From Pacific to Prairie and Pole to Pole

Today, I made my voyage out to the island, and it was a BEAUTIFUL day.

Our day started around 7:00, when we got up in time to finalize packing the vehicles, eat breakfast, and rendezvous with our skipper, Jared, in Petaluma.  Caravan-style, we all drove down to Loch Lomond in San Rafel, where we found our boat, the Brite Future, waiting for us, along with first mate Noah.

The Brite Future

The Brite Future is a twenty-five foot fishing and crabbing boat, which takes whale-watching passengers on the side.  Today, Jordan and I were its only passengers.  We headed out from the dock around 10:30, and travelled past Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Passing Under the Golden Gate Bridge

After passing under the Bridge, we headed out onto a notoriously rough stretch of water known as the Potato Patch.  (According to Skipper Jared, this is because, years ago, a potato barge capsized whilst crossing this stretch of water.)  However, today, we really lucked out, and the water was as smooth as glass–the whole ride felt more like being on a lake than out in the ocean.  We motored at around 20 knots for about an hour, and then came across one of Jared and Noah’s buoys, marking their crab traps, so we hauled it up.  There were several crabs in the cage, but none were “keepers,” since all of them were female.

The Crab Trap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After pulling up the trap, it was only about another hour, still on calm seas, out to the islands.  As we got closer and closer, seabird and seal sightings became more and more common.  My first glimpse of the islands was beautiful, since the sun was out and casting the ocean in a fabulous bright blue color.

First View off the Islands

Right when we pulled in close to East Landing, one of the Island’s resident gray whales (of which there are three) surfaced only about a hundred feet from us, and continued to swim back and forth near to the island during the entire unloading process.  In addition, a pod of Risso’s dolphins played around for about five minutes while we watched.

Getting on to the island is no simple process.  To do so, we tied up the Brite Future at a buoy some ways off shore.  Then, Russ picked us up in the Zodiac, onto which we loaded our stuff, taking four trips to get everything on and off the island that needed to be transported.  There isn’t, however, a dock, so the zodiac has to be lifted straight up into the air using a crane system that has been in place on the island since the 1980’s.  It’s a little hard to explain, so here’s a picture:

Getting Onto the Island: The Zodiac and the Crane

 

As I said, it took four trips to get all our stuff onto the island, and it was all loaded onto a cart that waits near the dock.  After we got on the island, we pushed the carts to the house and spent an hour putting all the groceries away carefully, so as to keep the produce fresh for as long as possible.  Then, famished, we all ate lunch.  There are six of us here right now: Jordan, myself, Russ and Pete (the biologists), and two other female interns, Claudia and Annie.

After lunch, Jordan and I moved into our room, which we are sharing.  We are in the walk-in room, so named because it is clearly designed to be the room that everyone else walks through to get to their rooms.  However, some curtains have been put up to separate our two beds, dresser, and lazy-boy chair from everyone else, and it’s really kind of cute. 

Once we had moved in, Russ gave us a tour of the house, and together, he, Jordan and I walked down to the other landing, at the North end of the island.  On the way we stopped to look at birds, elephant seals, and other things.  I even saw a tufted puffin!  It was Russ’ night to cook dinner, so we headed back to the house a little early.  He made a delicious coconut curry with vegetables, and banana bread for after.  So good.  After dinner, we filled out the daily log, which I will write more about later.  Here are a few quick pictures, and then I’m off to bed.

Common murres, viewed from the murre blind.