Last weekend Jay and I spent a day out diving in the San Juan Islands. We don't go often because it involves a chunk of cash, but it was worth it! We did two dives and were treated to some great views of orcas and this big Steller sea lion on our topside intervals. Sadly, we don't have a small digital camera anymore so we have no underwater photos - but sometimes it is nice to just dive and not mess with any of that stuff. Our first dive wasn't anything special and it was made worse by the fact that my dry glove leaked and I got soaked all the way up my arm and basically down most of my left side. Ergh. But the second dive was amazing and made up for all of the dampness in my drysuit. We had heard that Long Island was supposed to be one of the better dive sites in the islands, but neither of us had been on the famous spot where there is a wall of strawberry anemones. Since we didn't have a camera - here is a link to a website that shows photos from the dive:
http://www.theperfectdive.com/DEF-Site.asp?sID=190 and here is a photo of the hot pink wall we saw:
http://www.theperfectdive.com/DEF-Photo.asp?psID=1763. Overall, a great dive and really gorgeous. Well worth a second dive in a wet drysuit.
I think the boat we were on probably got a bit too close to this haul out and spooked this big male into the water. Bummer.
View of Cattle Point, San Juan Island
Jay watching seals and birds in between dives.
We still are not experiencing much in the way of summer. We have one tomato on our plants. Everything that I planted to eat hates life, although we have managed to get some mustard greens and arugula. My
nasturtiums have bloomed though and now our salads are tasty and pretty!
It may be freezing here in the summer, but we have one up on all you east coasters basking in the sun. The berries are better here, I promise. Skagit Valley is well known as a big berry region, and we reaped the benefits of that the other night. I bought a half-flat at the Farmers Market in Anacortes of raspberries and blackberries and then made crepes, topped with whipped cream. Not shabby. Had them for breakfast the next morning too - yummy!
And on a totally different note, we spend most of our time working, not playing (although my job seems like play much of the time). But I never write about what I do! Well, two weeks ago I had a pretty darn big week at work. I was in charge of seeding (planting) a beach with 2.7 million baby clams. It was a lot of work, but I had a great crew working with me and we pulled off the seeding with 14 volunteers and no problems! Wow! Up above you can see the totes that the baby clams arrived in from California. Yup - they are grown in a hatchery in California, packed into these insulated totes (with no water but they are damp), and shipped FedEx Freight. The Tribe owns a fish plant, and we stored the clams in he plant overnight and seeded the beach the next day.
Because the clams are stored in a fish plant, we have to wear head nets because we are in an area that processes fish for human consumption. Here we are (Julie, Courtney, and Jen) standing with all the coolers containing half of our clams.
Here is what the beach looks like before a big seeding event. We marked out the best habitat with flagging tape and each "plot" got a cooler with the proper amount of clams (we wanted a density of 50 clams per square foot - remember a lot will die). Then we assigned a volunteer to a plot and they planted their clams (by tossing out the seed) into the water as the tide came up.
Julie and her boss, Lorraine (Fisheries Manager for the Tribe). I'm holding a bunch of tiny clams.
Here is my immediate boss, Jim, seeding his plot with clams.
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