit one the smell stays on your car for weeks! I also travelled to Cambridge just outside of Toronto and visited a mate I lived with in Miami. Great to see you JD!

After Toronto and surrounding area it was off to Tampa in west Florida for a friend’s wedding (great to see you Val and congrats again!). It was awesome to be back in sunny Florida and catch up with quite a few folk. The wedding was amazing, a Jewish wedding in fact. Now the only things I know about a Jewish wedding are things I’ve seen on the movies, and they did it all- breaking of the glass, holding the bride and groom up on a chair on the dance floor, and of course the traditional Jewish dances. It was a great night and a great few days in an area I’ve never been before. When ‘Land Down Under’ by Men at Work came on I found myself in the middle of the dance floor dancing around, and everyone copying every single move I was making. I think they thought it was a proper dance, but little did they know I was just making stuff up as the song went on. Crack up! A bloody great night though, We went to the original Hooters Bar in Clearwater, yep the actual original Hooters, the first in America. Now how many people can say that eh?! And this year they are celebrating 25 years, just like me! Being the whale nerd I am I went on a dolphin tour around Clearwater, and were fortunate enough to have bottlenose dolphins riding in our wake, and we even witnessed some “playful” activity, if you know what I mean ;-) I was in Tampa during the World Series (American baseball) and the Tampa Bay Rays had qualified so there was a big hype in the area. Unfortunately they ended up losing but it was a cool experience nonetheless. One thing that does bother me is the fact that they call it the World Series when it’s only North American teams competing. Mmm…

From Tampa I took the bus down to Miami where I spent two weeks catching up with the crew (well, those that are left). One of my main reasons for going down to Miami earlier than last year was so I could get down to Key West for what’s called Fantasy Fest. Now this is festival that happens just before Halloween, and I’m not lying when I say it’s kind of like the name implies. Literally, people, mainly women, walking around in next to nothing. Lots of body paint, skimpy clothing (some guys do it well which is somewhat disturbing), beads, photos, and drinking in the streets. It’s just one huge party where everyone is having a great time and forgetting about the stresses of life for a weekend. I was walking around just in shock as I couldn’t believe I was seeing. I’d seen photos from mate’s that had gone previous years, and so I knew somewhat to expect, but until you’re there to see it with your own eyes, you don’t really believe it. Truly a crazy weekend. While in Miami it was Homecoming again and they had N*E*R*D playing a free concert on campus. I don’t expect all of you to know who that is, but they certainly put on a good show. Of course there was the Halloween celebrations the following week, and again we went to the Grove and it was just crazy. The funny thing about Halloween is, and everyone knows it, is that it’s an excuse for a lot of women to dress up (or dress down as the case typically is) in not much at all, and get away with it. Hey, no complaints from this Aussie! I dressed up as a ‘Dingo that ate your baby’, so I got a make-up kit and attempted to make my face look like a dingo. I put a couple of signs on me to clarify. It came out alright I guess, considering I did my own make-up. The effort was put in which is what counts. There were of course some Thursday nights in the Grove which are always a good time, and just general hanging out with the gang and catching up. It was a great couple of weeks in sunny south Florida, with the last couple of days spent north of Miami in Boynton Beach (great to see you Don!), and also in Ft Lauderdale (thanks for showing me around Chels!). A really big thanks though to all of you in Miami that let me float between couches and floors. You guys know who you are!

After Miami it was up to Providence, Rhode Island to see a friend that I worked with in Victoria (great to see you Steph!). I arrived the night of the Presidential Election so spent the evening glued to the TV. It really was an experience being in the US in the lead up to the election, seeing the ads on tv, the banners everywhere, and just the general hype around it all, given the importance of it and situation the world is in today. My friend was driving me to the airport in Ft Lauderdale (I was flying up to Providence), and she had an Obama 08 sticker on her bumper. It was amazing the amount of people honking the horn and throwing their hands up in the air in support. I felt this huge vibe during the day and of course, being there when Obama was announced President Elect there was huge excitement as it was/is such a pivotal moment in American history. There were people cheering everywhere, letting of fireworks in the parks and honking their horns in the streets. I’m really glad I was able to be around to witness and experience it all. It’s certainly time for a change… YES WE CAN.

We’re up to November 7th in case you’re wondering. So after Providence it was down to the Big Apple where I spread the news, stayed a few days and became a part of it. I’ve been to New York before (back in 2006) and had done all the touristy things, so the visit this time was to catch up with friends (as were all my post BC travels). I was in Manhattan one night and then on Staten Island staying with friends the other couple of nights. I met some more friends on the Sat night and we went to a comedy show in Times Square, which was pretty funny I guess, although I don’t understand why comedians feel the need to cuss every second word. If you have to rely on obscenity to get a laugh then in my book you’re not a good comedian. I do like New York, and could see myself living there for a little bit, but it’s just soo expensive, and I guess those professionals living in Manhattan can afford to live that lifestyle where money really isn’t an object. It’s certainly an object when you’re a poor traveller!

After the city that never sleeps it was on a bus and up to Boston to see me good mate Shpin. I’d been to Boston the same time last year but only for a day or so, and from what I saw of it I really liked. The city seems really clean and just has a really nice feel to it. I spent a week in Boston catching up with my mate Shpin who I’ve know since UMiami dorm days. Many a good time were had while I was there. I went to the Samuel Adams Brewery and did a tour (and tasting!) which I have to say is probably America’s best beer. We went to the Imax there and saw a couple of documentaries, one called Whales and Dolphins, and the other called Wild Oceans. If you get the chance you should certainly go and check them out. The footage is phenomenal, and of course being the whale nerd I am I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a great time in Boston (bloody awesome to see you Shpin and thanks mate for the hospitality!).

After Boston I flew across to Seattle and then bussed it up to Vancouver. Total time leaving from Boston and arriving into Vancouver was just over 20 hours, so yeah, that was fun! I spent a couple of days in Van sorting the rest of my stuff out, catching up with friends and of course saying bye to Deano who has just been an amazing bloke to me while I’ve been in BC. You know how I feel Deano, but thanks again mate. See you in Oz soon! ;-)

So after 16 months away in North America I hopped on a plane on Wednesday 19th November bound for the motherland. I went with Japan Airlines via Tokyo to Sydney as it was much cheaper that Qantas or Air Canada even though they are direct. Yeah, go figure that one! ;-S I arrived into Sydney on the morning of Friday 21st Nov, with all my luggage present and accounted for, and as I stepped through those customs gates it really was a weird feeling, but a happy one as I was home at last!

So as I finish writing this ridunculously long blog (apologies, but many congrats if you are still reading) I’ve been back in the country about 3 weeks. I’ll be honest in saying that it does feel weird to be back. I have to re-familiarise myself with a lot of things, like driving on the left side of the road (we won’t talk about that incident the second day being back in the country), dealing with the fact that everyone has an Aussie accent, and remembering I don’t have to tip when I go out! I can get used to that one again very easily though! So I was in Orange for almost 2 weeks, of which 5 days were spent up in Pt Macquarie at a friend’s wedding (bloody great to see you all!). For those of you that I caught up with in Orange, I know it was only short but it was great to see you nonetheless. For those of you that I didn’t catch up with in Orange I’m very very sorry. It was only a short trip and I had a lot of organising to do for the move back to Adelaide. At least I’m on the same continent now so there is much more of a chance of catching up. RADelaide is where I’m at right now, and will be here for the next 12 months at least. I’m working over the summer and will start my Honours degree at Flinders Uni in February. I’m actually going to be spending 3-4 months of next year on a remote island in Fiji, as that is where my Honours research will be, so that will be a great experience. I have a very tough 12 months ahead of me, but I’m up for it and am really looking forward to the challenges ahead. After that, who knows, I’ll re-assess this time next year. Perhaps a PhD is on the horizon.

To all of you that are still reading, congratulations, and thank you. I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve written, but at least now you’re updated on the actions of Tim Timmy Timbo. The last 16 months have certainly been an adventure!

I hope you all have a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Keep in touch, and drop me an update every now and then as I’d love to hear from you.

This is Tim Timmy Timbo signing off for 2008. Bring on 2009!

Whale watching, gotta love it! March - July ‘08

2008-07-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

Well hello friends around the globe,

Yes it is me Tim, and yes I do realise it has been an extremely bloody long time since I have written, and the reason being is because I’ve been working. Yep! ‘Bout bloody time I hear you cry! I’m working for a company called ‘Orca Spirit Adventures’ here in Victoria (check them out at www.orcaspirit.com), and it’s going really really well. They’re a great company, with 2 covered passenger boats (45-70 pax capacity) and 2 open zodiacs (12 pax capacity). I’m primarily employed as a marine naturalist, so I take passengers out with the Captain (and another naturalist depending on how many passengers we have) and basically talk about the awesome marine life, landmarks and some history of the region. I’m really enjoying it ‘cos I get to meet people from all over the world, I get to be out on the water and most importantly, I get to see and educate people about marine mammal life. Being mid July as I write this the season is well underway and at its busiest. My first trip was at Easter, and I’ve been getting more and more trips each week as the weather has gotten better and the more people are around. The resident orca pods have returned and so we have just under 90 individuals between 3 pods, J, K and L (A-I pod are up on the north end of Vancouver Island as part of the Northern Resident Community) and the ones we get here are part of the Southern Resident Community, basically southern Vancouver Island and San Juan Islands (USA). These orcas are found in these waters from April to October as they are feeding on the migrating salmon that are going to the various rivers of mainland British Columbia and northern Washington State. We’ve identified them all and know families and pod structure so I’m getting much better at ID-ing the animals when we see them. We call these fish-eating killer whales “Residents” because they reside here for most of the summer months. We do in fact get another type of orca here, they’re mammal-eating killer whales and we call them “Transients” because although we get them in these waters all year round, you never know when or where they’re going to show up. They travel in much smaller pods (1-8 individuals) and feed on seals, sea lions, porpoises, and other smaller whales. So this type of year you have the chance to see either type, it’s bloody awesome! The “species richness” of marine mammal life here is just unbelievable, and I’m loving every moment of it. To travel less than an hour in any direction from Victoria Harbour and see animals like orca (mammal-eaters and fish-eaters), Dall’s porpoises, Harbour porpoises, Harbour seals, Northern Sea Lions (aka Stellar Sea Lions), Californian Sea Lions, Northern Elephant Seals, Minke whales, Grey whales and Humpback whales is absolutely amazing. I write blogs for my trips and post photos when I get good ones or passengers get good ones so to see what the trips are like go to the website www.orcaspirit.com and click on the ‘Whale Sightings Blog’ link on the left-hand side toolbar . Some (actually most) have been written by yours truly, as we are required to write one for every trip, so check ‘em out! And the pics as well! They’ve actually been really impressed with my blog writing so I’ve set a very high standard for myself for the season (not like me at all I know). I’m not paid any extra to write these blogs and I guess because they’ve taken up some of my spare time it’s why I haven’t written to you all in three months. I do get pretty excited most of the time when seeing these animals and it shows in my blogs so I strongly urge you all to read them to see the kind of experiences I’ve been having here. Passengers have actually chosen our company because of the blogs so I like to think I helped get the business, at least somewhat anyway. Not to toot my own horn but they are really impressed with my work ethic and how I deal and interact with passengers, and of course being an Aussie I work that angle. Now I’ll be honest, in no way is this a money-making job, in-fact, far from it, and although we don’t tip back home it is pretty much customary in North America so I’m kinda relying on tips to help me save so I can travel and get home after the season is done in early October. Still, the experience is unbelievable and I am getting paid to be out on the water and to see and talk about whales almost everyday. Pretty sweet gig!
I’ve also just started work as a zodiac driver (10m, 12 pax vessel) as that’s also what I want to be doing over the summer. It’s been a bit of a journey getting hours logged, courses done and a lot of practice and exams but I’m finally certified and have done a few solo trips that have gone bloody well. On the website you can check out the boats I drive, they’re a lot of fun! Extremely safe and manoeuvrable, and I get to give the passengers MY experience and go where I wanna go, position how I want to position. Operating these boats and learning navigation and weather is a fantastic skill that I can utilise throughout my career, whatever I end up doing. I have much more responsibility as the lives of 12 passengers are in my hands, but it’s a challenge that I’m up for. I have the marine animal knowledge (always reading and learning more though of course!), so now expanding my boat and navigation knowledge is where my focus is. Being a boy from the country it’s interesting that I love being out on the water and know this is where I want to spend the rest of my life. On the water that is, not in Canada! Don’t get me wrong, this part of the world really is breath-taking, but Australia is my home and that’s where I want to settle down. I want to utilise my skills to help the Australian marine environment, but I’m enjoying my time and the experience here while I’m in this beautiful part of the world. Orcas really are amazing creatures so to be able to observe these animals almost every day really is rewarding. If only we had orcas back home….

My plan thus far is to work here for the remainder of the season until early October and then depending on how much I can save will determine what my travel plans are after that. I plan to hire a car and check out Vancouver Island, head right up the northern end and all around, as I hear it’s even more spectacular up there. Then it’s across to Calgary to visit a mate, then down to Miami for Halloween again, then maybe Mexico, then across to England, then back to the States, back to Vancouver and fly home. I plan to be back in Oz in early to mid December and start my Honours in Adelaide in January. I am actually 90% certain I’ll come back here next season, but I’ll only do it for a few months in the peak peak season (mid June to mid Sept), then return to Oz to finish off my Honours. I’m in a very good position to come back next season, and they certainly want me back! We’ll see what happens.

I’m on the ferry as I write this going from Vancouver back to Victoria on Vancouver Island. I’ve just spent the last 2 weeks with Dad and Matt as they were here on holidays before heading across to England to see the fam and then back to Oz via Singapore. It was absolutely bloody fantastic having them over here. We spent the first few days up in Whistler, chilling at a condo owned by a doctor friend of Deano’s. We had all actually stayed there back in December 2005 when we were here last, but of course back then it was covered in snow. It was great to experience Whistler in the summer, as it really is such a gorgeous place and being surrounded by snow-capped mountains is something “us country boys” are not exactly used to. Matt and I went hiking and mountain-biking while Dad and Deano caught up on old times, but we did of course all eat and drink together, and quite a lot I might add. We’re on hols, so it’s allowed. Mountain-biking down Whistler was wicked, and the more I did it the more confident I became and so used the brakes a little less and hit the jumps a little faster and thus got a little more air each time. Good times, definitely wanna do it again. So after Whistler we caught the ferry across to Vancouver Island and I showed Dad and Matt the city and surrounds of where I have been living and working since January. I took them whale watching and what a trip it was. I/we saw the most amount of breaches (where an orca propels its entire body up and out of the water) I had ever seen in one trip. They literally couldn’t have asked for a better whale watching trip. I also took them across to San Juan Island one of the days and showed them where I lived for 3 months and the labs where I was working. They of course checked out Victoria and surrounds and we even went fishing one morning with my boss. We got up at sparrow’s fart and didn’t catch anything mind you, but still it was great being out on the water and managed to take home a few crabs from the crab pots. It was unbelievable how good the weather was while Dad and Matt were here – sunshine every day, so I guess summer is finally here. Thank heavens for that! I’ve only been waiting for over 4 months! Spring here this year was literally non-existent (the coldest on record they tell me) so I’m stoked it’s back to shorts and t-shirt weather. How long this lasts though is anyone’s guess. The three of us headed back to Van for a couple of days and basically ate and drank again, so as I write this I’ve made a vow of detox and cleansing for the next week or so. Poor Dad and Matt have another 10 days of catching up with family and friends in England, which means much food and drink so they’ll need a major detox when returning to the Land Down Under. So as I said I’m on the ferry as I write this, and they fly out from Vancouver in a couple of hours, bound for London. It was bloody terrific having them over here, and so glad they could see and experience what I’ve been up to over here, and meet the people I’ve been talking about from our weekly Skype conversations. This really is a beautiful part of the world, with spectacular scenery, great people, and of course, lots of marine mammals!

Well, hasn’t this blog gone on for a bloody long time. Still, I guess it has been about 4 months since I’ve written so wanna bring you all up to speed on Tim Timmy Timbo’s actions of late. I think I’ve already told you but I’m living in a shared 3br suite right on the edge of downtown Victoria and the 3 of us get along fine. I am of course the cleanest (anally retentive is the term used by some) but those of you that have lived with me will know that’s not hard. The landlords live upstairs and are great, and would certainly love it if I came back next year. Again, we’ll see. So that’s about it from me for a while. The next couple of months are going to be spent working my arse off and saving as much as I can, and all depending on my bank statement at the end of my time here will depend on my travel plans. If only Canadian wage… no, I won’t go there. But I do love it here, I’m getting some great experience and seeing some amazing things, and of course meeting some great people that share the same interests that I do.

Hope everyone is well and that those of you back in the land of Oz are enjoying your winter, cos guess what, I’m certainly enjoying my summer! ;-P I’d love to hear back from any of you when you get a chance, and can’t wait to have a brew or two with you all in the coming months. Stay safe, enjoy life to the fullest, just as I am doing up here in beautiful British Columbia.

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

A whirwind Return To Oz – Feb ‘08

2008-03-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

Greeting and salutations,

Well at least half of the previous month or so has been eventful. As most of you know I made a trip back to the Land Down Under to surprise Dad for his 60th. I left my place in Victoria at 5:30am on Wed Feb 13th and after a bus, ferry, bus, wait at airport, 2 plane rides totalling 18 hours, I arrived into Oz on the morning of Fri 15th Feb. I then caught a train down to Wollongong and got there at midday. I worked it out, that from the time I left my front door here in Canada to the time I arrived into Wollongong at my mate’s place (cheers Micky T), it had been 37 hours. Yep, 37 hours! Slept for about 7 of those hours, but surprisingly wasn’t feeling jet-lagged, and subsequently never did for my whole time in Oz. I guess it’s because I was going forward in time and although I skip a day, it’s essentially just like having a late night. So Mick picked me up on his lunchbreak, but of course had to go back to work, so I decided to go for a swim at North Gong beach, and it was spectacular! The water was around 21 degrees (Celsius), a much more comfortable temperature than the last time I swam in the ocean, which was here last Sept and the water was around 11 degrees Celsius! So I chilled in the Gong, caught up with a few old friends, then caught a lift back to Orange on the Sat evening. I sent Matt a text msg saying I was a few minutes away, so that was his cue to go upstairs so Dad would have to answer the door. I got dropped off down the street just in case Dad was in the front room or outside for some reason and saw the call pull up. It was around 9:30pm by the time I got into Orange, I rang the doorbell, waited, and saw Dad’s outline through the glass come from the kitchen to the front door. He opened and the door, jumped back about 2 feet as he grabbed his chest and exclaimed “Oh shit!”. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack! Hugs, tears of joy all around, and the whole time Matt was up on the stairs filming the cheerful reunion. See we Hunt boys have done a few surprises to our folks over the years, but they have never been documented, so I wanted to make sure this one was savoured. The surprise couldn’t have worked out better I don’t think. Dad had absolutely no idea, and that’s the way I wanted it. There was no way I was going to miss my old man’s 60th, so made the decision to fly back for it. So the next week was spent in Orange, soaking up the sunshine, catching up with friends, and of course spending time with the old man. Matty had just started uni in Bathurst so he was living it up on campus and unfortunately I didn’t get to see a lot of him and hang out, which I was seriously bummed about, but that’s the way it had to be I guess. Still, he had enough time to show off his tan, his golden locks, and of course how bloody ripped he’s got in 7 months! He certainly isn’t my “little” brother anymore! You can certainly tell he’s a personal trainer! Both Dad and Matt will be over in July for about 10 days so that will be great, and gives me time to try and not look so scrawny when standing next to my younger sibling.

The 60th surprise party for Dad was a huge success. A lot more people turned up than I had expected so that was really great to see. I had put together a powerpoint presentation of Dad’s 60 years- lots of embarrassing photos, great music, and got some laughs so it was all worth it. We had 40+ people crammed into our living room and on the front verandah looking through the windows to see the show on the TV. I don’t think we will ever get that many people in that one room again! The day after the party I went down to Canberra with Dad, and while he was at an awards dinner I caught up with a few of the old crew. (Great to see you Tom, Haase, Funky and Kyles). Monday arvo I headed to Sydney and caught up with more of the old crew- Stapo, Caz, Pat and Livi for dinner in Darling Harbor. The night was going swimmingly till Cazza’s bag was stolen from right underneath her! Sneaky buggers! I guess we were so engrossed in conversation we didn’t see a thing. The night ended somewhat positively as some of Caz’s cards were handed in to the police station, but still, a terrible thing to happen.

I flew out of Oz at midday on Tues 26th and arrived into LA at 6:30am on yep, Tues 26th, then back up to Vancouver in the afternoon. I was in Oz a total of 11 days, a whirlwind trip I know, but I caught up with a heap of people and of course on all the “goss” (pretty much half my high school grade is now engaged!). Lapped up the sunshine and the beautiful weather, drank many a Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee (bloody hell I love that stuff!) and got my “Aussie fix” that will last me till I return home at the end of the year, at least I hope it will last me (its’ going to have to isn’t it?!). Being home made me realise that Australia is truly where I want to be. Yes there are a lot of other beautiful countries out there that have a lot going for them (in my eyes), but I do think that Australia is the “lucky country” and it’s definitely where I want to be to build a career and raise some little Timmy (or Tammy) Hunt’s. It’s not until you step outside our shores that you realise what an amazing (and fortunate) country Australia really is.

So, in saying all that, I’m going to certainly enjoy my next 7-8 months here in Victoria, Canada. I’ll be lapping up the marine mammal life, meeting lots of new people, enjoying the spectacular scenery, sampling the fine brews and wines of the region, and I might just earn a buck or two doing it! Work hasn’t started yet, but should do in the next week or so (‘tis still very early in the season). I’ve been getting the run-around a bit, but know I will have employment, just don’t know who with yet! Will of course keep you all posted. I’m getting along fine with my housemates (a Russian lawyer and a guy in the Canadian Navy), so we have lots of experiences to talk about, if only they could understand me! (kidding)

Hope everyone is well and enjoying life wherever you are in the world. Stay safe, enjoy a glass of wine ever now and then (I know a lot of you already do!), and please make sure to recycle. ;-P

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

A more qualified Tim Timmy Timbo - Jan '08

2008-02-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

G’Day everyone,

Well it has been about a month since I’ve posted an update on my activities, and around half of that has been spent becoming ‘more qualified’ to operate the passenger vessels here in Victoria. As I said in my last blog I was due to head across to Vancouver to do a couple of 4 day courses. I headed across from Vic to Van on the 11th Jan and stayed with Dean in this huge house he was house-sitting (doctor friend). This place is so big it has a separate climate controlled wine room. Unbelievable! The course in the first week was a marine radio course, so basically I learnt how to send a distress, urgency and safety signal/call over the radio. Quite basic, and just a money maker really, but it is internationally recognised which is a good thing. The second course was a marine emergencies course which was a lot more interesting. We had a firefighting day at a Fire Training Institute so got all decked out in basic fireman’s gear and put on fires with extinguishers and learnt hose operation techniques. Was great to finally learn about the different extinguishers and actually get hands on. Another day on the course was spent in the pool with clothes and lifejackets on and deploying and operating liferafts- basically learning about survival at sea, with an emphasis on surviving in cold water as it’s pretty damn cold water up here (around 10 degrees Celsius all year round). I’m not really going to be in these kinds of situations as I’m on a small passenger vessel and not going too far offshore, but it is definitely a valuable thing to know should I ever work on large vessels in the future.
The marine emergency course finished on Fri Jan 25th, so I headed up to Whistler that afternoon with Bec (friend from Oz that is working up there). It was a great trip up on the bus just seeing the snow get thicker and thicker on the roadside and surrounding areas. We arrived in Whistler around dinner and just chilled at Bec’s place as we had planned on being up early the next morning to line up at the pub. As it was already Australia Day in Oz on the Fri night I had myself a few Cooper’s Sparkling Ales (yep, I found some in Vancouver!). A 6 pack of Sparkling was actually $3 cheaper than a 6 pack of Pale. Go figure! Bec and I got up early on the 26th and dressed up in our Aussie gear and headed down to the pub. We got there at 8:30am and there was already a line-up! Pub was due to open doors at 9am so we just chatted to all the other Aussies in line that were dressed up to the nine’s. Met a couple from Adelaide that were lining up behind us and ended up hanging with them all day – top people, but being from Adelaide would you expect anything less?! I took a Sparkling in line with me and cracked it open at 9am, so having not eaten anything beforehand, I have now officially had a beer for breakfast! Apparently you haven’t lived until you’ve had a beer for breakfast, so Steve, you told me that back in ’02, and now I’ve lived. You proud of me?! ;-) So the rest of the day was spent in Longhorns Pub singing Aussie songs (several were repeated) and drinking Canadian beer. They did have VB cans available but for $6 each there was no way in my right mind I would pay that much for a VB! Maybe if it was 2 long necks I would! Anyhoo, it was a great day being surrounded by Aussies all dressed up in our home country’s gear, and definitely an Australia Day to remember! I was done and dusted by 9pm!
Left Whistler the next day and as I was walking around Whistler Village before I got on the bus I realised that I want to keep snow as a novelty and not live in it. Fortunately for me my career path will be able to keep things that way, unless of course I work in Alaska or Antarctica! The drive back down the west coast to Vancouver really is beautiful. Snow covered mountains and lakes, it truly is breathtaking.
Got back into Vic later that night and have been back for a week now. Unfortunately didn’t get out on any trips last week as they were cancelled due to bad weather. Had an interview last week with a whale watch company, and have a couple more this week, so hopefully by the end of the week I can at least decided on which company I’d like to work for and sort out a start date. I still have quite a few more hours to get logged and build up my boat skills, but it’s only going to get increasingly busier from now on so it looks like I will start in the office and at least get some money coming in until my hours are done and I can start taking passengers out myself.

Not much else to report here. We hit 5 degrees Celsius the other day so it is in fact getting warmer! Will let you all know when I’ve secured a job. In the meantime I’m prob gonna have to get a bar job or something. Mmm…

Hope all is well with everyone. Take care.

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

Just put the beer on the porch! 2008 begins…

2008-01-08T00:15:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and all the sweet jazz, hope 2008 is a great year for you all.

Well Xmas ‘07 was my first one away from the fam, but I spent it with another family so really it was like a typical Xmas, just with not soo many familiar faces. And I left the last blog hoping I was going to get a white Xmas, well, this lucky Aussie bloke’s wish came true! It began to snow around 11am Xmas morning and so within a couple of hours everything was white and I was stoked! I have documented video evidence to prove it! Apparently snow in Vancouver on Xmas day is very rare, and has only happened a few times in the last 20-30 years, so really, I was a very lucky boy! Was a typical Xmas, ate way too much, only this time instead of drinking out in the sun we were in front of the fire. And I didn’t have to worry about keeping the beers cold in the Esky or filling it with ice, I just grabbed a beer from outside on the back porch, and they were a perfect consuming temperature! Gotta love those big open fridges!

Spent the next few days in Van chilling with Deano, then on the 30th went to a Vancouver Canucks game, vs. the Anaheim Ducks. Was a great game, stadium was packed, and Canucks got up 2-1 so it was a very happy crowd. The only thing I disliked about the game/crowd was the booing, to me that’s just unsportsman-like. Who cares if you don’t like the other team, you don’t boo them. Silence is just as effective I reckon! Anyhoo, the Ducks have changed their team symbol so I was bit bummed about that. I was hoping to see the symbol I know from the Mighty Ducks movies! Apparently they changed the symbol a few years ago, ahh well. Still, ‘twas a great atmosphere, and ice hockey certainly is a great sport to watch. I’d love to play it sometime….

New Year’s Eve I spent on Saltspring Island (it’s west of Vancouver and southeast of Vancouver Island). ‘Twas an interesting night to say the least. Ended up in a hall in the middle of the island where a party was being held, and although I was with people I knew and their friends (not from Saltspring) I was certainly made aware of the fact that Island folk are definitely a different breed (some of them anyway). Spent the night at a friend of a friend’s place that lives on the highest point on Saltspring and woke up to a bloody spectacular view. I went out onto the snow covered porch (bout 3 inches) and overlooked southern Saltspring and could see San Juan Island and Mt Baker (USA) off into the distance. Awesome!

So the first day of 2008 I headed back to Victoria to my new place. I’m sharing a 3-bed suite with 2 other blokes. Place is fairly new but its appeal was the rent and location. I’m in downtown Victoria and only a 20-25min walk to the Inner Harbor which is where I’ll be working. I spent the first few days of 2008 settling in. Previous people that lived here were kind enough to leave me a desk and shelf, so all I had to do was buy myself an air mattress and I was set! I’ll see how I go with the air mattress for a couple of months, but I really do hate to think what it’s doing to my back. Anyhoo, so I’ve been out on a couple of whale watch trips to go towards the 60 hours I need, and man it’s bloody cold! Travelling at 30 knots with the cold air coming off the 9 degree water makes my face almost numb! But I went out last Saturday and we found Transient killer whales! My first transients! (mammal-eating killer whales as opposed to the residents which are fish-eating). As it’s winter and the company I’m going out with is the only company out on the water this time of year, it’s pretty much a “go out and see what we can find”, so spotting transients from way off was very lucky. You just have to look for the water vapour from the blows and then hopefully see a hint of a black dorsal fin. The driver who I’m going out with is the head zodiac driver from the biggest whale watch company here in Victoria so he knows exactly what to look for and really does have eyes like a hawk. I was able to impart my knowledge on the tourists as well, so really, I’m very confident in talking to the tourists and imparting my knowledge onto them, it’s just the actual operation of the boat that I need to build my skills in. I’m heading back to Vancouver at the end of this week as I have a couple of 4 day courses to complete as a requirement to operate passenger vessels. The courses finish on the 25th Jan, so I’ll head up to Whistler for Australia Day as I’ve heard it’s a pretty big party considering the mountain is covered in my country folk. Really looking forward to it. I’ll head back to Vic at the end of Jan and then use February to rack up the rest of my hours and then take my ‘Proficiency Test’ through Transport Canada. Hopefully by the end of March/early April I should be able to get a couple of trips out on my own. The thing you have to remember is, I’m a rookie driver, which means I’m last cab off the rank, but when I’m not driving I can get work on the bigger boats as a marine biologist and also a couple of days in the office to see how the business side of an ecotourism venture works. I have a meeting this week with one of the whale watch operators (probably the 3rd biggest) that initially expressed interest in me, so I’ll see what he has to say and go from there. I’m extremely confident I’ll get work, it’s just they type of work is what I want to specify with them. Although I could do office work no worries, it’s not what I’m here to do, and I’ve heard stories of companies employing people saying yeah we’ll get you out on the boats as naturalists/biologists and then they end up being stuck in the office because they prove themselves in that area. I’m here to be out on the water, and I really think I can bring a lot to the company I work for. Need to find work soon though, I’m truly living a basic life at the moment. I’d love a beer, but it’s bloody expensive here in BC! Maybe I can head across to San Juan Island and smuggle some cheap water flavoured beer back to the land of the maple leaf…

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted in the next month or so and will write another blog when I get back at the end of Jan. I am struggling a little bit with the cold weather, it’s the wind here that is the killer. Stop being a pansy I hear you cry. Yeah, I know, I’ll man up and get through it. You lucky buggers in Oz and your sunshine. Grrrr!

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

Final weeks of ‘07 – Merry Xmas!

2007-12-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-10-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-10-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Oh whales where art thou? - Week 4 (at sea)

2007-09-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

Monday 10th September
So early this morning we had reports of J,K, and L pod up in the Strait of Georgia heading south. A superpod! JaMi last week got to witness a superpod on the west side of San Juan so I was really hoping we would get to witness it today. Now according to Val if the southern residents are up that way they often head south down Rosario Strait and around the south end of Lopez Island and San Juan Island into Haro Strait and Strait of Juan De Fuca. We were positioned at the southern tip of San Juan when we got the report so we had to make a call whether or not to predict they would come down Rosario or come back down Haro Strait. We decided to wait for more pagers but also gave a few calls around to our various “sources” to see if they knew any new information into which way the whales were heading. So as we were just drifting around the south of Lopez Island we were making plans/protocols as to what we would do when whales were around and who would do what. For example, who would deploy what hydrophones, who would take photos etc etc. As part of my project is looking at boat noise in controlled experiments where recordings can be done without whales, I would be able to give some assistance to others with their data collection. I still however need to get echolocation recordings and so the afternoon was spent with all of us “playing” with the equipment, me in particular (and Anne) playing with the high frequency recorder and making recordings. The whale pager system seemed a bit dodge today so we made for Aleck Bay on the south side of Lopez Island where we could deploy the hydrophones and speakers and make some recordings and get used to the equipment so ultimately when we do have whales we can be prepared and ready to collect some good data. So we anchored the dinghy in the middle of Aleck Bay, dropped the speaker over the side and played a consistent killer whale S_1 call. We then just cruised around Aleck Bay with our hydrophones dragging behind the GV and taking recordings, becoming more familiar with the equipment we would be using over the coming weeks. Val then jumped into the dinghy and I got him to do a couple of drive-bys at high speed so I could get a couple of recordings and get an idea of methodology, but more so to see what the high frequency boat noise data would look like on the computer. I’m still yet to look at the data but it’s on my computer ready to go! So we decided to drop anchor in Aleck for the night as the whales were still way up north. Val and I were on dinner so we cooked up a mean Spag Bog and Meatballs with garlic bread. Of course they weren’t real meatballs as this is a ‘nothing with a face’ vessel, but to be honest they did taste a little funky and although they say they “taste like meat” I could definitely tell there was something just not quite right about them. Still, I’m experimenting with these soy “creations” but so far I’ve concluded that you just can’t beat the taste of something with four feet and a hearbeat. Todd our captain however did express an interest today in fishing and saying if we catch it can we eat it, as it will be from natural stocks and we will be eating “sustainably”. Val said he may be open to the idea, which sounds promising. I normally have fish at least once a week when I’m at home so if I can’t eat beef for a week it will be nice to have some fish sometime. I think I might just drop a lure overboard tomorrow and drag it and see what happens. Anyway, many comments were made at dinner about how good it was. I’ll let Val take most of the credit though, I just did the basic stuff.
Did my exercises as well this afternoon while a couple of the others went for a swim around the boat. I have been doing various exercises somewhat regularly on the boat, bout 3-4 times a week. Because I can’t go for runs I still need/feel I have to do some sort of exercise so I’ve been doing dips in and out of my hidey hole, push-ups on the forward deck, lunges around the outside of the deck, lifting a 25 lb round weight on a small rope that is used with the hydrophones (have to do many reps so it can get a bit tedious, plus its not that comfortable to lift), and crunches on the forward netting. For Tim’ boat exercise videos go to www.crunchesoncatamaransandotherexercisesonaboat.com.
Anyway, it’s pretty late on Mon night as I write this so I might make my way to my little hole. I really don’t mind sleeping in there, it’s quite cosy. Ask me again when it’s raining though. So I printed out my draft proposal for Val so I guess he’ll look at it over the next couple of days. I’m a lot happier with it now that what I handed up last time, but still it needs work, hence why they call it a ‘draft’. No superpod today though so bit bummed. Hopefully soon. Off to my hole. Night.

Tuesday 11th September
Well today was a very productive day. We had reports of J,K and L pod out west in the Strait of Juan De Fuca so it was decided we would slowly cruise over there in the hope that they would come east toward San Juan. We cut them off just at the southern tip of Victoria, Canada late in the afternoon, deployed the hydrophones, and put our methods to work. Anne and I had been hard at work the previous couple of hours designing a way to deploy the hydrophone array with the high frequency hydrophone underneath it. We had to rack our brains back to senior high school for a trigonometry lesson to work out lengths and angles but in the end we came up with something and tied off what we had to. It didn’t work exactly as planned, so next time we’ll put more weight on the rope so it drags vertically and the hydrophones drag horizontally. Once they were deployed we followed the whales back to San Juan and up the west side. I was primarily listening for clicks so when I would hear them I’d take short recordings (as the sampling rate on the high frequency recorder I’m using uses up memory quickly). Didn’t actually get to see the whales much as they were very spread out and I was at the back of the boat in the corner with my headphones on fiddling with settings but heard some awesome calls and definitely got some echolocation clicks so will no doubt see what they look like tomorrow.
I really do love being out on the water. As we were cruising to meet the whales this afternoon we came across some Dall’s porpoises, although we were bummed because they didn’t ride the bow wave. Todd assures us that we will get to witness it. JaMi did last week, and they got a super pod encounter, lucky bastards! The weather has been just awesome, sunny clear days, and was just laying out in the netting before looking up at the stars. It was just so clear and the stars lit up the night sky. Just spectacular. In the water here there is also a lot of bio-luminescence at night. Basically little tiny creatures in the water (dinoflagellates for all you science minds) sparkle, and do even more-so when you stir the water up. It really is awesome!
So again I said I would have an early night and I’m 40 min past when I said I would go to bed, so I’m going now. We’re anchored in a place called Westcot Bay, just south of Roche Harbor, so we’ll pump out tomorrow morning and calibrate the freshwater tank. Might even get to a have a bit of a shower as we will need to empty the freshwater tank to calibrate it. Think I might be fighting with the girls for that though…

Wednesday 12th September
So we did pump out this morning and yes we all had a shower in order to use up the freshwater so we could calibrate the tank. Every morning we have a person on ‘Systems’ log and part of their job is to check the level of the water tank. The problem is when the tank was at a certain level in cm according to the ‘freshwater stick’ we never actually knew how much water we had left. Well now we do, and we had a lot more than we thought we did. It took bloody ages to empty the tank, even after we had all (except Val) had really quick showers (which in hindsight could have been a lot longer). Theoretically though we could all shower every couple of days because we need to pump out every couple of days anyway and we always fill up with water when we pump out. But I suppose we are being ‘sustainable’ by not showering every day, but maybe at least one a week wouldn’t hurt…
So no close reports of whales today as we had to stick around the north western end of San Juan to be picked up. We have a lot of data to look through though, so the afternoon was spent discussing ways in which we could improve our data collection as a “team”. My boat noise work relies mainly on me as I’m the only one doing the high frequency boat noise, but when whales are present I need echolocation clicks as well, as does Anne, so we’ve been throwing ideas back and forth as to how to sample effectively. Experimental design/sampling technique is a tricky business. We also had a sailing theory lesson with Todd this afternoon and a knots practical. I’m really interested in the sailing part so was eager to learn, and it was a good break from looking at frequency spectrograms. The knots I pretty much already knew from my days as a Scout, so it was a good re-cap. When I win lotto I’m definitely buying a house on the water with my own dock and a sail boat. Maybe also a power boat for those days when you just want to get away fast. A man can dream can’t he…
We had a talk by Robin Baird tonight at the Whale Museum on transient killer whale foraging. He is one of the leading scientists in this field that has published many papers and written a few books. I bought his book tonight – ‘Killer Whales of the World’, and got him to sign it. It was a fascinating talk, and I’d love to get into that area of research. I mean what could be better than watching a killer whale every day throw a harbor seal into the air and then eat it?! It was really good to see the other group again and it really is a bummer that we only get to see them for such a short period of time. I’d like more social interaction with them as that’s when you really get to know people, away from an academic setting. Hopefully we can sort something out with the instructors.
Anyway, I’m again the last one to go to bed while writing on my computer here in the galley. Hopefully whales tomorrow. Catcha.

Thursday 13th September
No whales again today. Grrr. Instead we calibrated all the hydrophones so we could get a better representation of what our data files would look like. We were at Snug Harbor/Mitchell Bay last night and stayed there till lunchtime. Wind picked up in the arvo so we finally got out and did some real sailing! I tell you what, pulling the mainsail up is bloody tough work but a great workout. No winch help needed for this bloke! So we sailed up north to Stuart Island, I took a couple of large commercial ship and ferry recordings with the high frequency recorder on the way, to get a sense of what it will be like when I collect proper data for my project. JaMi nicknamed the high frequency recorder the ‘pothead’ (‘cos it records at very high frequencies compared to most hydrophones), genius I know. I wanted to call it the ‘oober doobie’, but because the other group named it first we didn’t change it. We do have two different high frequency recorders that plug into the hf hydrophone so Anne and I named them ‘Arj’ and ‘Cecil’ (one records A named files, other records C named files, genius I know). We moored in Reid Harbor, which is on the other side of Privost Harbor where we moored last time at Stuart Island. It’s a thin little harbor, a great little spot. Went for a swim this arvo as well. Got another jumping shot off the bow so I can add that to my ‘Jumping Around The World’ pic catalogue. Water is bloody cold though. You should only stay in the water for 10 min as apparently after this time you start to develop hypothermia. I’m not gonna stay in there longer than 1 min at a time, let alone 10 min! Anyway, I thawed out, Alex cooked up a great Greek vegetable dish for dinner, and we watched the movie ‘Stripes’. The group will tell you how I’ve been singing that tune all week. It’s because everytime the whale beeper goes off it sounds as if it’s part of the theme song, so I whistle along. They watched the movie and now understand where I’m coming from so now when the beeper goes off all they can hear is the ‘Stripes’ theme song! Hilarious! I want it as my ringtone!

Friday 14th September
Whales today! Bout bloody time I hear you cry! We went for a hike early this morning on Stuart Island, bout a 10km round trip to the lighthouse at the northern most tip. We all went as walking is not something you can do readily on a boat so we made the most of our hiking opportunity. Stuart Island is a cute little island. It has a school that we walked past and checked out, but it had closed down this term as apparently the only students were the children of the teacher. They had souvenirs for sale to raise money for the school, but it’s all on an honesty system, so the merchandise is all there you are just expected to leave money in a box or post them the money. I got a couple of postcards so put my money in the box. I love the fact that you don’t have to lock anything up, especially in these small island towns. It’s just a normal thing here, which I wish applied in other parts of the world. It would be nice to know you could trust everyone not to steal from you. Anyway, so we motor-sailed down the west-side of San Juan and caught the whales near Lime Kiln. Anne had rigged up a new array/pothead configuration so we deployed that but got horrible flow noise for some reason. I’m looking specifically for clicks so tapping is NOT something I want to hear. Unfortunately Val deployed the blue box hydrophone that ended up being caught in the propeller. We stopped, Sam dove down and managed to recover part of it. Val dove down as well and they both recovered it although the cable did snap in half but Val said it’s repairable so we’ll take his word for it. I seriously don’t know how they can keep their head under this water for that long. I did 3 strokes of fly when I last went for a swim and got major brain freeze! We have this unofficial thing called an ‘Icepackt’, where if you agree to join it (so far it’s Sam, Val, Anne, and myself) then whoever in the packt that calls a swim and goes through with it, then all the other members of the packt have to swim as well. However, the person that calls the swim can drop out at anytime and not swim, and so neither do the other members. Sam loves to go swimming so we’ve said to her that an ‘Icepackt’ swim is void if she calls it when it’s clearly not a smart move to jump in (I.e. stupidity). So anyway, another tangent again, sorry. I had my headphones on the rest of the arvo while we followed the whales. I only ended up taking one recording as the tapping on the flow noise was just making things difficult. We will re-assess it tomorrow if there are whales. Very windy night tonight here in Fish Creek, and the coldest we’ve had in a long time. Everyone else is in bed. I’ve just spent the last hour and a bit writing a detailed food inventory for the JaMi group, and spent another half hour trying to get internet connection to email it to them. Got help from Ash which was great, although now I have to help her when she is Quartermaster, which really I don’t mind because I’ve created the template on the computer which will make it a lot easier. Everyone else was working on their preliminary data product assignment (basically show how we will present our data in our final report) so that involves a bit of number crunching. I’ll start mine tomorrow, hopefully with better echolocation click data.

Saturday 15th September
It’s really late as I write this so I’ll try and make it quick as I’m on breakfast in the morning. Woke up this morning feeling like I had gone on a 10km hike the day before. Was feeling, still am feeling, tenderness in the gluteus maximus (not exactly sure on spelling) area. Had whales again today, and got the calls early so we were with them at around 10:30am just SW of False Bay on the western side. Deployed the array and pothead hydrophone rig but was still getting tapping flow noise so we pulled it back up and then deployed the pothead separately on the other side of the boat. Tapping noise was gone so I spent the next couple of hours with the headphones on listening very carefully for clicks and recording them. Got some really good recordings but as the day progressed more boats came onto the scene, the whales spread further apart and appeared to be diving longer. Can you blame them? At one point I counted over 30 boats within a 1km radius of our boat and the whales, mainly whale watch operators. 3 days ago a county law was passed on San Juan Island stating that it is now illegal to get within 100m of the whales. If you do and are caught you have to hand over 750 big ones. It applies to all vessels (except with research permits) and is a really great thing for these whales. 100m is actually really close when you’re out there on the water. I missed most of the action today as I was heavily concentrating on what I was hearing and not really looking around. I did however see one breach about 100m off our starboard. That’s the only bad thing about what I’m recording, I miss out on watching the whales, as does Anne, cos we’re too busy with our head down in the computer or the recorder. May have to rectify that next time we’re out at sea. In saying that I mean take half an hour off to marvel at these awesome creatures, and get some good pics and video footage.
Mid afternoon came and the whales kept foraging slowly south but we had to be up north for the changeover at Roche tomorrow so said goodbye to the orcas and made our way back up the west coast. I spent the afternoon putting data in the computer and re-doing our systems log. We are anchored in Snug Harbor again and will make our way up to Roche in the morning for the changeover and a lecture. Worked with Val tonight on how to represent my data so will finish my prelim data product tomorrow. Spoke to Shannon about fine-tuning my experimental design/sampling methods and she was a great help as she did her PhD on Australian Sea Lions in Kangaroo Island. So she knows all about Aussie lingo, places in Oz etc, although I do often jog her memory about certain things that she’s forgotten. Happy to help though of course! Val said he wants to learn another Aussie song on guitar (he knows Waltzing Matilda) so I’m going to look up the tune to ‘Give me a home among the gum trees’ and we can all have a sing-along in 2 weeks when we’re back on the boat. Ash just rolled her eyes at me.
Had an interesting conversation at dinner tonight about sustainability in relation to showers and vegetarianism on the boat. As I mentioned earlier in the week we definitely have enough water in the tank to at least have one or two showers each a week. And to me I don’t see how not showering is practising sustainability as I’ve been having short showers ever since I was a kid and had rainwater tanks in the country. We’ve actually been really good with conserving water so a shower or two a week is well deserved, and practical as well! Vegetarianism however, I didn’t want to get into too much. I know the arguments for, but the whole feedlot beef situation over here is totally different to what it is back in Oz. I didn’t realise cattle here are put in feedlots and fed corn to fatten them up quickly. A big part of the argument is that humans eat corn, and the amount of fossil fuel it takes to grow, transport and sell these cattle that are fed on a human food supplement is apparently equivalent to a barrel of oil per animal per lifetime. Yes that is a lot, but I still think cattle can be farmed sustainably, and they pretty much are back home. My argument is that these animals are bred to be farmed, we are not taking wild stocks, and so it can be done sustainably under the right circumstances. Not eating meat for a week at a time is not fussing me that much though, because I know the week after it I can eat as much meat as I want. Still it would be nice to have fish or something on the boat.
Anyway, it’s bloody late and I gotta go to bed. The Rugby World Cup has started so this week I gotta keep my eye on the net for results. Hopefully I can get sms updates somehow to see how it’s all going. The other instructor Jason is a rugby fan, but he is with the other group so there’s no chance we can go to the pub and watch a game. Hopefully though a Friday Harbor pub may televise a game. If not I’ll just to take up all the internet bandwidth at the labs! So much for the quick blog...

Sunday 16th September
So I’m back on land, all clean, and bloody tired! Had rain today for the changeover and it got pretty cold as a cold front came in. Changeover was at Roche Harbor, and we also had a couple of lectures by a guy named Jim Ha, a behavioural specialist from the Uni of Washington. He spoke about studying animal behaviour and his work with studying killer whale behaviour of the last couple of years. It was very interesting. I’m really glad that I can go to all these talks and hear the leading people in killer whale research. I think that is one of the many great things about the Beam Reach program. So we had Jim speak, exchanged info with the JaMi group (science log stuff, boat logistics etc) then the group went back to the GV and we went back to the labs. Jason (the other instructor) is a rugby fan so we agreed to go halves in internet access to watch all the Rugby World Cup games. I watched the highlights from the two Wallabies games tonight so hopefully for their game on the 23rd Sept I can be online for live updates (it will be early Sun morning here). Americans I know here (except for Jason) have no interest whatsoever in the World Cup, which is fair enough as Rugby is not a prominent sport over here. So guess I’ll cheer by myself in my room!
I have a preliminary data product that I’m in the middle of finishing but thought I would finish this weeks blog. I’m not gonna post the blog now though, its early Mon morning, I’m hella tired, and still have some numbers to crunch. Tomorrow will be a long day I feel. I spoke to Giles earlier so if there are whales in the arvo I’ll go out with her. Better get back to my work. Overall though a bloody great week at sea.

Week 3 - Part Dos

2007-09-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Friday 7th September – Sunday 9th September
Well Friday saw my day off and I had volunteered with a woman named Giles who is doing her PhD on killer whale group cohesion and geographic location. I’m volunteering as part of my Service Project for the program, so what better way to do it than out on a research boat studying killer whales! As I mentioned previously I was originally meant to be going out with Soundwatch but because they are out of action, Kari from Soundwatch put me onto Giles (named Debbie but she prefers to be called Giles), and so I went out with her. I was picked up on Friday morning by her assistant Lindsay and we headed across to the west side. Met their driver Aimee, who is also the curator of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network here on the island, and another female assistant of Giles’, Gurard. So even on my days off I’m still surrounded by women! Still, I guess I’m used to it now. So we had reports of transients down near Race Rocks heading into Haro Strait so we headed over, putting along at 10 knots ‘cos that’s as fast as the boat would go (engine difficulties). I was bloody pumped as I haven’t seen transients yet and would love to see them make a kill on another marine mammal. Somewhat cruel/disgusting I hear you say, well, that’s the food chain baby! But unfortunately the whales were too far out for our little boat to get there and back so we had to call it a day. Bugger! Good thing did come out of the day though. Aimee gave me a lift back to the labs and I helped her unload a harbor porpoise and a juvenile Dall’s porpoise from the freezer. We put them in a netted bag and tied them off the dock so they could thaw out for a necropsy next week. Bad thing is the necropsy is on Monday and I will be out at sea. Double bugger! Still, I got to see them and take photos.
I volunteered to be Quartermaster this trip out to sea so I’ve had to organise the shopping list and discuss meals with the group. I’ve also had to liaise with the sea group to see what food they have left so we don’t double up on items. So Saturday we went to the local Farmer’s Market and got most of our produce. The market seems to be a big thing here in Friday Harbor. I guess you can’t beat freshly picked produce. After the market we headed to the supermarket and got all of our other food items, were way under budget (good work Tim ;-P ), and then took it back to the lab. Grabbed lunch and then rowed into town with Sam (member of the VaTo group with me). I guess I should establish now the five in the VaTo group. We have, in order of life experience (i.e. age) Anne, Me, Alex, Sam and Ash. Great bunch of women, very different, but that’s what makes things interesting! So Sam and I went into town ‘cos I needed to buy myself a sunnies strap (so my super duper polarised Arnette sunnies don’t fall into the drink) and a Nalgene drink bottle. Now for those of you that don’t know a Nalgene bottle is one of those bottles that you can run over with a car and it won’t break. Pretty much everyone on this program has one so I thought it would be a good investment. Plus the fact that I’ve been using a Gatorade bottle which apparently, is not good for you because after you use it several times the plastic starts to deteriorate into the liquid and poison you. Fun times! So now I’m part of the Nalgene crew so all is good. I’ve been doing my proposal as well, trying to finalise it (draft) and get some hypotheses and methods stated. Not sure if research is where I want to end up as a career but while I’m here I’ll give it a bloody good shot! Who knows, 6 weeks time I may change my tune, but I do love being out on the water…
So Sunday saw the changeover at the Friday Harbor Labs dock. Was great to see the other group (JaMi) but I think the only thing on their mind was a shower, so pretty much as soon as we’d had a chat, had lunch and unpacked their gear they were off up the hill to fight each other for the only 3 female showers in the dorm. I’ve actually been really lucky with showers as I don’t have any other group members to compete with, but I do have the occasional members from other groups that come and stay at the Labs. At the beginning of the week I had the whole bathroom to myself (3 loos, 3 showers) so every time I’d leave I’d turn the light off, being the energy efficient individual that I am. Only problem with getting into that habit is when more people come to the dorms you continue to do it and so one night I actually turned the light off on some poor bloke on the loo. I walked out and instantly remembered there was a guy in there, so quickly turned around and flicked the light back on and gave a “Shit sorry mate”. I heard a mumble from the cubicle but couldn’t make out what he said, something very polite I’m sure. Anyway, after sorting out all the food as Quartermaster, with help that was greatly needed, we set off from the labs dock and went and pumped out at Friday Harbor Marina and filled up with freshwater. We then travelled around to North Bay on the eastern side of San Juan Island and anchored for the night. I’m glad to be back on the boat as I really do love being out on the water. I’ve stayed up late to finalise my draft proposal so am off to bed. I plan on posting this sometime this week, depending on when we can pick up internet connection.

Back on land - Week 3

2007-09-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

Monday 3rd to Thursday 6th September
Well the last 3 days on land have been spent fine tuning our research proposals. I’ve decided to focus on high frequency boat noise and create frequency power spectrums from these recordings and relate them to power spectrums of the killer whale high frequency echolocation clicks. I decided to change my research area slightly when I found out that we have a high frequency hydrophone and measuring echolocation clicks and boat noise at these higher frequencies is a somewhat novel idea. The great thing about this program is the resources and technology we are able to get our hands on, and thus are able to do some good quality science. I knew pretty much nothing about acoustics before I came to this program and in the last 2 weeks my knowledge has increased dramatically, to the point where I’m pretty comfortable in looking at a sound and being able to explain it.
We went to a place called Lacrover Farm on Monday, which is a sustainable organic farm. We picked some fruit and veg for them to take to market and got to keep some. The strawberries and raspberries were probably the best I have ever tasted. After the farm we got to visit the Center for Whale Research (CWR). Now some of you may or may not be aware of this place but punch it into Google and see what you get. Basically the CWR, created and directed by Dr. Ken Balcomb, has kept track of the Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) population since the 1970’s. We got to meet Ken and chat to him and it really was bloody awesome as I’ve read a lot of his work and he was one of the ‘founding fathers’ I guess you could say on research on the SRKW population. I didn’t realise the CWR was actually just Ken’s house, but it’s right on the water and overlooks Haro Strait where orcas often swim close to shore as they head up the west side of San Juan Island, so its’ an ideal location. Unfortunately we didn’t get to stay long but I could have picked his brain for hours. Hopefully I’ll get to do that some more in the near future.
Monday night saw Ash and myself go raccoon hunting and we came across 6 trapped in an industrial bin near the dining hall. Ash will tell you I was scared but I maintain that I kept my distance because although these little creatures appear cute and cuddly, they are often rabid and I didn’t really fancy getting rabies that evening, nor any other evening for that matter! Ash insisted that we rescue them from the bin as they were stuck in there, so we got some great photos and video, put a broom in there so they could climb out and then watched them one after the other manoeuvre themselves up the thin broom handle and out around the edge of the bin and scurry away. Ash thinks they are just the cutest things but I just have one word that I say to her… “rabies!”
Wednesday night we had another public lecture at the whale museum about SRKW prey diet that was very interesting. We met the sea group there, known as ‘JaMi’, after Jason and captain Mike, and we are called ‘VaTo’, after Val and captain Todd. Had a small meeting after the talk then we went back to the labs and the other group went back to the boat that was moored on the other side of the island. It’s a shame our contact is so minimal but I guess that’s the way it has to be for the program to work. Last night I spoke to a researcher named Giles who I am volunteering with this Friday as part of my Service Project for the program. Originally I was going to be going out with Soundwatch but as I said last week their engine gave up the ghost so I’m going to go out and help Giles with her behaviour studies. I just wanted my service project to be out on the water as I love being out there and cruising around looking at orcas. Didn’t get sea sick at all last week (touch wood) so being out there doesn’t bother me in that respect. So yeah, looking forward to that tomorrow. It’s Thursday the 6th as I’m writing this, we don’t have class till this afternoon so I’m going to post up all that I’ve written in the last 3 weeks, as per Tracy’s request ;-P. I had planned on doing it anyway, just feel bad it’s been this long. Well enjoy and you’ll hear from me again with another Beam Reach update. Catcha!

Whales, cats and seals - Week 2 (at sea)

2007-09-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Monday 27th August
After spending the first night in my little hidey hole at the forward starboard, and getting up at 12:30am to see Mars appear to be a small moon (apparently this won’t happen again in 2000+ years), I awoke and poked my head out of my hatch to see flat calm water and I gotta say, it was awesome. The day consisted of boat orientation and learning the systems onboard, rules etc. No whales unfortunately but we witnessed a purse seine fisherman take in a school of salmon, with much difficulty I might add. We just kinda cruised around and got familiar with the boat. We anchored in Mitchell Bay (Snug Harbour marina), got some great sunset shots, and the evening was spent doing work for our proposals. After reading some papers I have decided that I want to look at boat noise of the various whale watching vessels, including recreational vessels that are out on the water in the Southern Resident Killer Whale habitat, and then somehow look at killer whale calls in the presence of these vessels. It’s not defined as yet but it’s only the draft proposal due on Wednesday so I can work on methodology over the next couple of weeks.

Tuesday 28th August
Today was the best bloody day I have had in a long time. Something happened that I have wanted to happen ever since I found out I was coming on this trip. Ok, so the morning started and we had reports of J Pod down on the SW side of San Juan Island, heading North. We had anchored on the NW side, but had to pump out (get rid our “waste”), so we went up to Roche Harbour, got rid of our business, then made our way down the west side. Now the catamaran we are aboard has an electric bio-diesel engine, so when we run the engine (generator) and it charges the batteries and when fully charged, we can travel about 2 hours at a speed of 3-4 knots, running solely on the electric motors. ‘Gato Verde’ translates to “Green Cat”. Green meaning it is environmentally friendly and Cat because it’s a catamaran. The GV is the only commercial hybrid bio-diesel electric vessel on the Western coast of the US, so I’m feeling very privileged to be able to be on this vessel knowing that we’re not contributing to underwater noise pollution. So it’s a very sustainable vessel, but not a fast vessel, but can average about 5 knots (engine on), and we did that on way down the west side of San Juan. On the way down we passed what we thought was a dead harbor seal in the water. So we turned around, approached the seal and it actually turned out to be one seal on top of the other, and they were in fact very much alive, and engaging in mating behaviour (must have been adopting the “slow and steady” position). The two seals just looked at us as if to say “Do you mind!?”, and so they slowly sunk down the water column, still grasping at each other. Gotta say it was pretty bloody funny. So having witnessed the sexual behaviour of 2 phocids we got back on course heading south and before we knew it we were watching J Pod travelling very close to shore. They were extremely spread out and travelling in groups of 2 or 3. No measurements were going to be taken today, as we just wanted to watch the whales and observe what sort of behaviour they display, as well as the behaviour of other vessels. We were abiding by the ‘Be Whale Wise’ guidelines and staying a 1/4 - ½ mile off shore and 100m away from the whales. We were also running silent (using the electric motor) and so our noise in the water was barely noticeable compared to other vessels (something that I wish to measure and compare in my research). Now the whale watching guidelines are not law, yet (give it a few weeks and they will be), so boaters are not legally obliged to abide by them. There are however enforcement vessels that let boaters know if they are doing the wrong thing, although they can only be in one place at one time and so we witnessed several incidents of recreational boaters getting too close or going too fast, and even cutting them off. I’ve said it before, but there really are some d$#&heads out there. So we just cruised back up north following the killer whales and watching them breach, tail slap, spyhop and porpoise up the coast. We did stick the hydrophone in and could hear them making calls, so Val took some recordings just so we could get familiar with the equipment and learn how to transfer data to our computers. Time came up to about 4:30 pm and all the whale watch vessels had gone hours before as K and L Pod were heading in from Strait of Juan De Fuca and so the afternoon trips would have gone there. So it was pretty much us and J Pod cruising up the coastline and this is when it became one of the best days I’ve had in my life. We were keeping our distance (100m) and getting some great photo shots. This happened for over half an hour as we cruised up passed NW San Juan Island and up Stuart Channel towards Stuart Island. Next thing we knew, at Turn Point on Stuart Island, the whales took a dive and the front few surfaced right next to our boat! It was incredible! We cut the engines, there were about 8 individuals and we could see the white on their bodies as they were about 2m under the surface of the water. They surfaced again this time right under the forward starboard section of the cat, less than 2m from where we were standing! It was incredible to see their almost 6ft tall dorsal fins protrude out of the water with such grace. I told myself that while I’m up here out on the boat I really want to all of a sudden see the orcas surface right beside the boat, and it happened the second day I was on the boat! It was bloody awesome and I’m sure if you videoed me I would have looked like a little kid getting excited when he opens his xmas presents. Mind you, we were all extremely pumped and adrenaline was rushing. It truly was an exhilarating experience to be that close to such a large graceful creature, one that I will treasure forever I’m sure. I got a couple of good photos and a video of the experience but my excitement missed some good shots. Can you blame me?! The whales headed in a different direction to where we were due to moore for the night, so we cruised on into Privost Harbor on the NW side of Stuart Island and set up “camp” for the night. It was an awesome day, witnessing one of my favourite creatures in their natural habitat and being soo lucky that they chose to change path and appear right next to the boat I was on. Days like this make me realise how lucky I am to be here.

Wednesday 29th August
Whales again today! We witnessed parts of the superpod coming across Haro Strait around lunchtime. We dumped the hydrophone in the water as we paralleled them but no audible sounds could be recorded. We couldn’t follow them for long as we had to make our way back up to Roche Harbor to meet the land group. To clarify, the Beam Reach group has been split in two, five students in each group, as we can’t all fit on the Gato Verde. Val Veirs is our group instructor and Jason Wood is the other group’s instructor. So it was good to catch up with them as we bonded pretty well in the first week. Scott Veirs is the founder/creator of Beam Reach and he came aboard tonight and will be spending the next week onboard. It was bloody great to finally meet him as we have exchanged many an email. We anchored at British Camp in Garrison Bay that night after spending the evening with the land group and going to a public lecture at the Whale Museum presented by Dr. Marcia Holt. I found the presentation very interesting and it gave me ideas for my proposal. Speaking of proposals, our draft was due today and I gotta say I know I did a shocking job. Being on the boat is very distracting, our resources are limited, and I haven’t been in a science frame of mind for over 8 months. I know what I want to say in the proposal but couldn’t get it all out in the time we had. My final research proposal will be a million times better as I know what I have to do because I’ve written research proposals before. I’ve also been thinking about my methods and I gotta say I’m pretty pumped because what I want to look at has only been looked at once before and apparently it was done poorly. So I’m excited to be looking at individual boat noise and getting some good data.

Thursday 30th August
Unfortunately no whales today but we got some good winds and so put the sails up and tacked down Haro Strait down to the southern end of San Juan Island. I really like sailing, letting the power of the wind take you. I’m really keen to learn as much as I can while on this program. I was at the helm and we hit 8 knots! So far that’s the speed to beat. I think my Dad’s passion for sailing is coming out in me. We went through some crazy currents in Cattle Pass in the afternoon (body of water between San Juan Island and Lopez Island) before anchoring on the northern side of the southern tip of San Juan Island – place called Fish Creek.

Friday 31st August
Did an experiment this morning that measured the source level of the ‘Gato Verde’ (GV) generator. Deployed hydrophone at various distances behind the GV to determine the sound propagation of the new bio-diesel generator and compare with data taken in 2005, but with the old standard diesel engine. I processed the data in Excel and Val’s Beam Reach Analyser program and saved it onto the Beam Reach ‘Black Box’ external hard drive. Gained a better understanding of using the program which will definitely aid me in analysing boat noise files and killer whale calls when I collect my own data (in terms of dB anyway, frequency analysis is the next step). Had rain today, first time since we’ve been out on the water. Headed out south of San Juan Island and back up around the west side just after lunch. Had no reports of whales today. Anchored in Snug Harbor.

Saturday 1st September
Went up to Roche Harbor to pump out. I was in charge of Science log this morning so had to give a report on the data we collected on Friday for the GV source level. Every morning we each have our chores on a rotating roster. Chores include cleaning the heads, galley, deck etc; preparing a systems log where we monitor our power and other usage onboard; preparing a navigation log where we look at the tides and decide what course and at what time we should take it. Our movements are pretty much based around what the whales are doing so we basically go where they are (if they are nearby). Often the whales will go out west (past Strait of Juan De Fuca) for days at a time so we can’t really get out that far in our vessel (nor is it feasible for the whale watch operators to go out that far). We have a pager that was given to us by the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor so we get pages everyday where whales have been spotted by spotters on the Canadian side of Haro Strait. Our instructors Scott and Val Veirs have contacts all over the place so if whales are around we will know where they are, but often it’s the case of not being to get there because it’s too far away (for our vessel anyway as I said).
So we headed south again out of Roche Harbor after pumping out and picking up Mike (the other Captain that will take over Todd for the next group that boards on Sunday). We headed down south of the island as we’d had reports of J-pod just west of the tip. We got down there and there was an abundance of boats. It’s Labour Day weekend here at the moment so there are lots of recreational boats out on the water. J-pod was very spread out and it appeared as though many boaters were breaking the ‘Be Whale Wise’ Guidelines. An organisation called ‘Soundwatch’ operates out of the US here and is basically out there on the water to let boaters know about these whale wise guidelines and speak to those boaters that do break the rules. At the moment they are only guidelines but it is hoped that they will be enforceable laws within the next month or so. Unfortunately ‘Soundwatch’ blew its engine in the last couple of days and is out of action until they can somehow get it fixed or get a new one. They rely on funding and donations so it is unknown when they will be back out on the water. I had offered to volunteer with them next week but at the moment it doesn’t look like I’ll be going out if they don’t get the engine fixed. There is however a Canadian counterpart, ‘Straitwatch’ that does exactly the same thing and fortunately they were out today. We had a chat to them and explained what we were doing with our research and they type of vessel we were operating. I asked them if they could do a drive-by for us so we could measure their underwater boat noise and they happily obliged, so there is already some data there that I can analyse for my research paper. The whales had changed direction by time we finished with Straitwatch and were heading north up the west side of San Juan. We finally caught up with them and I just couldn’t get over the amount of boats that had parked themselves offshore to the whales and had created what looked like a passageway up the west coast. We decided to deploy the hydrophone array (4 hydrophones on a single line that drags horizontally behind the boat, specifically used for localising orca calls), and initially we got nothing but after half an hour we got some unbelievably clear sounds coming through the speakers and we could see a calf less than 80m away from the boat travelling parallel to us. The calls were so clear it sounded as if the calf was right next to the hydrophones. The hydrophone just seemed to be going crazy with all the vocalisations that were being made, and luckily we have top range software and equipment to be able to record these sounds. It really was awesome to hear the calls so clear with what sounded like almost no background noise. Another awesome thing about today was that we got to see J-1, aka ‘Ruffles’. He is a 50+ year old alpha male with a 6ft dorsal fin that has curvature and appears as though it is ‘ruffled’, like the potato chips (if you can remember them). He is very iconic and easily identified out there on the water. He often travels alone (ie. not right up against other pod members) and leads J pod. So after getting some awesome vocalisation data we putted back up to Snug Harbor, anchored and settled in for the night as Sunday is our changeover day. It’s Saturday night as I’m writing this and we have out changeover at noon tomorrow. So the boat has to be cleaned thoroughly for the next group and we have to get all our stuff organised. I’m really looking forward to getting back to land for one reason… I get to have a shower! Yep, that’s right, I haven’t showered in a week. It is sort of discouraged while aboard the GV because at Beam Reach the word ‘sustainability’ is practiced and so by us having showers we are using up water and when out on a vessel, freshwater is a vital resource. I actually don’t think I smell bad (thanks to BO basher), although I certainly don’t feel clean so definitely looking forward to a shower tomorrow. Also, being a sustainability school we are also discouraged to eat anything with a ‘face’, so yep, I’ve been a vegetarian for the last week. To be honest it hasn’t really phased me because I know next week when I’m back at the labs and at the dining hall I can have meat. I’m really craving a thick juicy steak though and I think the only way I’m gonna get it is if I cook it myself on land next week. So that’s definitely on the cards! Honestly though, not a fan of tofu at all. It’s just too bland. The meat substitutes however haven’t been that bad. Don’t get me wrong they’re not the same as meat but if you closed you’re eyes and thought really hard that you were eating meat you could probably convince yourself. Anyway, it’s late and I’m on breakfast in the morn. Catcha.

Sunday 2nd September
So back to land today after a week at sea. We did the changeover in Snug Harbor. Was good to see the other group, and so we exchanged details on various processes on the boat. They will learn it all this week but by us telling them some of the things needed to be done every day we made it a little easier for the new captain Mike. The other group had almost double the amount of food we did so I think the shopping for next week, of which I am quartermaster, will be minimal. Woohoo! So we had a methods/statistics lecture on the GV after lunch then left the other group to learn the ways of the GV. Being back on land the first thing we all wanted to do was have a shower. So pretty much as soon as we got back to the labs and unpacked it was getting clean time, and believe me, it was a bloody great shower!

Beam Reach begins- Week 1

2007-09-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

G’Day. I’m Tim from Australia and this is the first blog entry I’ll be making for the Fall 2007 Beam Reach Program. I plan on posting one a week but of course it all depends on time and how busy this program gets. So, in saying that, here’s how the first week went down.
I arrived at the Friday Harbor Laboratories, Friday Harbor WA on Sunday August 19th at around 6:30pm. I met a couple of other students on the ferry across from Anacortes so we went and grabbed dinner as we had missed dinner at the Dining Hall. Got to the labs a couple of hours later and made our way up to the dorms. Met some more Beam Reach students and settled into my room. I got a room to myself as I was going to be the only guy student on the program for the next 10 weeks. I don’t know what it is with women and marine science, particularly marine mammal science, but it clearly seems to be dominated by the female gender, in the US I’ve found anyway, as this was the case when I studied at UMiami in Spring 2006.
So Monday morning we had breakfast together then headed off to class. Met Jason Wood and Val Veirs and we all gave little introductory spiels about ourselves. We all have different backgrounds, as can be expected, and it was interesting to hear what people have done/are doing with their university degrees. I’m one of two international students. The other is also a chick from Australia, Ash, from Adelaide funnily enough, and also from my home uni. We get along great guns as we can really relate to each other being so far away from home and in a slightly different culture. I’ve been helping her with the subtleties of the American culture as I have spent 6 months living in the US back 2006. So mid morning Mon we headed across to Lime Kiln State Park, a popular land whale-watching place on the west side of San Juan Island and got time to ourselves to think about what we wanted to do on this program and what area of study we wanted to focus on. I want to do something with boat noise and killer whale acoustics but have not yet decided specifically. Unfortunately no orcas in the area or on the OrcaSound (go to Orcasound.net to hear live streaming) hydrophone, guess I’ll have to wait for the boat.
The next few days consisted of Beam Reach Program introduction, basic acoustics tutorials, and finalising the area of study to write our draft proposals. On the Wednesday night we went into Friday Harbor to the Whale Museum and listened to a presentation on Southern Resident killer whale communication and the changes that have been observed in the last 25 years. It was very interesting, even more so the fact that it was done by a senior undergraduate student. We were also allocated our groups for the boats this evening.
Friday saw the swim test. Many of the crew had been dreading this but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong the water was bloody cold but the sun was out so once you got out of the water you were fine. Jumping off the dock was a good laugh and many a photo was taken. Just before the swim test we did a small experiment that used a hydrophone to measure sound propagated from underwater speaker at varying distances. It basically helped us to understand the sound propagates in a spherical manner underwater. In the afternoon we planned the food for our voyage out at sea, and then a few of us decided to row into town to meet the others to go shopping. I just love the fact that we can row into town and it’s actually quicker than walking.
Saturday was our day off and most of us slept in and missed 8am breakfast so basically the rest of the day was spent doing our proposals and getting ready for the boat the next day as some of us had to move rooms. Luckily I didn’t have to move anything as my room was one of the ones we were keeping. Mind you, I don’t have much stuff to move but the same can’t be said for other people in the group. They know who they are, and I’ve been giving them heaps all week!
Sunday we loaded all the gear, food and personal stuff we needed for our week on the boat onto the dock and awaited the arrival of the ‘Gato Verde’ catamaran. Todd (captain) and Shannon (other BR instructor) arrived just before lunch so we all had a perusal of the vessel we would all be calling home over the next 9 weeks. So we had lunch, loaded all the gear up, I shotgun my little hidey hole at the forward starboard, we said our goodbyes to the land group, and off we sailed, well motored as there was no wind, to our place of mooring for the first night.
So as I write this at the end of the first week at Beam Reach I’m sitting out on the ‘Gato Verde’ cabin area where we are moored at the southern end of Jones Island (NE of San Juan Island). I can see the moon in the sky peaking through the clouds over San Juan Island and it’s glistening on the ripples of the water. I can hear the waves lightly breaking on the rocks nearby and the sounds of crickets on the island. Yep, doesn’t get much better than this. ‘Tis gonna be a good week I feel.

US bloody Customs, my home on an island, and postal address

2007-08-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

G’Day All from Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands,

Firstly thankyou to all that sent me birthday messages. It was a quiet but sunny day with a few cold ones, nothing big, but very nice. Got into Seattle on Thurs after being held up at the US/Canada border. What a bloody joke that was! I took the bus from Vancouver to Seattle and of course we had to cross the US border. So we get to the border gates, had to wait in the bus for half an hour cos there were 3 buses ahead of us. So after we moved from the bus we had to unpack all the luggage and wait in line ready to see the customs officers. We line up and there is not a bloody soul in the area! You’d think a full bus load of people would have the customs people ready to check them and get them on their way, but no, we stood there for another half hour while officials just seemed to occasionally appear, look at us, then go into another room. After another good half hour one official came out and started putting us through, then another one came out, and another, so were finally getting the ball rolling. My turn comes up, I go up to the customs bloke, show him my passport and student visa form. He looks at it and asks me to step over to the counter so they can process it over there cos for some reason the proper software wasn’t available at his station. So I go over there and no one helps me, the bus line is getting smaller and smaller, and still no one has come over to help me. All the people on the bus get processed, and then start loading back on the bus. I’m thinking “shit, I’m gonna be holding up the bus” and yep, sure enough, I did. The same older overweight guy that served me in the first place waddles over to the counter, sits at the computer and begins going through my student visa processing. Now to give you an idea of how long it should take, when I got into Miami I was through the customs guy in about 2 mins. This guy had no bloody clue, cos he took friggin’ ages, although didn’t let on. I knew he had the instructions on the screen cos he was typing everything with 2 bloody fingers! The bus driver walks over to me and asks what’s going on. I apologised to him and told him they were processing my visa. The customs guy assured the driver he won’t be a moment… A moment my arse! 15 min later and he finally hands me back my passport with the relevant documentation. Then I gotta go grab my bags, have them quickly checked and load back onto the bus. Throughout this whole process I’m thinking “Shit, we’re already over an hour behind schedule and I’ve just held the bus up another 20 min.” I was bloody ropable! Now you’d think that being a US Customs official on the border of a different country and the fact that Canadian students come through there with student visas to study in the US, then the US Government might train their officials in processing student visas…. Pfft! Fat chance! How many international students that come to the US to study do you think are gonna be a threat?! You’d think international students would be the least of their worries compared to people trying to come in from Canada on a bus (no disrespect to Canadians, I think they are great people), and so they wanna get the students in, processed, and on their way… Nope. Once it again it just proved to me the ridiculousness of US Security and Customs. Ok, sorry, got that off my chest, feeling much better.
So got into Seattle late Thurs night, met Ash on Friday (the other Aussie from this program from Adelaide). Saturday we checked out the Space Needle (big tall needle like building in the city overlooking the Puget Sound and surrounds), met up with another chick from Seattle going on the program and we ended up at what is known as ‘Hempfest’. Basically it’s a free festvial with music and everyone smokes dope, gets high in the hope of sending the message that marijuana should be legalised in the US, as it is a much less “harmful” drug than alcohol in that more crimes are commited when people are under the influence of alcohol. Apparently it’s a really big issue over here in the States.
So Sunday saw Ash and I travel up to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands where we have landed at the University of Washington Laboratories. It’s an awesome facility right on the water, and it’s quicker to row into town on a boat than to walk! How cool is that?! And yeah, so have met everyone over the last couple of days, a very diverse group I must say. Ash and I are the only internationals, the rest of from the US. And another interesting fact, apart from the instructors, I am the only male student. Yep that’s right, out of 10 students I am the only guy. Dunno how I feel about that yet but no doubt I’ll get through it. We’ve all been thinking about exactly what we’re gonna study and so will break into 2 groups of 5 and spend a week on the boat, then a week off, for the next 9 weeks. So communication will be limited as it’s a pretty full on 10 weeks. I’ll do my best though. Friday Harbor is a quaint little town on San Juan Island so isolation for the next 10 weeks will be interesting.

In case you wish to/need to post something my address is as follows:
Tim Hunt
C/O Beam Reach
Friday Harbor Labs
620 University Rd
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
USA

Hope all is well with everyone. Take care and next time you hear from me I will have hopefully seen many a killer whale!

Tim, Timmy, Timbo

Crackheads, cold water and sunshine

2007-08-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

G’Day All,

Well a lot has happened since you last heard from me. After chilling in sunny Vancouver for a few days I headed across to Victoria on Vancouver Island and sussed out possible jobs for my work visa. Good news, pretty much got a job from Feb/March working as a marine biologist on a whale watch boat. Got to go out with a company for free and see how its done, and yeah, I know I could do it cos I know all the info and am only going to learn more studying the orcas for 10 weeks. Just gotta find something from Nov till then but got plenty of time. Will keep u posted on that front. But I saw my first killer whales in real life! ‘Twas bloody awesome! Can’t wait to see more!

Ok, so here is a crackhead story, and I’m literally talking about an actual crackhead. While in Victoria I went down to a marina to wait for a manager of a whale watch business to arrive. There was a driver of a whale watch boat there ready to go out, and another guy cleaning his boat nearby. This woman came up to me, dressed in nice jeans and a blazer with glasses on and asked “Excuse me, do you have some money? I just found out my uncle has died which is why I have been crying (she did actually have tears in her eyes) and I need to get my car out of the carpark to get to my phone. I’m not from around here, I’m a lawyer from Toronto and can pay you back double what you give me, I just need to get to my car”
I told her I don’t live here and she said “that’s fine, I’ll drop the money off to where you are staying. Actually, will you be here in half an hour?”
I said yes, so she said “ok I’ll drop double your money back to you here in half an hour”
I dunno what it was but it was clearly a moment of nievity, weakness, probably compassion as she told me her uncle had just died, and the fact I could double my money, so I handed her $20 and off she walked. The guy on the whale watch boat nearby asked me “You didn’t just give her money did you?”
“Ahh yeah” I replied, in a nervous tone
“Well she’s a crackhead and was here yesterday morning. She stung that guy over there cleaning his boat with some story”
“Are you serious!” I said as I jumped up out of my seat. “Yeah” he replied.
So I piss bolted up the hill where the woman was walking and told her that I needed my money back to pay for the boat ride. She gave it back no worries and I walked back down the hill to the marina. I sincerely thanked the whale watch guy and sat down feeling bloody ashamed of myself. I dunno how I could have been so stupid! I guess I felt sorry for her and she was very convincing I gotta admit. Apparently there are a lot of crackheads around this time of year with all the tourists away. I know now I’m not gonna ever again give money to a stranger, no matter how convincing their story is!

So after spending almost a week in Victoria I travelled up to the NW side of Van Island to a place called Quadra Island where I went kayaking for a day. Was an alright day but I kinda hoped to see more wildlife (i.e. dolphins, maybe even orcas). I then headed to the other side of the island where I did a weekend trip diving around Quadra. It was my first cold water diving experience and let me tell you, it was bloody cold! Water temp was 12 degrees C and I only had a 7mm wetsuit on. I had my booties which are 3-5 mm and so after 20-25 min I’d start to lose feeling in my toes. Was also wearing a hoodie and gloves, hadn’t dived in over a year so took a few minutes to get comfortable in the water. The marine life down there though is awesome. Mainly sessile organisms (ones that don’t move, are attached to the wall/rockface) but they were spectacular. Huge white plumose anemones around 7 inches thick and over a foot long, sun stars with up to 40 legs and 3-4ft across, huge white starfish 2-3ft across, king crabs with a carapace (body) length of up to 2ft across, forests of purple tubeworms, and almost every available space on the substrate was covered in little strawberry anemones. Apparently British Columbia is the second best dive location in the world, as there really is soo much life. I was hoping to find a wolf eel (very creepy looking they are) or a giant Pacific octopus but no luck. Still was a great weekend diving even if I did freeze my arse off down there. I’ll be wearing a dry-suit next time! One thing that peeves me is that because I have a marine bio/scientific dive background I’m taught a non-invase approach to diving, (which all ppl should be!), and it bloody annoys me when people pull themselves along the rocks and kelp and destroy organisms in their path, and pull organisms out to have a closer look at them. Leave them alone I say! How would u like it if a giant reached into your house, pulled you out, shook u about, then plonked you back at the end of your block?! Well, my dive instructor, the guy that owned the dive lodge, did just that! I guess he was trying to impress me by shoving things in my face but I felt like saying “listen mate, I can see it whether it’s a foot in front of me of 4 ft in front of me. Leave the marine life alone!”
Anyway, enough bitching. Was good to get some cold water dives in and experience that kind of marine life.

So yeah got back to Vancouver on Monday. I treated myself to a seaplane ride back from the island. That was really cool flying into Vancouver over Stanley Park and the city. We’ve had great weather since I arrived, and yesterday was the first overcast day I’ve experienced so can’t complain when I’ve had over 2 weeks of sunshine!
Currently staying with Deano at a place he’s house-sitting. This place has a pool and Jacuzzi, and I have my own room with bathroom so ahh, no complaints here!

Off to Seattle next Thursday 16th, will check that out for a couple of days then 19th I start in Friday Harbor. Gonna be awesome! Oh yeah, and all you Miami-ites, Oct 29th I shall grace you all with my presence!

Hope you are all well, and sorry for such the long winded email. I have created a blog site for those of you that have trouble reading my emails. Enjoy!

Tim, Timmy, Timbo