Boats, ROV, etc.



Sea pen

Yesterday we went out on the research vessel to use the ROV (remote operated vehicle). We went to a couple different sites all around the San Juan de Fuca Straight and looked at the ocean floor. At one site with a silty bottom we saw some sea pens. These beautiful cnidarians are very common around here. They burrow part of their body into the sand and filter plankton out of the water using their feather-like projections on the side.

Kelp forest

 One of the other sites we visited was a kelp forest. On the way to that site, I saw something with a white head swimming in the water. From the ears, it looked to me like a laborador. I forgot that we were in the ocean and not in a Minnesotan lake! It turns out that it was a juvenile harbor seal. Unfortunately, he disappeared before I could snap a picture, but I as excited just to see him.

When we pulled the ROV out of the kelp forest, there was a sea urchin attached to it. I took a picture of me with it for Dr. Winslow, because she LOVES urchins.

After we left the kelp forest we went to Deception Pass. I visited this pass last week with Kailey, but it was a whole different experience seeing it from below. Also, the currents are extremely strong there. The wind and the tide were going in opposite directions, so there were some standing waves that made for a bumpy ride. No seasickness though :)

Tomorrow, we are going out again for a 4-5 hour boat cruise. We will stop and go hiking for a little while on one of the islands and we are hoping that we will stumble across one of the 3 pods or killer whales that live out here. I hope the weather is nice! It looks like it will be cloudy, but as long as it isn't raining, I'll he happy because I can still take pictures.

Crab update: They are still alive! I made sure they were in seawater this time ;) The eggs still haven't hatched, but it looks like they will early next week, which means I will be able to start experiments soon! For now, I am just monitoring my crabs and rotifers and working on a presentation I have to give next week.



Oops.

This post is titled "Oops" for a very good reason - I inadvertenly managed to kill all of our crabs! Ahhh! I walked into the lab this morning to feed my rotifers and check on my crabs only to find all of the crabs upside-down and floating in their incubator. It turns out I had managed to find the ONLY hose in the sea table room that has fresh water when I was changing their water on Sunday. Yes, the only hose. It was kind of one of those Homer Simpson d'oh moments, if you know what I mean.

But, life goes on. I was assured by Dr. Sulkin and Anna-Mai that these things happen and that we can always collect more, but I still feel kind of stupid. I felt better, though, when I looked at the tide chart and realized that I could probably collect some more crabs this afternoon. So I made plans to go out to the beach at 2:45 and get some more crabs!

And you know what? It was WONDERFUL! This time, the sun was shining and the rocks were dry and warm. Anna-Mai, Kailey, Crista, and I were able to chat and enjoy the weather and each other while searching for the crabs we needed. It took us less than 10 minutes to replace the 10 crabs we lost! They were everywhere. All you had to do was turn over one rock to send 6+ crabs scurrying away! It was a good test of my reflexes to try and grab the little suckers before they could escape under another rock. Just to be safe, we collected 23 crabs - more than doubling the amount we had before. Once we got them back to the lab, we found that 4 will most likely hatch their eggs late this week or early next.

If you can't tell, I am having a blast here! It is so fun to constantly be around people who are all excited about marine science. We have great hang out times either playing board games, watching movies, or just hanging out. And the work isn't bad either. It's not every day that you get to play with crabs and other interesting marine invertebrates.

Tomorrow, we are supposed to be going out on the research vessel and learning how to use the ROV (remote operated vehicle) just for fun. Pray that we will have nice weather so we can really enjoy it! The weather looks a little iffy right now, but Washington weather is never set in stone.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading my posts. I hope you enjoy them! For those of you who tried to comment previously but couldn't, I have fixed the problem so comment away!

Got crabs? ;)

Yesterday, Anna-Mai and I went out on the beach at low tide to search for Hemigrapsus oregonensis aka the green shore crab. Of course it was raining (thanks, Washington), so we had to suit up in giant yellow rain coats. I have included a picture of me here for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunatley, due to the rain, I couldn't take the camera with me to capture the action of the hunt.




















We grabbed a bucket and made our way down to the beach. All we had to do was start turning over rocks and grab any green crab we saw. Sounds easy, right? Not so much. Not only do you have to bend over/kneel while trying not to fall over on the rocks (which can be pretty tiring for your legs), but you have to turn over every rock (of which there are thousands!), grab the crab before it can scurry away, identify its gender, and check for eggs if it is female and put it in the bucket while it is trying to escape. And to top it all off, we did this in the rain. It took a while and the help of two other interns that joined us, but we eventually found 10 egg bearing females. Here's what we were looking for:

The black, spongy looking part on the abdomen is the eggs.

Also, these crabs range in size from a fingertip to a the pip from the middle of a peach, so at times they were hard to catch. Also, there seemed to be an abundance of males, which we didn't want.

After we collected the crabs, we took them back to the lab and looked at some eggs from each individual under the microscope to see how developed they are. It looks like two will hatch next week! Soon we will have larvae and will be able to start our experiment.

Yesterday was FUN, but very tiring. Also, I stayed up kind of late watching a movie with some friends I've made here so I slept in until 10am this morning. Oops. It's kind of nice to have the weekend off and relax, though. I need to catch up on sleep and some of the reading my advisor gave me to do.



Algae and rotifers and crabs, oh my!

I have finally started research! One of my mentors, a very fun and knowledgeable graduate student named Anna-Mai, took me into the Crab Lab to show me how our experiments will be carried out. I got to see how we culture the algae to feed to the rotifers before we feed the rotifers to the crabs. I also got to observe and then try feeding the algae to the rotifers. And, in just a few hours, we are going down to the beach to collect some crabs! At low tide, Anna-Mai and I will be heading down to the beach, turning over rocks, and hunting for female crabs with eggs on their abdomens. Then we'll take them back to the lab to try to hatch some larvae!

To most people, this probably isn't that exciting, but getting crabs means we will soon get larvae and we will be able to start our experiments - something that I LOVE to do as a science nerd.

I'm so happy and blessed to have gotten this internship and I can't wait to get my hands dirty.

I'm here! :)

Well, I made it to Anacortes. All it took was 2 planes, 2 buses, and a van ride (all adding up to about 10 hours of travel) to get me here.

After finally arriving at about 6pm on Tuesday, I met my roommate, Elizabeth, and we headed over to the communal kitchen where the program was providing pizza for us for dinner. There we met all the other summer program students. There are 2 grad students that live in the dorms and research at the lab. They will serve as lab TA's for us, as far as I can tell. There are a total of 8 REU students. On top of that there are 2 COSEE students (not sure exactly what that stands for but they are community college students that are essentially doing the same thing that REU's are doing). We all met each other and got to chat over pizza before the first formal day of the program started.

Yesterday was our first day. We started the morning off with some breakfast, provided by the program since we hadn't gone shopping yet. Next, we had a little meeting to introduce ourselves (again) and meet all the Shannon Point faculty and staff. Then we had a tour of the facility. The lab is HUGE! There seems to be a LOT of room to work and a huge variety of top of the line equipment. I saw the specific lab where I will spend my time and it seems nice.

After the tour, we had private meetings with our advisors. My advisor is Dr. Steve Sulkin and he is interested in life histories of larval species, specifically crabs. He explained my project to me (which sounds awesome) and gave me a few papers to read so I am up-to-date on current research.

Then, we all gathered together (and by all I mean all students, faculty, and staff - about 30 people) for lunch in the commons building. It was nice to mingle for a little bit and get to know other researchers interests and projects.

However, we were shortly pulled away from lunch to go grocery shopping, since we need to provide all our own food. Finally, after one last less than entertaining meeting, we were given the evening to ourselves. I was fully prepared to go to my room and read my papers, but one of the girls who lives in a near by town and has a car on campus asked me if I wanted to explore Anacortes with her. Of course I accepted!

We went into town, which is quite small, and looked at all the shops. There are a LOT of antique shops around here. We stopped for a couple things at the pharmacy before and were about to head back to campus when she decided that I needed to see a few of the views from around here. The short drive was SO worth it. She took me to the top of Mt. Erie to look out over all the islands in this area and then to Deception Pass, a short channel between the mainland and Whidbey Island. They were both some of the most majestic and magnificent views that I have ever seen! I was once again reminded of God's power and creativity in His creation. Here are some pictures of me in front of the views. A camera just can't seem to capture the true beauty.

 View of Mt. Baker from the top of Mt. Erie

Islands

Deception Pass

Overall, I have had a busy, but exciting two days. I feel so blessed to have had the chance to even come here and for the blessing that God has given me when I got here - a Christian roommate, a friend who drove me all over creation just for fun, a great research project, friendly and kind people around me... the list goes on and on.

I'm ready to tackle the day!

P.S. Sorry this had been such a long post - so much has happened!

Off I go!

I'm leaving today! I'm pretty excited to finally be getting out of here, since I've been counting for more than 90 days! My flight leaves at 10:28am and I'll arrive in Anacortes by 6:00pm.

I'll post some updates and pictures when I get to Anacortes, but for now, a few thoughts...

I've been doing a devotion about characteristics/descriptions of God. this morning, the three words were Author, Afflicter, and Blessed. I was reading through the corresponding verses and I was reminded once again of the fact that God's Word truly is alive. The verse for Author was the well-known Hebrews 12:1-2. The second I read the first phrase ("surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses"), I became acutely aware of something that I was subconsciously neverous about. Though I didn't realize it, I am concerned that I will not be the best Christian that I can be while in Anacortes. I realize that there will be people around me that may not know the Lord and I realized this morning that I am nervous that I wont be strong and steadfast in my faith. I want to be an encouraging example of Christ, even in a scientific setting, and hopefully sway someone towards His love. I quickly prayed that He will give me strength to remain faithful to Him and that others will notice there is something different about me. I also prayed that if someone asked me about that difference, I would be given the words and wisdom to witness to them. I am encouraged by the second part of this verse that tells us to persevere through the trial with strength, like Jesus did.

So, if you would, please pray for this in particular, that would be much appreciated. I am a bit nervous, but I have faith that He will give me all the strength and resources that I need to be His witness this summer.

-Alannah

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." -Hebrews 12:1-2

Leaving Soon!

Well, it's almost time for me to leave for Anacortes! It's just 2 weeks away now. I've been waiting for this for months, but now that it's almost here I can barely believe it!

I got some information about the summer schedule and other participants, etc. this week, which of course made me even more excited! One thing that they suggested to bring was my passport so I can go to Canada while I'm there. Anyone know anything fun to do in Sidney or Vancouver, B.C.?

As I get closer to actually going, please pray that I have easy and safe travels and an overall good experience when I get there. Also, since I've never lived with roommates before, pray for that. I'll take advice, too!

I'll plan to post again before I leave and then once I get there. And I'll include pictures of the Marine Lab, dorms, ocean (I know you're jealous), etc.