I had hoped to take two days to get to Friday Harbor from Everett, but the weather wasn't cooperative. Yesterday was windy and rainy; tomorrow is supposed to have a small craft advisory (wind greater than 25 kts.) as well as rain. Since today (Saturday) was nice, I decided to make the entire trip on one day. Since nobody accepted my offer of a ride up from Everett, I had to do the trip solo. It was generally pleasant and the winds were low. The trip took 9 hours and included going through Deception Pass and about 15 miles in the Strait of Juan de Fuca where wind waves were in the 1 to 2 foot range quartering off my stern. The rolling, sun, and "stars on the water" (for you Jimmy Buffet fans) threatened to lull me to sleep as I sat on deck near the bow steering the boat with my trusty wireless remote.
Deception Pass - Entry to the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Coming in to Friday Harbor I had to stop and take a picture of where I will be studying for the next 10 weeks. FHL is a big place and the picture doesn't show all the buildings. I can see the lab from where I am moored at the Friday Harbor marina. On rainy days I will probably take my dinghy to the lab which is about 1/3 of a mile away. On other days I will take a 2-mile bike ride. It almost seems surreal being here.
Friday Harbor Laboratories
It's starting to look like the forecast may be correct as the wind is now whipping up and Hobbit is starting to dance around in the slip. Great conditions for a good night's sleep. For my first meal at Friday Harbor I went to a restaurant and had fish (cod) and chips washed down with a Stella. Back on Hobbit I had a home made chocolate chip cookie for desert.
I hooked up the converter box for the TV and managed to connect to two stations: one religious and one shopping. I was a little more successful in picking up a wireless network for the PC and managed to do some e-mail. Since the connection is very weak, I will probably end up using the connection at FHL once they set my computer up.
March 28, Sunday
It was rainy most of the morning but the sky cleared by about noon. This afternoon I took the dinghy over to FHL and checked in. After wandering around a bit and meeting a few people I came back to Hobbit and took a 20 mile bike ride over some fairly hilly terrain. My journey ended back at the lab in time to meet a few more people before dinner. Finally getting to converse with my fellow students and one of our TAs at dinner was great. We’ve really got a diverse group of people in the areas of academic majors and the amount of education completed. The one TA I met, Hillary, used to work in a bike shop and did a couple of hundred miles a week but hasn’t been rigorous about riding in a long time. I challenged her to join me in an effort to try and keep up a 60 mile a week pace. She accepted the challenge so, hopefully, I’ll have some motivation to keep up a good exercise pace.
The wind started picking up around dusk and I felt the need to tighten up all of Hobbit’s lines. Then the rain started coming down hard and the wind got fierce. NOAA Weather Radio said Friday Harbor had winds of “33 gusting to 50”. I believe it. The hanging lamp over the table swayed too and fro and loose doors started rattling. Squeaking from the lines and fenders doesn’t bother me, but rattling doors stops me from getting to sleep. I took a couple of track doors off and wedged cloth into others. With rain and a small craft advisory scheduled for tomorrow morning, I started wondering how I would get to FHL. Neither the dinghy nor the bicycle seemed appropriate for those conditions. Maybe I’ll call a cab.
March 29, Monday
NOAA Weather Radio reported rain and a gale warning for “northern inland waters” including the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Admiralty Inlet. Here at Friday Harbor the rain has stopped at least temporarily. The flags are all fluttering in the breeze and the wind sock at the entrance to the marina indicates a steady 10 kts. occasionally gusting higher. It’s gotten noticeably cooler; at least I don’t have to call a cab; the dinghy will do.
Our first day of class!!! Who would have thought that at my age I’d really be back in college? We spent the morning doing facility orientation: laboratory, store room, computer lab, etc. One thing I found somewhat amusing is that most of the laboratory staff when they saw me immediately said “you must be Wally.” I guess from my e-mails seeking a crew, everyone new that a retired guy was coming as a student. Not too many students have grey hair so the jump to conclusion wasn’t far fetched. One thing I found refreshing was that the faculty wants us to call them by their first names rather than Dr. so and so. In industry one rarely uses the term Dr. except to introduce someone.
In the afternoon we had our first lecture which mainly dealt with intertidal zonation and the factors affecting where different species were found. In the afternoon we had our first field trip. Just a trip to the FHL dock where we collected algae, plants, and animals. It really turned cold and I really suffered from inadequate clothing – live and learn I guess. We then went back to the lab, learned how to use microscopes and practiced inspecting a species of algae.
In the evening after dark I was walking along the dock at the Friday Harbor marina and observed dock shrimp by the thousands swimming in the near surface water. This is the first time in 20 or so years of coming to Friday Harbor that I’ve seen this behavior. Capturing dock shrimp is a favorite evening pass time of children during the summer, but they usually catch only a few by sneaking up on them as they cling to the dock. Seeing one swimming is not that common. Maybe it’s not common in the summer because of all the people. On the other hand, maybe this mating season.
March 30, Tuesday
Cold rainy weather continues! This morning I put on my ski jacket and full storm gear. Just as the dinghy was coming on plane as I was leaving the marina, the outboard faltered and died. After several attempts to restart I gave up and with the rain coming down fairly hard I rowed to FHL.
After the morning lecture, we went to the computer lab. The computer I sat down at didn’t have Flash player so I had to stop while it was installed. For the second exercise we were supposed to open an Excel spreadsheet to analyze. My computer didn’t have Microsoft Office which includes Excel. I switched to another computer which proved to be unable to access the FHL network. I then switched to a Mac. What do I know about Macs? I promptly gave up on that and waited for one of the computer people to configure a computer that I could use. I totally missed the second exercise. Fortunately I understand data analysis and didn’t really miss anything important. The third exercise went smoothly although I was one of the last people to finish.
For lunch today I spent my time fixing the outboard. I quickly concluded that the fuel filter was full of water. The FHL maintenance staff was very helpful with suggestions and even loaned me some tools so I could pull the spark plugs and purge the engine of water. I finally got it running just before the afternoon lecture.
This afternoon’s algae lab went fairly well. I kept expecting for a third problem to crop up. Maybe all of the problems I had in computer lab counted as two and three. I had scheduled before class and lunch time for e-mail and reading. Sure hope I get that time tomorrow. It now appears that I will generally be spending 11 to 12 hours a day at the lab.
March 31, Wednesday
Our first off campus field trip. We went just a few miles away from the lab to a place called Argyle Creek. There is a salt water pond that is filled at high tide. At low tide it drains back into the sound via a creek. We took lots of specimens, particularly flat worms and sponges, back to the lab for study. I need to remember to take pictures on these trips.
April 2, Friday
High winds started last night and we had a full gale in progress this morning. NOAA weather radio was saying we were having gusts to 43 kts at Friday Harbor. The wind was too high for either the dinghy or bicycle. One of my classmates had offered at dinner last night to pick me up if things were too bad. Fortunately it wasn’t raining and I wanted to get to the lab early so I walked. The wind howled all day at 35 – 40 kts. The waters of Friday Harbor were really churned up and the power to all of San Juan County went out mid morning. By mid afternoon the power was back on.
We had our first “Apprenticeship” class. The first order of business was to select a research project. Robin, Moose, and a grad student all had areas of research they were interested in getting help on. Most involved classical field and laboratory biology similar to what I spent years doing. The one project that appealed to me was development of a technique to use a digital camera to measure chlorophyll content on rocks in the field. The basic idea is to filter out all light below the red wave lengths then compare the relative intensity of red light which is absorbed by chlorophyll with near infra red light which is not. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t.
After class we had an all FHL mixer complete with beer and wine in the lunch room. A lot of fun. After dinner I gratefully accepted a ride back to the marina. The wind was still howling and Hobbit was rocking as I went to sleep.
April 3, Saturday
I had hoped to go home this week-end, but have entirely too much reading and lab work to do. Some of the students are finishing the lab work before the lab is over then heading out. I find myself regularly being the last one to leave. Even with that I will be spending a lot of time back in the lab today trying to complete the assignments. I suspect I am spending a lot more time just examining things more closely but still wonder why I am spending more than twice as much time in lab as some of the others.
The readings are starting to get easier in the sense that most of the vocabulary is intelligible to me. Nevertheless, I find myself keeping a little notebook of words to look up when I go to FHL – I rarely have access to the Internet at the marina.
April 4, Sunday
Once again I will be spending the day reading and working in the lab. Hopefully I can finish the lab work assigned last week. Unfortunately, relatively high winds continue and there are white caps in the harbor and the wind sock is spending most of its time nearly straight out (15 kts). Weather has stopped me from taking a bicycle ride all week. I hope things settle enough for me to take one later today.
