Good coffee, boating and seminars. (6/26)

     Forest made coffee this morning with the real coffee I brought and it was divine!  After breakfast, a habit I am trying to form, we headed down for our daily 5 minute meeting and then a bunch of us headed out on the boat the Zoea with Jay to play with the ROV.   

Zoea is crab larvae and here it is taking over the world.

The ROV.

     We had Alannah, Forest, Anne, Kalia, Sarah, and Christina.  I am starting to get embarrassed how hard it is for me to keep everyone straight.  We went to a sandy bottom spot to search out sea pens and found some after we moved a bit.  I drove the ROV at one point and it was super fun and challenging, definitely something that takes some practice.   

Sea pen on the ROV camera.

     Next we headed across the bay to a rocky area and looked at urchins and spotted a seal playing among the kelp beds keeping an eye on us.  When the ROV came up it had a hitchhiker and we all took a few minutes with the urchin before putting it back in the water.   

Urchin mouth, known as Aristotle's Lantern, because the man himself described it as looking like a lantern.

     We then shot over to Deception Pass, an exciting, bumpy and thrilling ride.  I’ve never gone through Deception Pass before in the water though I have driven over it countless times, I like my new view better.  

            We returned and listened to a lunch seminar on Coccolithophores.   From wiki: they are single-celled algae, protists, and phytoplankton belonging to the division of haptophytes. They are distinguished by special calcium carbonate plates of uncertain function called coccoliths, which are important microfossils.  It was a grad students presentation on her search to see if they have predator response which deters predators in both haploid and diploid portions of their lives. 

            I went through two more shell bags today, nothing too exciting, one had one juvenile and the other bag had two.  One of the bags shells were almost completely covered with barnacle shells and tunicates.  I only figured out some of the things I found were tunicates through someone leaving for the day.  He expressed interest in what I was doing and I asked if he help me identify some things I found.  Most were native tunicates though one may have been invasive. 

            After dinner I took a small beach walk as there wasn’t much beach to walk but it was sunset and reaffirmed that we do indeed live in a breath taking beautiful part of the world.  Sometimes I am afraid I will take it for granted but I feel like since both returning to school and traveling the world more I have a fresh eyed view of my local surroundings.

Shannon Point boat launch.

This boat just happened to be in the right place at the right time and so picturesque.