Headed out!

Goodbye Gustavus! Now time to get to work to try and get the funds to get back here next year!

So i'm off to Juneau, to start work in the Tracy Arm with Bob Stone and Jennifer Mondragon, looking at the reproductive seasonality of Primnoa pacifica. Be sure to check into those pages and see how we're doing!

So what is a floating bunkhouse?

The original plan had us staying out in the field inbetween our two days, but in the end our sites were so spread out the boat captain decided we would come back in to land overnight. We did get to look at the floating bunkhouse though, as if we get here next year, the plan will be to stay in the field for a couple of nights a week, to save the 2.5hr transit to get back to Bartlett Cove. I had many things in my head when they said "Floating Bunkhouse", but i'll admit none of my "thoughts" were quite right! 

Can you see the bunkhouse? This one is in Sandy Cove, and they are quite small! 

They only have a single bunkbed in there, so only two people can stayover (or one more can sleep on the floor), but are amazingly nice and tidy. A sink and stove are not two things you expect when our in the field, so that will be quite exciting to be able to use next year!

Next year the hope is to get the funding to take a small ROV, and to do some more mapping of the area. As such we're looking at taking probably 4 people out to the field to be able to handle the ROV and cable. Stian did a great job of being the winch for the little camera, but for an extended program, you really want enough people to be able to swop that job, especially if it's raining! 

So looking at the bunkhouse was an important part to getting the logistics together for next year. If we want to take 4 people into the field, it's going to mean 2 people in the bunkhouse and two people camping onshore next to the bunkhouse. This will work well, but it's good to know beforehand because that means bringing a tent too! 

So that is a floating bunkhouse! 

Analyzing and packing

Tomorrow I fly to Juneau to start getting ready for some work up in Tracy Arm - so i'll be switching gears to the Alaskan Fjord Corals blogspot tomorrow, though i'll still update here occasionally as things come up. Remember this is a rolling project, and the next thing to do is to find the funds to come back next year and do a full expedition, no easy task with science funding generally on the downturn. That is why a pilot project this year was so important, to make sure we would have success if we came back with a bigger crew and better equipment. Now we know there are corals deeper, and we know some good spots where they are, the next step is to get a better pictures and samples and try and identify species, habitats and document the water chemistry better.

Documenting the species that live within a National Park is so important, Glacier Bay has been protected for over 80 years, and yet with glacial retreat and species colonization the landscape is always changing, new animals and plants are moving in, naturally, as more land becomes available - and that's not just on the surface too, that's underwater as well! When did these corals get there? How many species are there in the park? How close to the glaciers can they live (with all that sediment in the water coming off of the glaciers, it's amazing they can live here at all!)? What are the requirements for a good coral habitat within the park? Should we be doing more to protect these populations? These are the kinds of questions we are asking and want to find the answers to.

Packing up the camera. This camera is headed back to USGS in Massachusetts (hopefully to arrive after Hurricane Earl has passed by!) to be used on another project. Despite it's small size it has been fantastic, and worked far better than expected for this project. Thanks to Kathy and Dann for sending this out to us! 

Writing up and analyzing the video. This is my task, last night and today i've been making sure all my notes are typed up (always have data in 2 places just in case!), the GPS coordinates are typed in, and any interesting corals on the video pulled out to look at closer. All this data will then be sent to Kathy to put onto a map, ready for choosing sites for next years hopeful expedition! 

And just in time too, it's not hard to stay inside today when it's raining so hard outside! We've had wonderful luck with the weather, September is the wettest month, so we really lucked out with the beautiful sunshine and dry days. Now if the rain could disappear for my Juneau work too that would be fantastic! 

We're back!

We're back from the park, after a wonderfully productive two days out on the RV Capelin with the CTD and drop camera system. And so the big question - did we find corals? A big....resounding....yes! Yes we did, we found 3 or 4 species of coral deep in the fjords, both in the West and East arms and in the central channel (take a look at the map & timeline tab to see where that is!). The camera operations went like a treat, the CTD data I have to wait until I get to Juneau to download, but i'm sure it'll fill in some questions for me. I'll talk more about our results once i've analyzed and gone through the images tonight, but for now, here are some images from the trip!

Working right up by the glaciers of glacier bay national park. This is Riggs Glacier in the East Arm.

Couldn't ask for a better crew - Stian and Captain Justin Smith rigging the drop camera.

Me in my cave, working out the GPS coordinates for the next deployments. 

The CTD being deployed in the crystal blue glacial water.

Me looking into the tiny video screen as the camera is deployed, searching for those corals, and making sure we didn't hit the bottom! 

The weather wasn't always fantastic, and someone had to be outside hauling and heaving the camera, there was no winch for lowering it! 

But even in the rain, there were smiles all around. 

Especially when we actually found corals! This is not a great picture, and I plan to post better ones up here, but see the fan shaped corals in white right under the time stamp? That is just what we were looking for!