I participated as a Scientific Diver in the San Juans Bottomfish Recovery Zone project. This study has been going on for years but this year the diving was more intensive than ever. The goal is to see how well the Voluntary Bottomfish reserves are working in the San Juan Islands. To do this, we dive in the reserves, and then dive a nearby control site - same orientation to the sun, same slope, same rocky structure, etc. The study has been funded by various sources through the years, sometimes the San Juan MRC has funded it, but this year it was entirely funded through the SeaDoc Society (University of California-Davis) on Orcas Island. The University of Washington - Friday Harbor Labs also contributed greatly to the project.
Here's the boat we dive off (hehe, not the big one - the small one to the right!):
The dives are transect dives - straight line surveys. We do three 25m long transects at the 60 foot level, then ones that gradually ascend - 60ft to 50ft, 50ft to 40ft, 40ft to 30ft, 30ft to 20ft, 20ft to 10ft. So 8 transects in all. Each dive takes about 40 min to complete.
We use four divers. After descending to 60 ft and finding our starting point, two divers swim off with the end of the tape measure. One of them is recording the algae cover (UW's Friday Harbor Labs DSO - Pema Kitaeff), and writing it on a tubular slate:
The other is spotting, measuring and recording any bottomfish (rockfish, greenling, etc) within a certain radius of his path. He uses a meter long stick with a little clear ruler on the end. (Marine biologist Eric Eisenhardt)
The other two divers (myself and SeaDoc's Joe Gaydos) in the 2nd team sit there. And sit. And sit. Waiting for the tape to play out to 25m. There's a little plastic chunk crimped onto the tape that automatically stops when it hits that point. Then Joe gives three solid tugs on the tape, and the diver out front (Eric) responds in kind. That's the signal for Joe and I to start swimming towards Eric and Pema, following the tape measure line. (and time for the first team now to sit and wait for the other team to catch up to them). While Joe is winding up the measuring tape, I'm doing a REEF survey and taking photos. After all 8 transects are done, we head up to the surface and get on the boat.
We saw quite a few Copper Rockfish on our surveys.
And more than once we found ourselves in schools of Blacks and Yellowtails:
Invertebrate life was astounding at many of the sites we dove. Juvenile Puget Sound King Crabs were seen more than once:
I had only seen these really cool Lightbulb tunicates once before:
I was tickled to see one of my rare favorites, Pink Hydrocoral at a very current swept site: Limekiln Point!
View of Limekiln Lighthouse from the water:
UW's Friday Harbor Labs - our home base for air fills, dive lockers, etc:
Our sites were mostly based off the West side of San Juan Island - Limekiln Point, Edwards Point, Eagle Point and Pile Point. We were treated without fail to Orcas every single time we were out there. As well as their entourage of Whale Watching Tourist boats. So we always had an audience.
One day, while kicking onto the swim step to get into the boat, my fin came off. Down down it went. Another guy (Eric Eisenhardt) jumped off the boat and dove in to get it, but couldn't get down fast enough. It was a goner. There was no redundant set of gear on board, so they called a friend on San Juan to drive to the labs, pick up a spare bag of several types and sizes of fins, drive out to Limekiln point, and then one of the guys (Joe Gaydos) jumped off the boat and swam into the rocky shore to get the bag. Here he is swimming back to the boat with the fins:
Well, that's part ONE - I'll post more later on....
- Janna
