Change of Plans

May 23, 2009

Up early (0800, that's early for us) and we headed to the beach for the low tide.  Everyday the low tide gets a little lower until it reaches a nadir and then the low tides begin to rise each day until a peak and then the cycle begins again.   Today and for the next two days we have what are called "minus tides" which means that the water is very low and exposes rocks and tide pools that are normally hidden from sight.   It will be a rare chance to see some exotic sea creatures.  We have knee pads for kneeling on the rocky shores of the San Juan Islands and a magnifying glass in case we need to get a better look at something.  We also have a blue bucket for bringing specimens back to the LIBERTE.  Jude and I spent a happy hour turning over rocks and crawling about on the beach discovering small creatures and plants. 

   Scientist preying

We hurried back to the boat with our little blue bucket and got the microscope out into the cockpit where the sun was bright.  We took turns looking at Petri dishes containing small interesting things.  This first time, we are really just getting used to the microscope which is on loan from Dr. Bruce Miller of the University of Washington's College of Fisheries.   Dr. Miller is a world famous authority on the early life history of fishes, an ever useful field of knowledge, and he was generous enough to loan us one of his microscopes.  The scope has three powers - 6.5, 10 and 40 - and is used for looking at objects that have some size to them.  It is not really powerful enough to look at single cell organisms but is great for objects one finds on a beach.  It took us about an hour to figure out how to use the microscope and its various adjustments.  The best thing we saw was a tiny copepod, fully formed but nearly invisible to the naked eye.  Under the microscope we could see it's feelers, tail and segmented body.  We didn't try to identity which species of  copepod it was because there are thousands.  

 Scientist scoping

After playing around in the cockpit with our scientific instruments we decided to take a hike out to the lighthouse at Turn Point.   The round trip hike to the lighthouse is 6.5 miles and involves some climbing as Stuart Island is quite hilly.  One the way one passes the one room school schoolhouse that is one of the last active ones in the U.S.  The route takes one past many a pastoral view across the small farms over the sea.  

      Pastoral view on Stuart Island

The  lighthouse lighthouse itself is perched on a bluff at Turn Point up above where  Haro Straight and Boundary Pass come together.  There are always large ocean going freighters to be seen going to and from the port of Vancouver, British Columbia.   From the lighthouse one can look across to the West and see Vancouver Island in the distance and dozens of smaller islands in the foreground as Stuart Island is the last island in America - from here it is only about 4 miles over to Canadian waters.   Being so close to the border our cell phone is confused as to where it is and we have poor cell and E-Mail service.

  Lighthouse at Turn Point

When we got back to the LIBERTE about 1530 we got a garbled message on the phone from Lindsey.  She has suffered an ice cream scooping injury to her wrist that will prevent her from working for the next week at the place of her employment, the ice cream shop on Bainbridge Island, and she wants to come up to the boat to join us!!!  We got a message back to her saying that that would be fine.  But this new plan means that we will have to be in Friday Harbor at the dock this evening when her ferry from the mainland comes in at 2235.  We untie from the buoy and steam for Friday Harbor about 2 hours away.  We got there in plenty of time to get the boat ready to house another person and to cook one of our favorite dishes - tuna pasta.  Lindsey is a vegetarian (except for bacon and sausages) so we are going to be eating a lot of vegetables for the next week while her wrist recovers.