Wow... it's been a really long time. I can't believe I didn't blog for the entire month of August! Cetus has been going through some tough times. We get the majority of our funding from the federal government, and we were supposed to hear about approval back in March. Well we are in to September and we still haven't heard anything. So from mid-July onward we have been off the water. My supervisors have been trying to keep us all busy, but until very recently it's just been a lot of filler work.
It worked out that in the meantime, I got to go up North, off Vancouver Island to work with the Robson Bight Marine Ecological Reserve Warden Program. Whoo, that's a mouthful!
So The Robson Bight Ecological Reserve is a bit of water that is closed to all boat traffic, except for commercial fishing ships during fishery openings. So the job of the warden program is to watch the waters of the Reserve and make sure that no boats go in. Especially with whales around. And with straitwatch off the water, they've also been doing a bit of vessel monitoring, but they don't take any data on that.
Anyways, I got to go up for two weeks and be an intern for the wardens. The base camp really is that... a camp. We sleep in personal tents, cook off of camp stoves and spend our evenings around the fire. There is no electricity except to recharge small electronics, no running water and no roads. The only way to get to boat bay is to well... take a boat!
Can you say remote?
There were two parts to the job: the cliff and the boat. After a tiring 45-50 minute hike through a temperate rain forest you get to the top of a very high cliff directly across from the Bight. Once there, you take a boat count every 15 minutes, detailing how many of each kind of boat you see, where they are (in terms of determined zones) and how fast they are going (stopped, fast, slow). Also every 15 minutes you are doing an orca scan. These include how many, where they are and if you can, which ones they are. We pretty much left the orca scans to our boss, FM. On top of the scans, every time a boat crosses in front of the cliff you have to record it: time, type and direction.
If that didn't seem like enough work, local ecokayaking tours will also hike up the cliff (from a different direction) for an interpretive talk, where we tell them all about the Bight, the whales and Cetus. These are a lot of fun because the people on the tours are generally really enviro-friendly and curious. And they usually buy a hat or CD (thank you for the support!).
On the boat, the main thing is to keep boats out of the reserve. We hang around camp until we get "the call", then we get to the boat and on the water. I always felt like a firefighter on boat days. Always half ready, not getting into anything that I couldn't put down at the drop of a hat. Once on the water we zoom off to the (usually ignorant) perpetrator and kindly inform them that they are in a no-boat zone. Occasionally we'd have the chance for further interpretation and tell them more about the reserve and the whales.
We'd also go out if there were whales, though the priority was if there were both boats and whales in the areas around the Bight. From an exceptionally safe distance we would keep an eye on whales, only really moving to keep them in sight or if a boat was approaching.
In the weeks I was there whales occasionally took the day off, so some of my boat days were short and sporadic on the water. But it felt so good being back on the boat and seeing killer whales again. It's amazing how much you can miss bouncing around on the waves.
One of the funniest moments on the water was when we were swarmed by Pacific white-sided dolphins. We were chasing down a boat and then off a sudden we had between 6-10 dolphins riding our wake (the waves made by the motor) and our bow (the rushing water going by the front of the boat). Most people think this is awesome, because the dolphins come so close you could touch them. Us? We were annoyed because they were in our way and we were way too close to marine mammals! We spent a good 5 minutes telling them to go away!
That being said, it was cool being close to dolphins again, I haven't been since Florida. And how many people can say they were splashed by a wild Pacific white-sided dolphin? I can!
All in all, it was an amazing two weeks. The other people I worked with were a lot of fun and we were able to have great in dept discussions about everything environmental, political and human-related with ease, acceptance and open-mindedness. Thank you Cetus for running such an amazing program and for letting me be a part of it!
Speak Loud!
