Hello, friends. Not much new on the work end of things. The survey data keeps trickling in, which is good, and I’ve been sifting through some papers on derelict gear and ghost fishing. There is a small collection of papers on derelict gear in trap fisheries; researchers have only been publishing on the subject since the late seventies. For the most part, people seem to agree that it is an issue. As to how big of one, for whom (commercial or recreational fishermen), and if there is an overarching economic benefit to cleaning up lost gear? The jury’s still out. The answers to these questions seem to be pretty dependent on the situation, so what works for the Dungeness crab fishery in Oregon may not work for Alaska, or for California, or for the blue crab fishery in Chesapeake Bay.

Work-wise, the highlight of the week was probably deploying “the world’s most expensive crab trap” (sound bite credits to Justin) last Friday. This crab pot is equipped with a battery, a flash, and a GoPro camera. It takes a picture once a minute, and it will be deployed for a week. A picture a minute for seven days à tons of data. After arriving at work a little earlier than usual, we loaded the gear into the truck and left for the marina. By 7:30 or so, we were out on the water. It was my first time being on the ocean since arriving (actually, now that I think about it, it may have been my first time ever on a boat in the Pacific), and it was a gorgeous day for it. On our way back into the marina, we spotted a few gray whales hanging around near the South Jetty. So, the weekend was off to pretty good start.

Crab trap deployment

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxed. We drove around and saw a few sites (Devil’s Punchbowl, Otter Crest Loop) on Saturday, and Sunday was a much-needed lazy day. On Saturday and Sunday night, we took advantage of the grills at the dorms to make some chicken kabobs and Korean BBQ. In my head, BBQ=summer, and it has the added perk of being more affordable than a night eating out. Wins all around.

One of the many stunning views from Otter Crest Loop

The Fourth was filled with volleyball, cooking, and…eating! I slept later than I’ve probably ever slept in my life before joining in a lazy game of sand volleyball (i.e. there were scarce amounts of volleying, and a lot of time was spent lying in the sand). Monday evening, we somehow got ourselves invited to a Fourth of July potluck at a gorgeous apartment overlooking the bay. The food was amazing, and there were lots of people there that were close to our age but already doing a fantastic job of living very much like adults. Oh well, someday.

Also, please notice I just used the words “relaxed” and “lazy” three times to describe the weekend…I think that says it all.

Until next time. How is it already July??

Sunset is a great time to go on a run to the South Jetty