Anyone interested in surfing on the Oregon Coast should definitely hit up Oswald West State Park, specifically, Short Sands Beach (called Shorties by the locals). Every time we go down to this small stretch of sand and do visitor observation surveys we count almost 100 surfers in and out of the water! The waves here are great and the beach is generally super sunny and warm, and not too windy at all. I’ve even seen people get sunburned here, on the Oregon Coast if you can believe it! There is no longer camping at Oswald West due to unsafe natural conditions, but camping is available just a few minutes south in Nehalem or north in Ecola State Park. Bring your wetsuit and board and come join the party if you have a free weekend!

This past week I did my first post for the ODFW Marine Reserves blog. My post will be featured with the blog when it is sent out this Tuesday, July 14th. Here’s the link attached so you can check it out for yourself!

http://www.oregonocean.info/index.php/marine-reserves-sp-26120/community/marine-reserves-updates

This week has been great being back in the office with our mentor, Tommy. We have been catching up on data entry from all of the data that we have been collecting up at Cape Falcon Marine Reserve the past few weeks. We’re headed back up there this coming weekend for our first weekend trip, so we’re excited to see the crowds mobbing to the beach for some surf time! Being back in Newport has provided us with opportunities to engage in a little staff bonding. Theo and I decided to donate blood with the Red Cross together yesterday; the donation site was located right outside of Rogue brewery! A quick walk from Hatfield. We were gifted $7 giftcards to Rogue for our donation, which we promptly used immediately after our donation was finished. It feels great to be more a part of the Newport community!

This week has been full of adventures! We started the week in Garibaldi doing visitor surveys, visitor intercepts and fishing pressure observations at Oswald West State Park. We also hiked an incredibly beautiful about 5.5 mile trail up to Cape Falcon where we saw plenty of seabirds and sea lions playing around. Following our time in Garibaldi we spent Wednesday and Thursday in Florence getting to know the town very well through business surveys. Florence is a charming town, particularly the Oldtown section of it that is full of cute little boutiques and delicious restaurants. The main reason people come to the Florence area is to play on the vast sand dunes, but this town has much more to offer than just the dunes. We got to know many of the residents of Florence doing business surveys throughout the town and I can say with certainty that I will be returning to visit! Today is a day of entering some of the immense amount of data that we have accumulated over the week into the computer. Next week we will be headed back up to Garibaldi to play, I mean “work”, some more. Until then!

This week has been a whirlwind of information at my new job with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife looking at the human dimensions aspect of the marine reserves. I am currently writing this post from my hotel in Garibaldi, a town located a couple hours north of Newport. The graduate student I am working with named Theo and I will be heading up to Garibaldi frequently to do observational and survey research of people using the beach and boats in the reserves at Cape Falcon. My mentor says we’re basically getting paid to hang out on the beach and talk to surfers all day, so not too shabby of a gig I’ve got here right? On the drive up today we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and sampled some of the delicious cheese they produce.

We also scoped out the sites that we will be doing these studies at and they were some of the most beautiful places I’ve seen on the Oregon coast. If you ever want to try your hand at surfing then head to Oswald West State Park! There were dozens of surfers in the cove there when we arrived. Overall I am excited to head back to Garibaldi next Monday and begin doing the studies!