Shell bags, crabs, biking and dorm life (6/25)

Today I started the day meeting with Paul Dinnel learning how to identify and measure juvenile native Olympia oyster and we went through the first few shell bags together.  Shell bags were placed around Fidalgo Bay to study how far oyster was spreading on it's own.  It is nice to be able to do my work at this point anywhere, the lawn was our lab today.  We worked through a few bags together and I did a bag on my own as well.  It is interesting to see everything that is growing or living in these bags, I found not only oysters but a tiny scallop, snail egg mass, sponge, and many types of small shore crabs among other things.  I returned the shells with oysters to the seawater table loose and collected the other shells for deploying back in Fidalgo Bay.

Shell bag ready for inspection.

Shell bag still in the seawater table.

Olympia oyster juvenile.

Tiny scallop growing on bryozoa.

Alannah accidentally had put shore crabs that she collected on Friday in fresh water and needed to recollect live specimens.  I along with Anna-Mai, who is also working on the same project and my roommate Crista hit the beach helping her collect egg bearing females.  It was amazingly easy to find egg bearing females once you knew what to look for.  Once enough were collected Crista and I followed them to their lab to see what was next. Each crab's eggs were looked at under a microscope to judge how near hatching they were and the crabs were sorted into dishes individually with sea water this time and labeled as to their egg maturity.  The near mature eggs looks just like tiny crabs in bubbles, so cute.

After I packed up for the day I rode my bike into Anacortes which is about 4 miles to the main street.  It is pretty much down hill all the way which is nice on the way there but the way back did seem a bit longer.  I poked around town and visited the local dive shop Anacortes Diving.  They were very friendly and we chatted diving and local wildlife. They didn’t have the book I wanted but have coincidently ordered it that afternoon, I ended up getting a field guide to nudibranchs and a goody bag to facilitate trash collection during beach walks.  

 I wasn’t quite ready to head back to Shannon Point and found the Brown Lantern, a small bar where I had a beer and read The Living Shore.  It seemed like a pretty low-key local bar and was a great place to enjoy a beer and good book. 

After got back I headed over to the commons.  I am really enjoying getting to know everyone and learning what they are doing and about their educational experiences.  I have decided I want to get certified for scientific diving as soon as I can!