Northwest Dive Club

All,

The rock reef at Point Hudson has been installed, or at least mostly completed. At high tide it begins at about 35 ft and extends down to 65 ft. (See attached image for the general orientation.) I think the rocks were placed about a couple weeks ago. Right now it's mostly bare rock, but already there are loads of fish, and some invertebrates have started colonizing.

I know there's been some discussions about moving critters from the existing SW jetty, scheduled to be removed Fall '23, but I don't know the status of that or who is involved. If you have info, please post it here. I would like to help.

Anyway, the short story is that I've reached out to the PT Marine Science center about monitoring and/or surveying the new reef to see how it evolves over time. They're very receptive to the idea, but we're unsure where to start. We (well, I) don't have the right training.

That's where you come in:

I know there are other citizen science efforts out there, like REEF. Perhaps they can help? Or do *you* or someone you know have knowledge about how to do a good, periodic survey, and might be willing to train, organize, or just cheer from the sidelines? I'm not sure where to start.

I'm happy to run point on all of this, but it would be best to get some expertise involved. Plus any help you'd like to contribute!

Ideas? Comments? Volunteers?

Glenn

If you'd like to see what the rock reef looks like as of Sunday, I posted a kind of survey video on Youtube. Maybe run it at 5x speed to keep from being bored to tears:


youtu.be/lTZn2NnNv-w.

Good job ! It will be interesting to see how fast it will become like the Keystone Jetty.
The school of rockfish is a good start.

We dove there tonight. It is a massive reef, 5x larger than what was there before. Most of the gunnels, grunt sculpins, and sail fins were in the older sections. Will be interesting to see it evolve.

This is fantastic news I hope we can come check it out soon!

Does this reef have no-take MPA rules like Keystone? I hope so!

eh.haole wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:52 pm Does this reef have no-take MPA rules like Keystone? I hope so!

No.

The south jetty was closed a few years ago; at that time there were very few larger fish. After the jetty was closed, and there was no more fishing, we started seeing a lot more rockfishes and lingcod.

Hi Glenn,
Betsy of PTMSC contacted me today so hopefully we'll have a chat very soon!
I was telling her that REEF volunteer surveyors have done 211 surveys there since 2002, so we have excellent baseline data.

You can view the report here:
https://www.REEF.org/db/reports/geo?reg ... s=27010105

Very excited about this project! BTW, anyone can do a REEF survey. The zone code to submit it under is 27010105. You'll need to join REEF first, and only record what you can positively identify - leave the rest off. You can do a Fish only survey, or an Invertebrates only survey - or a fish/inverts combined survey.

If you (speaking to everyone) dive Pt Hudson, and want to try your hand at doing a survey, that would be fantastic - let me know. You can email me at janna@REEF.org and I can point you in the right direction. No time like the present to get involved with citizen science.

- Janna

nwscubamom wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 5:10 pm I was telling her that REEF volunteer surveyors have done 211 surveys there since 2002, so we have excellent baseline data.

Hi Janna, thanks!

Good to hear the surveys of Point Hudson have been going on since 2002. I'm wondering, however, if the new reef ought to be a separate study area? Having separate designations would capture the progression of life arriving at the new reef, while maintaining the record for the old jetty, even as it's removed.

I don't know how REEF site surveys work, so I'm not sure of the practicality of that.

glenn

I showed Betsy how the database works today and we discussed that very thing. It's best to keep it as one site, the same one that's always been there - 27010105 - and you are able to sort out the data based on time/date searches. That way you can compare before and after. On the link I provided above, click on "+Click for Report Options" and you'll see that you can specify date parameters.
- Janna