Week Four: Busy As A Bee, Happy As A Clam!

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Sam Thiede

I’m never sure as to what each week will bring here in Coos Bay. Every week has always managed to top the previous and this week was no exception. Tuesday, Scott, Jim, and I boated down to Indian Point to start the ODFW’s annual cockle survey. Using ArcGIS I generated 60 random points and uploaded the locations of these 60 points onto a GPS. These 60 points would serve as our sampling sites. We would lay down one square meter quadrats at the waypoints found on the GPS and rake a four tine rake over the quadrat once and record and collect the cockles found. Then we would turn 90 degrees and rake one more time and record the number of cockles found and collect them as well. This was repeated for each quadrat.

Raking for Pacific Heart Cockles at Indian Point

On Thursday we did this same process, only this time at Valino Island. Valino Island is a protected area and Indian Point is an area known for heavy commercial harvest of cockles. We chose these two sites in order to compare how harvest (or lack thereof) affects cockle size and recruitment over time. While Indian Point was very sandy Valino Island was quite the opposite. Valino Island is essentially a mud flat and it is easy to get stuck and sink. Scott and Jim had to pull me out of the mud several times, but not before musing—i.e., laughing—over how funny they thought my predicament was.

Stuck in the mud at Valino Island

When we returned back to the ODFW I placed the cockles into tanks of circulating water in order to take accurate wet weights. When clams are left out of water they tend to spit water out of their siphons which can give you inaccurate weight data; this is why we placed the clams back into water before recording weight. I also recorded shell length, height, and fatness which will be used in our analysis. Using R we ran some preliminary statistical tests that suggest that Valino Island, the reserve area, has much larger cockles but Indian Point has higher amounts of recruitment.

We also have been continuing our red rock crab surveys and we were lucky enough to have the pleasure of working alongside Sylvia Yamada, a professor and research scientist from OSU. Sylvia has been doing work throughout the years on the invasive green crab and was a delight to work with. Her plethora of knowledge and fascinating anecdotes made for a great week of crab processing. She brought Fukui traps, a Japanese trap that allows all sizes of crabs to walk through. We had been using box traps which bias samples by not letting the larger crabs in. However we did run into some trouble with the Fukui traps: the seals ate all our bait!

Scott, Larry, Sylvia, and I processing red rock crabs

The notorious bait thief!

Thursday was considerably out of the ordinary. Dean, a fish biologist for the ODFW, invited me along to process yellow-eyed rockfish with him. It was truly a treat as yellow-eyed rockfish have a harvest limit of two tons per year—a very small allowance—and are not often encountered. We recorded lengths and weights of the rockfish and also recorded their sex and stage of maturity. Dean also pulled otoliths from the rockfish. Otoliths are ear bones and are used to determine the age of a fish. We even had encountered a few fish that had been eaten by hagfish, which enter through the gills and eat the fish from the inside out. The fish remains whole but the body is completely flaccid as all its musculature and organs have been consumed. It was very surreal to see. And on top of the fun of handling some cool fish, a buyer stopped by to purchase halibut from the boat we were working with and gave us all brownies. Brownies for breakfast: how could I say no to that?

Yellow-eyed rockfish

Later in the week, Jim Carlton, an expert on the subject of Japanese tsunami marine debris (JTMD) and invasive species, came to visit OIMB to give a lecture on the incoming debris and teach a class on the topic of biological invasions. In a previous blog post I mentioned how Scott and I had discovered a Japanese pallet that had washed ashore. We had sent the samples and pictures we had taken to Jim and during his visit he informed us that the pallet had come from the Morinaga-dairy business, a famous dairy business in Yamato which is located in the metropolis of Tokyo. It was determined that the pallet contained various hydroids, Mediterranean mussels (M. galloprovincialis), pelagic barnacles known as Lepas, as well as jingle shells (Anomia cytaeum). Jingles are not commonly found on JTMD which made it an interesting find.

There is no such thing as a dull weekend at OIMB. Friday night the director, Jan, announced that a dying dolphin had washed up on Bullard’s Beach in Bandon and was hoping to have help in retrieving it. And so, Saturday morning I had the opportunity to drive to Bandon with a group of friends to help Jan retrieve the dolphin so that it could be dissected in the Birds and Mammals course. After about fifteen minutes of combing Bullard’s Beach we found the dolphin, loaded it onto a stretcher and carried it up and over the dunes to the truck to be hauled back to OIMB. The dolphin weighed over 200 lbs. but with one person on each corner of the stretcher it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be to carry. Though, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little sore!

Recovering a striped dolphin for dissection

As you can see, the birds had gotten to the specimen before we did

This coming week I’ll be heading to Corvallis to talk to the public about my summer work and Oregon Sea Grant. Each week always unfolds a new and exciting surprise and I’m ready to see what that will be this week! Until next time!

Week 4: Self-Directed Accomplishment

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Sarah Heidmann

This week I was supposed to be on a trip with my lab in Willapa Bay, Washington, doing field work. My foot is not healed enough that I was comfortable to go, so I had to sit this one out. I was able to go to the doctor and get an x-ray and my pinky toe is definitely fractured. This means another month of healing, which is basically my whole summer. The silver lining of the situation is that my injury lined up nicely with my move to a new house, allowing me to take it easy while still getting things done, like unpacking and getting settled. My injury means that I had to miss out on the fun and the other people in the lab have to do a lot more work to do, but we’re trying to make the best of it. I should be able to go on the next one though, which leaves this upcoming Friday!

Although I can’t go in the field, I have still been useful doing computer and lab work, which I had a lot of this week. My mentor wanted to give me something hands-on to do, so instead of processing some samples in the field like they normally would do, they brought them back in Ziploc bags so I could process them in the lab. These samples were from the mud and eelgrass areas near some bags of oyster shells that were put out a couple months ago, when Dungeness crabs were recruiting (metamorphosing from larvae into juveniles). The oyster shells create three-dimensional habitat at low tide, attracting crabs seeking shelter and providing suitable habitat for . We periodically sample the bags and some of the sediment underneath, as well as areas nearby with no bags, to look at the number and size of any crabs we find, which are mainly Dungeness (Metacarcinus magister) and shore crabs (Hemigrapsus spp.). This data helps my mentor look at the recruitment and growth of juvenile Dungeness, as well as their preferred habitats. In the lab, I sorted bags of eelgrass, measuring crabs I found and weighing the eelgrass both wet and after drying in an oven.

Because everyone was gone this week, I was responsible for my own success in getting things done, but I think I did a very good job. It helps that I am so used to being in school, where you set your own schedule. I’ve learned a lot of time management, and it’s good to know that this helps in the real world too!

I’m not sure what this next week has in store for me, but I’m definitely looking forward to going to Washington on Friday!

New Job Update!

Posted on July 11, 2013 by polishi

Hello! My name is Hilary Polis, and I was a Sea Grant Summer Scholar last year. I ran into Sarah Kolesar the other day and she asked me to write a blog update, because my summer scholar internship turned into a job opportunity! Last summer I worked for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Reserves Program as a socioeconomic analyst assistant. I was essentially collecting data on how people use the ocean at marine reserve sites, so that we can monitor this use over time. My work involved doing a lot of field work at the beach so that I could count and interview visitors the the reserve areas.

I continued my internship with ODFW in the fall, this time for class credit. My data collection in the fall consisted mostly of interviewing recreational fishermen to collect information for the state about how the behavior of these fishermen may change over time as new regulations are put in place. I was lucky enough to receive a job offer to work for the ODFW marine reserves program full time as a socioeconomic analyst, after my mentor from last summer left ODFW for a different job and they needed someone to temporarily to cover her position until they can hire a new project leader. I feel very blessed to be given this opportunity and I feel like I may be in a bit over my head at times, it has created a tremendous opportunity for me to learn so much in a very short period of time.

My primary duty now consists of writing up all the research that has been done on the “human dimensions” or social side of marine reserve research since the program began for two sites: Otter Rock and Redfish Rocks. This write-up is now a 120+page report that will be published for the state when it is complete. I am finding that I am enjoying putting all the pieces of this work together. My favorite part of my job is reading studies that ODFW has contracted with researchers at OSU to complete. I am finding that many of user knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of marine reserves from the OSU studies is matching up with the data I gathered while doing surveys on the coast last summer.

I have also been asked to do a regional economic impact analysis on the impact of research to Port Orford, Oregon (Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve). This consisted of setting up interviews with anyone that has ever done research at Port Orford and asking them questions about their spending in the region, then summarizing the data so that an economist can plug it into a model. It was fascinating to learn about all the research that is going on in the area, but also how well this community involves all of their different ocean stakeholder groups to create this collaborative form of management. It has also given me a better perpective about the number of people and spending that occurs to support research beyond just researchers themselves.

So while I don’t get to go out into the field as much and I don’t have as many stories about crazy encounters with the public, I was ready for a bigger challenge. This is such an amazing opportunity and I couldn’t have done it without my experience as a summer scholar last year!

week 3!

Posted on July 10, 2013 by cousinep

This past week was a shortened work week due to the Fourth of July holiday. The shortened work week, however, meant that I had even less time to practice my newly acquired and refined analytical skills. I dove into theoretical papers about proper BACI designs (Before-After- Control- Impact) and discussed its application to the goals and objectives of the Oregon Marine Reserves. I also learned how to perform a power analysis, which essentially is a prospective method for determining an appropriate sample size required to detect a significant result within a given degree of confidence. This power analysis is a critical component of any experimental design, especially those that require the lethal extraction of animals.

One of the fundamental questions surrounding Marine Reserves is determining whether or not fish species tend to be older inside reserves than outside. To answer this question, some fish need to be lethally removed for otolith extractions, which can give a relatively accurate estimation of age and sexul maturity. But how many fish need to be lethally removed? If too little are removed then it may be an insufficient sample size to render a significant result. However, if too many are removed then more fish were euthanized than necessary, the idea being to minimize fish mortality. Thus, power analysis proves critical in this way by indicating the smallest sample size needed to detect a significant change in size.

On last week’s post I discussed my experience with the PIT tagging project. There was a question regarding the relevance of PIT tagging to my work here at HMSC. Although PIT tagging was an enjoyable learning experience, it did not relate directly to my work. I mainly took the opportunity to practice proper fish handing, weighing, and measuring techniques, which I will be performing a lot of in the next upcoming weeks. ODFW will be chartering out fishing boats where volunteer anglers will attempt to catch a wide variety of rockfish species. When a fish is caught, it will be brought on deck to be quickly identified, measured, and weighed. Most will then be released, but a small percentage will be kept for otolith extraction. Fishing will take place in marine reserves and their respective comparison areas to gather baseline data on species composition and their associated physical attributes. This baseline data is critical for proper BACI designs and will be an important component for future analysis. Next week’s blog I will discuss some preliminary results of a few analyses that I have helped in. But until then, science awaits!

Week Three

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Chelsi Burger

Happy belated fourth of July! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday.
The other Hatfield residents and I spent a nice afternoon at Olalla Lake then barbequed back at the dorms. In the evening we all watched fireworks over the bay.
I have exciting news to report from the office. My first angler survey will be mailed out tomorrow! The survey is being mail to boat owners, who in the past reported that they didn’t use a recompression device when releasing a yelloweyed or canary rockfish, the target species of my project. I designed the survey to find out if any of the sport boat captains have begun using recompression devices since they were asked initially. If they have begun using the device, I designed the survey to ask them what motivated them to begin using recompression devices and how they found out about them . From this information I am hoping to glean information about what might motivate others to use the devices and also how news and information travels through the angling community.
I am excited to review the results, which should be in by the second week of August. This information will help me select the right information and medium for each audience as well as how best to distribute my information.

Third Week’s The Charm!

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Sam Thiede

Hello again!

With the holiday weekend over I must say I’m exhausted. I’m not sure where the week went! This past week at the ODFW was all about starting up our annual red rock crab surveys. Monday, Jim and I set eight crab pots off the docks of the small boat basin of Coos Bay. We filled them with leftover fish fillets thrown away by fishermen and boy, did they smell gnarly! We let them soak overnight and have been checking them daily in the mornings.

Past surveys have shown that basin is comprised of mainly Dungeness and red rock crabs. We have been measuring the carapace length and taking weights of whole (no appendages missing) Dungeness crabs. For red rock crabs we have quite the laundry list of tasks to perform and data to collect. Red rock crabs are weighed, carapace length is measured, and we check and account for missing appendages and determine the sex of the crab. We then tag the crab with a t-bar tag that includes an individual identification number that we can use for mark-recapture studies. We also clip the eighth carapace spine on the right-hand side to help compensate for tag loss. If a crab is a recapture we note that as well. Flyers are posted around the boat basin that encourages people to call in recreational recaptured red rock crabs with incentive of a prize. This is done to monitor removal of red rock crabs from the small boat basin. We hope to use this annual project to predict red rock population size and variability over years, as well as to monitor and analyze red rock crab recruitment.

My mentor’s sense of humor always keeps me on my toes!

And let me tell you, if you have never handled a crab you are in for a surprise. Watching my mentor work up crabs made it all seem very easy and effortless, but in reality there is an art to avoiding being pinched. Dungeness crabs will make your extremities sting for a short while, but get your hand caught in the grips of red rock chelae and you are in for a painful crush. However, I am slowly trying to master the art.

This week we also had the day off for the Fourth of July. OIMB held a lovely picnic overlooking the ocean on Cape Arago. The food was amazing: grilled oysters, BBQ tuna, hotdogs, and endless desserts. A few friends and I headed over to South Cove after lunch where we were lucky enough to spy a grey whale swimming fairly close to shore. We also found a washed up juvenile salmon shark with quite the chunk taken out of his left side. In the evening, we hiked down to Pirate’s Cove where we sat up on the rock faces that overlooked Bastendorf Beach and watched the locals set off some impressive fireworks.

Hiking up and down to get to Pirate’s Cove: no easy feat!

In addition to the fun of field work and number crunching, I like to try something new each week. This week my friend, Jaron, taught me how to long board. My balance was great but my coordination was what onlookers could call, well, “lacking”. But after a couple hours I was zooming around without falling, a success in my books! It was so much fun and I am definitely going to continue practicing.

Each week here brings so much excitement! Can’t wait to see what this week has in store!

Long boarding for the first time

Red, White, and Bandon!

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Catherine Courtier

Greetings readers!

I hope everyone’s 4th of July weekend was as amazing as mine! As I said before, I have been a California girl my entire life and as such have been somewhat hesitant about opening my heart and mind to a different state. However, after spending the holiday weekend exploring Corvallis, Seaside, and Cannon Beach I have replaced my skepticism towards the Oregon coast with what I can only assume will progress into a budding romance. I started off my four-day weekend by visiting some friends in the quirky college town of Corvallis where I discovered some amazing bakeries, got the chance to stroll through the bustling farmer’s market, and went on a short but beautiful hike up to Bald Hill.

Later we set off on a short road trip to Seaside to enjoy some 4th of July festivities and well deserved beach time. The second I set foot in downtown Seaside I immediately realized that I wasn’t in Bandon anymore… Whereas Bandon (or as its residents affectionately refer to it as, “Bandon by the Sea”) is a small fairly quiet beach town whose citizens pride themselves on their charming old downtown and specialty stores, Seaside (whose motto is “More than just a day at beach”) is roughly twice the size of Bandon and definitely has more mainstream tourist attractions. Later we traveled down the coast a bit to Cannon beach and spent the day exploring local art galleries, all of which drew their subject matter from the surrounding coastal environment.

So far this project has been very different from ones that I’ve previously taken part in. Up until this moment, most of the work I’ve done has been on a fairly small scale, but now gone are the days of sitting at a lab bench and observing organisms under a dissecting scope! I have been tasked with determining what the “brand” is of South Coast Oregon. With four towns, roughly 12, 803 people, and thousands of miles of land and coast you can imagine this is no easy task. I have also discovered that there is no easy answer of how to promote and spread coastal tourism. My trip to the North coast this past weekend exemplified that, and taught me that the while the more traditional modes of attracting tourists (such as bright neon signs, gift shops, arcades, etc.), may be lucrative, they are not necessarily what’s best for an individual community, let alone something its residents would be fine with. I saw this in the charismatic town of Seaside Oregon; a town that most likely attracts passersby because of its beautiful beaches and charming houses, but causes them to stay and return with the help of new aesthetically pleasing apartments and hotels right on the beach, an arcade full of games and rides, and numerous shops where you can purchase apparel and food to remind you of your stay.

While I do not claim to be an expert on Oregon’s coastal towns, anyone could see that Seaside is virtually the polar opposite of Bandon (not to mention double the size!) I have come to the conclusion that a lot of it basically comes down to personal preference. And using my experience thus far as an indicator, I believe that it is near impossible to brand the entire South Coast simply because each town has something special to promote (ie. Old Downtown Bandon, art galleries in Cannon Beach, arcades and souvenir shops in Seaside). While this can be seen as a major pain (especially since I have been asked to in fact, brand the south coast) it also reminds me that the beauty in it is that each town is in fact different, so theoretically there is a coastal town in Oregon for each and every person!

While Oregon’s coastal towns may be different, there is one thing that they all have in common: the beauty of their natural resources. Bandon, Brookings, Gold Beach, and Port Orford all provide access to the coastal activities such as SCUBA, fishing, and kayaking, lush forests where you can camp, hike, and bike, and freshwater where you can swim, fish, windsurf, or just boat around. In my remaining time with the WRCA I hope to help each town capitalize on their breath-taking environments to not only help stimulate their economies, but to educate the residents and tourists on conservation issues that are right in their back yard. This is a crucial step, one which is often overlooked, because the fate of these natural resources will directly affect many local businesses such as fishing and farming.

This past week I was fortunate enough to sit in on the second meeting of WRCA’s steering committee and meet a variety of people working with organizations such as the Freshwater Trust and the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team, as they discussed their individual projects as well as organizations that WRCA has funded or will fund in the future. It was amazing to learn how many organizations WRCA has helped and about all the amazing projects they plan to fund in the future (such as a sustainable greenhouse where teens can volunteer and learn about local plant species). Next week I’ll be taking a field trip down to visit Brookings, Port Orford, and Gold Beach to meet with community leaders to discuss the work I have done on mapping out what each town’s assets are. I think this will be an awesome chance to get to know these towns a bit better as well as start a conversation about how each town wants to work towards creating more sustainable tourism!

Stay tuned for more adventures!

Week 3: Happy Fourth of July

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Sarah Heidmann

This week of my internship turned out to be quite short. Because of an unfortunate accident over the previous weekend, my foot might be broken, (a week later, it is feeling much better and I can almost walk normally but I am still not able to do field work), so I missed Monday to go to the doctor and rest up. The Fourth of July and the following EPA furlough day gave me a four-day weekend. I guess it was great timing, because I was able to rest up plenty and relax but still have fun. My friends hosted a BBQ at their house, and we all biked down to the Willamette River in Corvallis where there was a fireworks show, as well as hundreds of people lighting off their own in the street. The Fourth is one of my favorite holidays, and although I was not in tip-top shape, it was still a wonderful time.

Before I hurt my foot, I was able to go tidepooling in Boiler Bay, just north of Newport. I spent three hours there (and consequently got a little sunburned, it was a beautiful day), and had a great time taking pictures, touching things, and trying to catch fish. The Oregon Coast has an amazing diversity of marine life, and I’m so glad I get to experience it!

To respond to a question from my last post, “testing” the GoPro cameras involved taking pictures and videos, trying to figure out the battery life, size of the SD card, and the size of the field of view at various heights off the ground. I put testing in quotes because it felt more like playing with the cameras. We came up with a design for the mount of the camera and built and deployed it last week to get some test video. It worked surprisingly well the first time, and I learned how to use a drill press. We just bought materials for the rest of the camera mounts, and will be building them soon.
In the meantime, I am continuing my video analysis from previous years so we will have historic data to compare to. I am also sorting through samples of seagrass, measuring any crabs I find and weighing the plant matter, as part of another ongoing project looking at the crabs that live in Yaquina Bay. We are trying to determine where they are most abundant (in the native seagrass, the invasive seagrass, or bare mud), and if the ages of the crabs is different between them.
Hopefully my foot will be better soon so I can get back to field work!

Good Times All Around

Posted on July 8, 2013 by James Kralj

I think I’m falling in love… with Oregon that is. With a four-day weekend last week thanks to the Fourth of July holiday, myself along with some fellow interns were able to get out and see more of what Oregon has to offer.

But before we began our adventures, there was work to be done. The project I am working on that uses clear buckets to study soil oxidation requires a good low tide so that the sample site is clear of water. This allows us to easily photograph the sediment layer without disturbing the surrounding area. To answer a question from my last post, the reason we removed and weighed the macroalgae was to see if there is any correlation between the depth of the oxidized soil and the amount of algae on top and to see how much algae is covering different parts of the estuary. The tides this past week weren’t low enough, so instead of being out in the field, I was helping out with another lab’s research project that had finished up earlier in the week. I helped to count Zostera japonica plants which are a type of sea grass. The experiment was studying growth rates of the plants under varying conditions. It was a pretty quiet week at the EPA, but this week promises to be much busier with four days of field work.

On the Fourth of July, a group of us went to Olalla Lake where we spent the day swimming and jumping off of rope swings. We then made our way back to Newport for an all American cookout complete with a little slice of Wisconsin, grilled bratwursts. When we finished our feast, we watched the fireworks that were launched from Yaquina Bay, right next to the Hatfield Marine Science Center.

After the holiday, some of us went to Devil’s Punchbowl where, for the first time in my life, I saw a whale, which just so happens to be my favorite animal. It was pretty far away from us but nevertheless it was still amazing to see one in the wild. We stopped at the Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay to see if we were able to spot anymore but we had no such luck, however we did get to drive along a beautiful stretch of the coast which made up for it.

The next day we went to Corvallis where we spent the afternoon floating down the Willamette River. After driving to what seemed like every store in the city, we finally found tubes and began to drift down the river only to realize we had forgotten our car keys back at the start. Luckily some fellow floaters offered us a ride to the starting point, and we were able to laugh it off. We certainly learned our lesson!

Then on Sunday, which was my birthday, we went to the beach to celebrate. Nothing says “Happy Birthday” quite like a quick dip in the 50 degree Pacific Ocean! It sure was a weekend I will never forget. Oregon truly is a beautiful place to live! This week I will be sampling in Yaquina Bay and traveling to Nestucca Marsh, Netarts Marsh, and the Bandon Marsh for four long days of field work, and I can’t wait!

week two at HMSC

Posted on July 2, 2013 by cousinep

Week two at HMSC in Newport has been yet another adventure. The weather and wind came together perfectly in the latter half of the week, grooming the ocean into surf perfection. The minute I was finished with my work commitments I spent the rest of my evenings exploring the coast and looking for waves to surf. I scrambled over rocky outcroppings, shuffled through blackberry bushes, and forded the many creek outlets, all to satisfy my obsession for the chance at catching that perfect wave. I have spent more time and energy searching for waves than I have actually spent in the water surfing, but the exploration is what makes riding a wave that much more enjoyable. What most people fail to realize is that riding waves are only a meager component of surfing.

The majority of time is comprised of anxiously waiting around for inclement weather to clear, networking with the local surfing community, studying and observing the natural coastal wildlife and geological features, and understanding the local bathymetry that creates ideal waves. Newport and its surrounding coastline can be a surfers dream if one seeks solitude and empty, un-crowded waves. It just takes a bit of adventure and a little luck to find that perfect wave.

Aside from my adventures, I’m still here primarily to work. Of course that is only if you consider fishing as work. This past Friday I went along with an ODFW employee to help with a PIT tagging project. Passive Integrated Transponders, or PIT tags, are about 2 mm in length and provide a unique identification code when inserted into an animal. This allows researchers to gather information about migratory patterns and other behavior. The PIT tagging project entailed catching black rockfish by method of hook and line, quickly inserting the PIT tag, and then releasing it back into the ocean. My role was primarily to practice handling, weighing, and measuring fork length of all non black rockfish species. I also participated in the actual fishing, where I caught and reeled in a total of 7 fish, including a 40 inch lingcod! Not a bad day considering this was technically for work. Who knew work could ever be so fun!

Between balancing work obligations and surfing, I still managed to squeeze in social time with the other interns. On Thursday, we all met with some of the graduate students who are conducting research here at HMSC. This was a good opportunity to establish some connections and learn about additional research opportunity to get involved in. You never know what could arise from a simple volunteering effort, thus it is important to be involved and take every possible opportunity. And with that, I wish everyone a fantastic Fourth of July weekend.

Sea Grant Scholars

Learning through experience, for the future of our oceans