Week 9

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This has been a pretty exciting week! On Tuesday, Katie and I gave our final presentation for the EPA. For Week 10 I’ll mainly be working on trying to identify trends in some oxygen data from a previous salt marsh study. On Friday, all of the interns gave a five minute presentation and participated in a poster session for sea grant and other people from HMSC. This was a bit nerve-racking but an overall valuable experience.

This past weekend was packed with activities. We saw some bioluminescence on South Beach, stuffed ourselves with some of the best tuna I’ve ever had at the Great Albacore Tuna BBQ Challenge, Justin and I took a surfing lesson, we we all grilled some great shish kabobs, and had a movie night.

If you get the chance to come to Newport for the Great Albacore Tuna BBQ Challenge I highly recommend going. It is relatively inexpensive and it was the best seafood I’ve had in Oregon so far. Just having the variety of different types of prepared tuna made it worth going. My favorite was the one that the Chamber of Commerce put together. I wish I had asked what they were calling it but it seemed to be a take on a Chinese food appetizer. It was amazing.

Surfing was one of the best experiences I’ve had while here in Oregon. I love being in the ocean, which is one of the main reasons I initially wanted to spend my life studying it. Surfing is just another great excuse for you to spend a ton of time in the ocean, so of course I loved it! It was very obvious that I wasn’t at all a natural at surfing but I was able to stand up a few times which was all I wanted to be able to do. I was shocked to find out how exhausting it is. Looking back at it though it does make sense. In order to get down to the spot where we surfed in Agate Beach, you have to climb down a pretty steep dirt pathway and then walk pretty far with the surfboard until you even get to the ocean. From there you have to simultaneously fight being over-topped by the waves, staying on the surfboard, and also trying to stand up (in order to do that you have to basically do a burpee which is hard to do even on solid ground). Personally, the hardest part was the fact that beginner surfboards are HUGE. I’m 5’ 0’’ and the surfboard was so large I couldn’t tuck it under my arm. So I had to awkwardly carry it over my head or out in front of me. Not surprisingly, the next day I had some trouble walking and lifting things. But it was so worth it.

Me with a giant surfboard and a giant smile

Me with a giant surfboard and a giant smile

 

Finding a Love for the Waves

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You can’t live in the Pacific Northwest having never surfed. Okay, so it’s not really like that. But most days, you’ll find the beaches here packed with surfers either on their pre-work wave riding routine, taking a quick “lunch break,” or catching the evening swell before the sun sets. If there’s any truth to the statement above, I guess I can leave here with the pride of an Oregonian.

Waves breaking at sunset. Photo: Justin Dalaba.

Since a young age, I’ve always loved watching waves and felt drawn to them, but until now I never really had a means of riding one. Having a surfboard might have helped, but there’s a difference between learning to surf and putting yourself at the mercy of a big breaker with no clue how to either escape or ride the wave. Fortunately, living within walking distance of popular surf spots this summer made my goal of learning to surf much more attainable.

Jess Vaccare (left), our instructor (middle) and myself (right) heading out to surf. Photo: Skyler Elmstrom.

There are two things you learn right away about surfing the central coast of Oregon. First, the water is cold. And that pretty much never changes. It helps coming from a background of coldwater diving, but you’re still never really prepared for when that first wave breaks over your head, sending brisk seawater down your wetsuit. Second, expect the conditions to change pretty quickly at any point in the day. It rains basically half the year here and the accompanying wind and fog can be just as enduring. I learned how brutal paddling into the wind and waves can be during my second surf session when a sunny day was quickly consumed by wind and fog. So if numb hands and salty eyes don’t bother you, this is the place to surf.

Post-surf stoke. Photo: Skyler Elmstrom.

The hardest part about surfing (from a beginner’s perspective) is getting yourself in the water and learning to read the ocean. You can really wear yourself out quickly by paddling into waves and trying to get up on every one that looks worthy of riding, but if you’re patient and wait for the right one, there’s nothing that compares to the feeling of being on your feet with gravity in your favor. For me, that lucky wave came on my second attempt. Something just felt right as I rotated around, took a few long strokes and felt the surge of water tip my board down. Once I got into my stance, it was almost effortless as I let the wave do most of the work.

Evening swell on the Oregon coast.

I was stoked. All of my irrational fears about failing and tumbling down the wave had vanished. From now on, I’ll probably always associate surfing with my first experience here on the Oregon coast. I couldn’t think of a better setting with better people to surf with. But I think half the fun of surfing is finding new places and new buddies who can share their experiences with you. I don’t think this was just another bucket list item for me; rather this will be another outlet for me to explore what’s out there before it’s gone. Our ocean is such a great resource in many ways and in order to conserve it, we first have to appreciate it and find a love for it.

For my next trick, I’ll make this summer disappear

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Where did 10 weeks go? I know summer flies by each year but this was just ridiculous (I think working with such great people made the time fly by even faster). I’ve accomplished and learned a lot this summer: practiced new skills and revisited old ones, gave presentations to the EPA and to Sea Grant, made my first scientific poster and presented it, designed my own project, and started to become familiar with R-Studio. I had the chance to work independently and as part of an awesome team. I learned both how to get stuck in mud and how to get out. I learned where the best ice cream in Oregon is made (Tillamook of course). Finally, I learned that you can never eat enough tuna. Never.

In this final post I would like to say some thank you’s to some very important people who I got to interact with this summer. First, TChris Mochon Collura. Besides being an endless cache of information on fieldwork operations, TChris is a great teacher who always helped us interns out and saved us from many a SNAFU. I will never forget my first field experience with him when we broke down in the middle of Tillamook Bay, paddled to shore, got stuck in the mud, and had the best ice cream ever.

Second, Cheryl Brown. While we didn’t spend a great deal of time working with each other this summer, Cheryl always had time for me whenever I needed help. Her dedication to the EPA is inspiring and it was an amazing experience to work with her.

Third, my fellow summer scholars. These folks were the best. Camping, hiking, bonfires, BBQs, and bar trivia. Thanks for always being down for a good time and having each other’s backs when we needed it.

Fourth, Mary, Sarah, Haley, and everyone else at Oregon Sea Grant. You all have done a great job at making us feel welcome and placing us with fantastic mentors. The program taught me a lot and I will remember this summer fondly.

Fifth and finally, Amy Zimmer-Faust. Despite only being at the EPA for six months, Amy was already pedal to the floor and raring to go. From day one she had me working hard and learning. She asked a lot but she also taught me an incredibly amount about experimental design, lab organization and sample processing, microbial techniques, and presenting science. I appreciate all the trust she put in me this summer and all the responsibilities she gave me. Besides all the hard work, Amy also took the time to give me ample guidance on graduate school and career plans. To say the least, Amy was an amazing mentor and it was an absolute pleasure to be her intern this summer.

It’s been real Sea Grant!

Tuna and Sustainable Seafood

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So just like that were at the end of it all (well almost). This week was a complete blur of data reconfiguration, R script, poster formatting, and presentation rehearsal. This was actually the very first scientific poster I ever had to make and present so the week was a bit stressful haha. I was really happy with the result however; I think it was a success! Getting to hear about everyone’s research in detail was also a really interesting experience. It’s hard not to get caught up in only your own research this summer so it was incredibly refreshing to see everyone else’s results.

In the celebratory spirit, we all went over to the Great Albacore Tune BBQ Challenge by the NOAA docks today. For just $12 each we got to try bottomless albacore recipes including pulled tuna, tuna gazpacho, and tuna teriyaki with pineapple. Best money I’ve spent in a very long time; absolutely delicious! As I’m writing this blog a thought occurred to me: is albacore tuna sustainably harvested in the North Pacific? To try and relieve the guilt I suddenly felt about having a belly full of delicious fish I turned to one of my favorite websites: seafoodwatch.org. Seafood Watch is a program run by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In the site’s own words: “Our recommendations help you choose seafood that’s fished or farmed in ways that have less impact on the environment.” It allows visitors to the site to lookup seafood items (e.g. albacore tuna) based on where you bought it (e.g. North Pacific, domestic) and the site gives the source a rating based on sustainability. In the North Pacific luckily, Albacore tuna populations are being sustainably fished. Phew. Besides just making us feel guilty about our food choices, the website also provides ‘good alternatives’ to users. For example, my favorite seafood is scallops. When I search for this item I got three results, two east coast sources and one from Alaska. Those from the east coast are marked as ‘good alternatives’ but the most sustainable option is to but those from Alaska which was dubbed the ‘best choice.’ If you haven’t ever been to seafoodwatch.org I highly recommend you take a peak next time you’re setting a menu!

Skyler’s Weekly Review – Week 9

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The Buzz: Sea Grant Summer Scholar’s Final Symposium!

Final Symposium: This is it! Finally, the culmination of all of our summer projects are here to share! After many hours of creation and working in the details and minor edits, we each completed a poster and prepared a presentation to the Hatfield general public. I have embedded a link to my poster below for your perusal:

SYMPOSIUM POSTER LINK

My Poster & Display at the Final Symposium

While I still have a week of work left, it is a week of winding down and tieing loose ends. Saying goodbye is never easy, and I can never dole out enough thank yous to those who made this summer remarkable.

Week 7: Coastal exploration continued

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Not too much happened on the research front this week. I’ve finished looking into decapod studies and began looking at fish studies. It is thought that fish will be fairly resistant to ocean acidification because they can swim away from unfavorable water conditions and do not calcify an external shell. However, there have been some recent studies on larval fish that found evidence to the contrary. Behavioral studies have found that low pH conditions have a negative effect on the ability of larval fish to detect prey, learn and reduce overall activity. Even though fish do not calcify an external shell they do calcify their ear bone, or otolith. This structure is important for balance and hearing. It also has an important use for research. Marine biologists look at otoliths in the same way that dendrologists look at tree rings. The layers of calcium carbonate can tell the age of a fish and the isotopes incorporated in the structure can be analyzed to learn about the water conditions at the time the otolith was formed.

Hiking past a beachside creek

Hiking past a beachside creek

This weekend I convinced some of my friends to make the drive down from Seattle and come see some of Oregon. We went camping at the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, a 40 mile stretch of the coast covered in massive dune formations. The reason the Oregon dunes are so unique is that they extend into the forest. Over the 6,000 years since the modern shoreline was established coastal winds and waves have moved sand back, up to 2.5 miles inland. We hiked along trails that began with pine needle covered forest floor only to find ourselves struggling up a sand dune a few yards later, even as we headed away from the beach. 

Inside the sea lion caves

Inside the sea lion caves

We also visited one of the best known tourist traps along the Oregon coast, the sea lion caves. The enormous cavern extends 125ft high, making it the largest sea cave in the America’s. Unfortunately, the sea lions were not inside the caves when we visited but we could still hear the bleating of the disgruntled beasts from the cliffs overlooking the sea and watch them flop out on the sunny outcropping below.

 

 

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

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I’ve been writing about buying seafood directly from local fishermen for weeks now. While I’d had fresh and local seafood, I had yet to purchase anything off the docks myself. With the summer almost over, I decided it was time to put my money where my mouth was and seize the oppor-tuna-ty to buy something at Shop at the Dock (writing posts for the Fisheries Extension Facebook page has brought out the best of my fish puns).

At the end of Shop at the Dock, I stopped at F/V (fishing vessel) Triggerfish to complete my survey and placed an order for a tuna. Triggerfish is owned by brothers, Ernie and Joe. Like many other boats, they often fish at the beginning of the week and come back Thursday night or Friday morning to sell off the docks over the weekend. Alternatively, there are boats like H/F/V (historic fishing vessel) Chelsea Rose that are essentially floating fish markets. Their seafood comes from other boats they own and other fishermen, so they are able to stay docked everyday.

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Joe showing off a beautiful 50 lb. tuna

Tunas average 10-20 lbs, but some can get MUCH larger. It is priced per pound for the whole fish and there is an additional fillet charge. I asked for a 14 lb fish, so Ernie weighed several fish until he got one about that size. The recovery rate (the amount of meat recovered after filleting) is roughly 50-60% for tuna, so I was to expect about 7-9 lbs of meat.

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Ernie picking out a tuna

There are a couple of things to do to ensure the freshness and quality of your fish:

  1. Ask when the trip started- fishing trips can last multiple days, so that’s the earliest it could have been caught
  2. Ask how the fish was cooled down- tuna are very warm fish and quality can decrease if it is cooled slowly
  3. Inspect the fish to ensure its quality (clear eyes, scales and gills still in tact)

I already knew that I wanted to split a fish with my mentor, so once I was satisfied with the fish, I asked for it filleted and split in half. It’s regulation that boats sell whole fish to avoid contamination, but most boats are willing to split the fish for you so you can purchase with other people. I made sure to bring a hot-cold bag and cash to pay for the fish (because most don’t take cards).

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Brothers who fillet together…

I kept the tuna on ice and when dinner came around I marinated it in brown sugar, soy sauce and garlic. I ended up having it raw, seared and barbecued and it all tasted fantastic. There is something really thrilling about knowing where your food is coming from. I love that I was able to see a whole tuna fresh from the ocean in the morning and eat it for dinner a couple hours later. It was quite the experience and I know I’ll definitely miss Newport’s seafood at the end of this summer.

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Mmmm

That’s all for now. Thanks as always for reading!

The Best Laid Plans…

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This post is about plans. You know how this goes. The typical wisdom is that if you plan well for something, it will go well for you. If you don’t plan well for something, it won’t. Simple. And often this is exactly what happens. But sometimes more prominently in our minds are the episodes where we spend exorbitant amounts of time planning only to have the plans fall through. No amount of pre-effort could have precluded that result. Or the contrary episodes where we do no planning at all and something turns out beautifully. I’m thinking of you, impromptu camping trip to Washburne State Park. I have been thinking about plans a lot lately and would like to share with you a few episodes from this the last few months of this fellowship.

Bad Planning, Bad End – Interviews: In an effort to end this post on a good note, let’s start with the bad endings. One of the projects I am helping with as a fellow is a report about how NOAA does or could incorporate Indigenous and Local Ecological Knowledge (ILEK) into its scientific programs. To form this report, the team is using methods that hark back to my master’s thesis – interviews. We divvied up a list of NOAA employees who work in ILEK to interview about our numerous research questions. I took my list of 6 and promptly e-mailed them all to set up meeting times. I was new to the team and wanted to meet the deadlines for interviewing. But really, I should have taken the time to prepare for them. I didn’t know who I was calling, what they did, where they are located in the country or anything about their capacity to answer our questions. I took at face value that they would know what I was talking about. The result is that I asked people who did not work in ILEK to tell me about their work in ILEK. I suggested a time for a call that was perfectly acceptable in DC but offensively early for a person who works in Hawaii. I asked to be referred to my interviewee, mispronouncing her name and then accidentally hanging up on her. The strange lesson I learned here is that when on a tight deadline, on time does not necessarily mean that the project is done right or well. Before you discount the report that will come out, I must reassure you that these blunders were all pre-interview and really only made me look foolish. The interaction and exchanges with these experts were fulfilling and enlightening and will contribute a lot of wisdom nuggets to the final report. I just think that with a little more planning, I, and my interviewees, could have gotten a lot more out of these interactions.

Good Planning, Less than Satisfying End – Newsletter: One of the first projects I was given when I arrived was to produce a quarterly newsletter referencing and highlighting the science done on protected species throughout the NOAA Fisheries regions. This was meant to be a quick win for the new Fellow. It had the higher ups behind it and the infrastructure in place for me to easily collect the publications. We formed a communications review and distribution plan for the newsletter and by the end of my second month (March), a draft of the first issue was ready. We then went through all of the steps for approval to distribute and that is where the best laid communications plan led to a bunch of hiccups. These hiccups, as in human physiology, were beyond our control, and we used all of the methods to relive ourselves of them – eating peanut butter (stress eating), scaring ourselves (what if it never gets out?!), drinking water upside down (flipping the angle and trying a different route).  Long story of frustrations short, five months and a new name later, the science newsletter was distributed last week. But rather than the feeling of a quick win and, wow look what a fellow can contribute, it was more like the feeling you have when you finally get through a door by realizing that it was a pull and not a push. You’re through the door but it was  a lot more trouble than it was worth. To get a little T.S. Eliot – Not with a bang, but a whimper. The lesson to be learned from this is the same that we learn over and over when our best plans do not lead to the end we want: change the things you can, accept the things you can’t, know the difference. Thanks Serenity Prayer.

Less than Normal Planning, Beautiful Ending – Wedding: If you know me, you probably know I got married July 10! Now I’m not going to say I didn’t plan for my wedding day, because I did. Quite a bit. But as I evaluated throughout, it seemed like I was doing a lot less planning than my friends who have gotten married and definitely way below what the two bridal magazines I owned suggested. Part of this was me never having dreamed of a perfect wedding. And part of this was due to the largest details depending on a small permission from the US government for now husband to join me in the US. This meant that our planning timeline strongly diverged from the “norm” and that we did not dedicate as much time as the “typical” couple to planning. I most certainly did not Bridezilla on anyone (I think – feel free to disagree). But when the day came and we rehearsed the morning of the ceremony (and the musicians rehearsed two hours before the ceremony), everything came together beautifully. Most of our loved ones were there to share with us, it didn’t rain, no one got hurt, and at the end of the day, Husband and I were married. Enjoy the artsy picture of all of us having a wonderful day. What do I learn from this? I learn that having relaxed expectations (as expressed in my lack of planning) can lead to an extraordinary time. I also learned that my mom really planned most of that spectacular day. Thanks Mom.

Wedding party (1)

Good Planning, Good End – St. Croix: Actually, another reason I may have been lax in planning for wedding was because I was spending quite a bit of time planning for a field work trip to St. Croix just two weeks before that day. Part of my professional development plan as a Knauss Fellow included getting some protected species field work experience. So back in April, I blasted e-mails to all of the NOAA scientists I knew doing protected species research this year to see if any of them could use an extra pair of hands and eyes for a week. Only three people responded and only one fit my timeline so it was fairly easy to decide to visit Dr. Kelly Stewart and her team monitoring and researching nesting and hatching leatherback sea turtles. In the Caribbean. Some days it’s tough to be a marine biologist. So leading up to this trip I was in communication with Kelly about what to bring, how to prepare, reading her papers, getting up on the methods so that I didn’t make a fool out of myself when I got in the field. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to prove my mettle. And it worked out for me. My first three nights there, I accompanied the team on night patrol. That is, 7:30 pm to 5:00 am patrolling the beach and looking for nesting mamas and/or emerging hatchlings. My first night out, I was rewarded by the most outstanding vision of a leatherback sea turtle I could possibly hope for. With the backdrop of a passing lightning storm, I saw the largest leatherback to nest on this beach. She measures 5’8″, which coincidentally is my own height, and has been coming to this beach to nest since at least 1996. The field team had dubbed her Fiona, named for the Shrek ogress. I scanned her for PIT tags, helped note scars, took down the time, saw her eggs the size of billiard balls and then watched as she suffered back into her preferred environment, the sea. Incredible.

My last few days, I accompanied the early squad which patrols the beach at sunset looking for emerging hatchlings and marking upcoming nests. I got to see a “boil” – where the sand bubbles and then out pop dozens of baby sea turtles. I helped collect them to take DNA samples for later lab work and then helped to carry the sampled babies to a more amenable beach for release. The reward here was that several times during that week I had a bucket of hatchlings in my lap looking something like this.

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Again. Incredible. The lesson? The best laid plans can and do turn out to deliver beyond your wildest expectations for an event. So maybe we should keep laying our best laid plans while continuing our agility training to flexibly respond when we need to.

Future plans: Like I said, I’ve been thinking about plans a lot lately. I am mid-way through this fellowship and a very frequent question is: what are your plans for after? Contemplating plans, how well should I lay them? How fixed should I make them? How much flexibility into them? Just in the last few months, I have experienced good plans go well, good plans go poorly, bad plans go poorly and bad plans go well. Maybe the take away is: Do plan. Don’t worry. Be flexible. Enjoy. But I’m open to suggestions.

Winding down: The beginning of the end

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With just a few weeks left and after completing the first draft of my second project (the Rural Tourism Studio) I began my final project – updating the Orb. The Orb is a platform that can used by businesses, communities, or individuals to upload their content to share online. They simply have to create an account, be approved, and start uploading their information. Although it is currently just updated by some Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and a few statewide groups, the aim of the Orb is to allow anyone to be able to share information about local deals, lodging, events, attractions, or photographs for any place in Oregon.

One of the products of the Rural Tourism Studio - now the produce sold at Bandon farmers market is a part of a network of local farmers that make up the Wild Rivers Coast farm trail.

One of the products of the Rural Tourism Studio – now the produce sold at Bandon farmers market is a part of a network of local farmers that make up the Wild Rivers Coast farm trail.

This creates “a centralized collection of data of all the tourism assets in the state…” (Davidson 2016) that is then shared onto the Travel Oregon family of websites, mobile apps, and many other locations. It allows smaller, community events to be easily showcased to the world, to “Tell the Oregon story” and make it easier than ever to attract locals and visitors alike.

For my third project, I am updating the datasheet of the Wild Rivers Coast, which includes the coastal towns from Bandon to Brookings. I am now making sure that the existing information on lodging, deals, and attractions in the region is to up-to-date, allowing more visitors to take advantage of the regional assets.

This past week I also got to check out a few neat places close to Bandon, such as the West Coast Game Park Safari, a walk-through Safari where I got to hold a baby Bobcat and Caracal!  They also had some large cats, like snow leopards, tigers, and panthers. One of my favorite parts (aside from holding baby animals, which is always awesome), was the free roaming deer. They were Mediterranean/European deer, and many had very large antlers. Although having such large antlers walking towards me was intimidating at first, all of the deer were super friendly (probably because they hoped that I had food for them). Some of them were also trying to get rid of the felt on their antlers, so they were as happy as a dog being scratched behind the ears to be pet!

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Aside from that, I agree with Claire’s last post, that I am definitely missing studying in my favorite coffee shops. I’ve been spending a lot of time researching for my senior project, studying for the GRE, and generally trying to prepare for post-undergrad life (woah). Since Bandon is a pretty small town, all of the coffee shops close at either 3 or 4 pm on the weekends, leaving me little room to procrastinate and/or sleep until the afternoon. I was able to make it the library (closes at 5:30) on Saturday, and settled for the “McCafe” on Sunday, but I can’t wait until my all-day study seshs in Springfield. Didn’t realize how much I loved those, and just generally studying. (But check out the great wildflowers spotted while procrastinating/playing Pokemon Go on Saturday, below!)

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The projects for Oregon Sea Grant are winding down, and I’m getting ready to jump into my own projects for my senior year – pretty exciting!

Final presentations on Friday! Stay tuned!

Week 8 – Milestones: First video!

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It’s nearing the end of the program now, but things have been busier than ever at the office. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my first post on the ODFW Marine Reserves Program website. Continuing on my communications roll, this week I was able to pull together all of my footage taken at Otter Rock and Cascade Head Marine Reserves and create a video on the diverse life found in Oregon’s tide pools. I had a blast just walking around and pointing the GoPro in every promising hole and at whatever little creatures caught my eye. Back in the video cave at work, learning how to use Adobe Premiere Pro – an industry-leading video editing software program – and finally putting it all together was equally enjoyable and gratifying. While I’m still no Steven Spielberg (lots of Google searches and troubleshooting…), this experience has definitely piqued my interest in the field, and I’m looking to churn out one more video before I leave.

So without any further ado, here’s the final product.

P.S. The music is kind of corny, but I think it fits the theme (it’s grown on me, having listened to it an infinity number of times throughout the editing process).