Hello! It has been an eventful week! Last weekend some REU students and I went to Portland for the weekend. We ate some great food and explored the city. We also went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Technology and got to see some cool fossils and dinosaur replicates. The weather was really nice and we did a lot of thrift shopping. On Wednesday, Aaron and I went to Port Orford to set up a whale camera and to collect urchins. We were accompanied by Kevin the OIMB and OSU DSO and Lisa who is part of the whale research for the Kelp2Whales project. The first dive site was near these cool rock formations in the bay. As soon as we were there, a grey whale came and checked us out! Aaron and Kevin went down to attach a camera for whale footage. The camera Aaron and Kevin went to set up was placed in a specific spot in order to capture whale feeding behavior. Apparently the visibility was so bad that neither could see their gages, so they decided to put it in another location. The second location was much better and Aaron and Kevin were able to set up the camera. During this another gray whale came to the boat to check us out, it was a very magical experience. Aaron and I went to dive and collected 12 urchins. Since Port Orford isn't protected, they have their boats on dryland and then lowered into the water, so on our way back we got to ride the boat up to dry land! On Friday Aaron, Svetlana, and I went diving near lighthouse beach in Charleston. It was a beautiful day and the rock formations at the Lighthouse were amazing. There was a lush bull kelp forest where we did two dives. Svetlana was collecting bull kelp holdfasts for her research while Aaron and I did our benthic transects and urchin collections. I collected 24 urchins! The dives sites we dove haven't been surveyed in many years so it was special to be diving there. Next week Aaron and I will be diving at Port Orford again, stay tuned!
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AuthorMy name is Maite Gato-Fuentes. I am a senior marine science major at California State University, Monterey Bay from Seattle Washington. I'm working in Dr. Aaron Galloway's Coastal Trophic Ecology Lab. Archives
August 2021
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