A beautiful end to fieldwork (8/1)

Padilla Bay

      Today marked the end of the fieldwork portion of my summer experience and what a beautiful note to end the experience on.  First Dr. Dinnel and I went to Padilla Bay to scout for a good seed location that was marked by way-points on the GPS and to replace the temperature sensor.  It was a beautiful day to slog about in the mud. 

Still working on the over/unders.

     A non native snail species is present in Padilla Bay.  Battalaria as far as the eye can see, these little guys aren't classified as invasive, meaning they haven't been shown to have a negative impact on the local environment.  They have provided a boon to the local hermit crab housing scene.

Battalaria everywhere.

      After we finished we headed out to Lone Tree Point to chat with a tribal representative biologist about placement of spat on shells next year.  Jen, the Swinomish representative we were talking with then headed out to Kiket Island with us to discuss placement there.  We also replaced the temperature and salinity sensor.  We dropped Jen back off and headed back to SPMC done with out fieldwork for the summer.

One Tree Point Lagoon

Mussels at One Tree Point.

     Mussels growing in the outflows is a good sign the both temperature and salinity in the area are probably good for oysters as well.

Kiket Island lagoon outflow.

     I put the final touches on my data analysis tonight and just need to make my trestle illustration and substrate and oyster density illustration to go along with it.  My time here is coming quickly to an end and I am sad that it went so fast and extremely grateful for the experiences and opportunities I have had here at Shannon Point.