Day 5 - When the tide is low...we go! Even at 5:45am

An early morning low tide series started today.  This posed a bit of a dilemma, however, since sunrise here was at 5:59am, and low tide was at 6:01am.  This meant that we needed to be at the shore as early as possible, but we couldn’t go too early or it would be too early to be safe.  So the crew gathered, bleary-eyed, but ready at 5:45am.

We were originally going south to South Cove at Cape Arago, but I realized that there was no need to go down there this morning to do what I had planned.  Instead, we just walked/stumbled to the beach just south of the Boat House at OIMB and onto the rocks there.  The -0.5’ low tide uncovered a nice little shelf that was covered with brown algae. 

Intertidal zone south of Boathouse Beach around 6am, OIMB

L-R: Bailey, Jessica, Tony, Ty

The morning’s work included laying down a transect line and collecting data that included the vertical profile of the intertidal zone and using quadrats to measure total percent cover of life every meter, as well as the dominant species in every quadrat – basically painting a picture of intertidal zonation there.

The group was divided into three teams of four students each, and they went to work.

Two teams of students collecting data near OIMB

LR: Mackenzie, Elysa, Daniel, Dallas

 Jessica making vertical profile measurement

LR: Daniel, Mackenzie, Dallas, Elysa

LR: Tony, Ty, Jessica, Bailey

LR: Lindsey, Kristin, Blake (fore), Patrick (back)

We worked, and when I say “we” I mean “they” worked for about two hours on the exercise.  Once that was over we all dragged ourselves back to the OIMB campus, about a 5-10 min walk and made our way to the Dining Hall where the most excellent Dining Hall staff had a breakfast laid out for us.  That was one quiet meal.  The crew was both weary and hungry.

There was no class meeting this morning, but students were assigned to work their data into a graph that indicated the profile and other data collected along their transects.  That took them the rest of the morning…pretty much right up until lunch.  In the meantime I met with Larry Basch, Director of Research for the South Slough National Estuary about what our group might do there later in our trip. 

After lunch we had a class meeting where we discussed some principles of research design, why we have tides, and a description of rocky intertidal communities.  We took a break in the middle, and we finally wrapped things up around 4pm.  Students were then on their own to explore possibilities for research, read, and relax (like that’s really possible!). 

After dinner some students headed back to the docks to collect more samples and think about research.  They collected something that I'd never seen before - at least this species - it's a sea butterfly.

The one they collected was more beat up than the one in this photo, but you get the idea.

In fact, no one I talked to, not other professors, not the Director of OIMB, no one, had seen this species before!  It's a cool one all right.

I know we have been here only 5 days, but it feels like we’ve been here and working a lot longer.

Tomorrow we hit the road early…as soon as we finish off a light breakfast at 6am.  Tomorrow we’re truly off to South Cove.

Cheers!