Day off report by Rania:

A day full of fun and excitement! Finally the weather began to get better. This was our day off, so we all made sure to make the most out of it and to explore the area as much as possible.

As for me and Robert, we went on a whale watching trip which turned out to be really great as we saw five humpback whales and we managed to take a few good pictures of them too.

Later we went on a tour that took us all around Monterey, from cannery row to the 17 miles drive. The scenery there was just amazing. After coming back we had a walk all around Fisherman’s Wharf.

We just didn’t let the fun end up so quickly; later in the evening Anna, Shinae and Sean suggested that we would all go out for sushi. I’ve been hearing them talking about wanting to order sushi ever since I got here, so I got curious and wanted to give it a try. Robert also decided to come along.

I believe it was really exciting to try something totally new. I tried different kinds of sushi. Honestly, I thought I wouldn’t like any, but to my surprise, some of them were really good!! My favorite one is called “pink lady” which is mainly made out of crabs. I think I might become a sushi lover too !

Today's report from Shinae:

Another fabulous day on Bottlenose dolphin survey! The weather wasn't too cooperative with clouds and thick mist, which almost felt like a rain, but we were prepared with lots of layers. Today's dolphin survey team, Brian, Robert, Rania, Sean and I left Moss Landing harbor shortly after 8am and saw two dolphins just as we were leaving the channel. We followed them to the south part of the bay and saw our first school of dolphins consisting of at least two pairs of cow/calf pairs and a few adults.

As the dolphins started to scatter we moved to the North Bay where we spotted a second school of dolphins included at least seven to ten dolphins. Among them, we observed as two dolphins cooperatively chased, pinned , and played with a large fish. As the dolphins tossed the fish into the air near the surf line, Sean identified the prey as a King salmon . It was an incredible sight!

The waves getting roughter and the wind was cold but we coudln't possibly call it a day, so we decided to go back to the South Bay to see if the first school of dolphins we saw ealier was still around. We started seeing few dolphins as we came close to the channel of the harbor and several more off the South Bay. The two cow/calf pairs we observed ealier in the morning from the first school of dolphins were still there! The excitement started when Sean and Brian shouted out "One of them caught a fish!!". We all turned around kept our eyes open (I kept my camera open) to see what it has in it's mouth. It was extremely hard to take a snap shot of the dolphin when it came out of the surface with a light colored object in it's mouth. I managed to take a single photo that is hard to clearely identify what it was in the dolphin's mouth.

Later when we came back to the house, Daniela thought it might have been a fetus of the dolphin, which she has seen a dead calf/immature fetus carried around by dolphins. On our way back to the harbor from such an exciting day at the sea, we saw a sealion feeding on a sunfish. Aside from being wet and cold, It truly was an amazing day.

This morning at 10am, Sean will be speaking about whale disentanglement on the local NPR station:KUSP 88.9 Santa Cruz. If you are in the bay area this morning, give a listen. It should also be posted on the web soon after the program is aired.

Listen to to the broadcast at http://www.kusp.org/shows/totb.html.

Please note: Although the written description of the program for September 28th is incorrect, the file does have the correct recording.

Thank you, Ruth, for sending the care package! We all agreed that your homemade cookies were delicious, the Belmont Hill water bottles have already been utilized in the field and I LOVED the maple cookies!

How, you may ask, does Ruth know I am so fond of maple? It's probably because she watched me wolf down two giant maple bars at the Woodwards Marine fuel dock the morning of the Whale Disentanglement. It could also be that I talk endlessly about eating maple cotton candy at the Big E. I hope all New Englanders that have been reading the blog have also made a trip to my favorite fair. (Maple cotton candy can be found in the New Hampshire Building, Enjoy!)

A Great First Day in the Field for Team 5 Sea Otters: Report by Brian and Audioblog by Lynn

Though the weather was cloudy and quite cool, not atypical for Moss Landing and the mouth of Elkhorn Slough in Monterey Bay – even in September, the marine mammal activity was fabulous, perhaps also not atypical. As the Sea Otter monitoring group entered the coastal state park observation area, several dozen harbor seals were lying and resting on the sandy beach along the slough. A multitude of shore birds were active, but for me, most amazing were the dozens of brown pelicans flying all around. At the observation area just inside the breakwater/channel of the slough, about 30 of the roughly 80 southern sea otters that live in the slough were “hanging out”. Shortly after learning the sea otter activity monitoring data taking requirements and procedures, the bottlenose dolphin monitoring team on the Bay reported significant dolphin activity just outside the Moss Landing breakwater, so we scurried to the Bay side of the dunes and the jetty. There we saw an active group of dolphins that remained in the general area until we left in the early afternoon. This in fact was atypical, as the dolphins had not been sighted in this area by the Earthwatch teams all summer. The sights were amazing, and included sighting a mother and her calf gallivanting inside the channel. Add to that the numerous harbor seals that curiously checked us out all day, and the occasional sea lion, it was a marine mammal lover’s paradise!

But the neatest sea otter experience occurred on our way home. Just prior to leaving the park area and getting on California Highway 1, we saw a single sea otter in the slough right next to the road. The road was actually a land bridge between two bodies of water in the slough with six buried underwater culverts that facilitated the tidal flow of water under the bridge. As it turned out, this medium grizzled, middle-aged otter was actively foraging clams and mussels. Adult sea otters, weighing about 45 – 60 pounds, eat about 15 pounds of food daily to maintain their weight and body temperature. This area of the slough, and in particular the 2 foot diameter culverts, was apparently a rich food source. With the otter so close to the shore and road (sometimes within 30 feet), the team was able to positively identify it as a female, a very rare observation – males are somewhat easy to identify but females can seldom be confirmed unless accompanied by a pup.

We postponed our return to the house for nearly an hour, recording the event as the otter continuously dove and foraged in front of our very eyes. On two occasions she retrieved a cluster of mussels numbering 10-12, and she proceeded to crack each shell and devour its contents. When the otter found a particularly large clam, we observed that she would also grab a rock, which it placed on its belly and then used her paws to slam the clam on the rock to break it open. Her final dive seemed to be taking longer than previous dives – she had been surfacing in about 30 seconds because of the good food supply, though otters can stay submerged for up to 5 minutes if necessary – and then we noticed that she had surfaced on the other side of the road! The otter swam through the culvert to the other side, where this summer’s teams had never seen an otter. In fact, that area of the slough had not even been designated a number, so today we assigned it as Area Zero.

It was exciting to observe the otter actively foraging at such close range, and to see the otter do something not previously sighted. It was a great way to end our first day in the field. We are looking forward to more great experiences as we continue our research.

Welcome Team 5!

As usual, we have an international crew! From left to right: Robert is from Malta and Rania is from Egypt; they have both been sponsored by their employer HSBC bank to participate in the project and are charged with doing a community outreach project when they return home. They are both excited, and sure to take the experience home. Brian and Lynn are joining us from Austin, Texas. This is their first Earthwatch team, and they have come ready for all tasks! (They've also been putting in some additional hours in the kitchen...as I type this, I am smelling Brian's lasagna cooking in the oven...mmmmmmmm). Last, but not least, are Jill and Sarah our mother-daugher powerhouse from Whales. Over the past several years, Sarah has volunteered on lots of dolphin projects all over the world, and she has taken her mum along to help us in Monterey Bay. We appreciate their experience with the dolphins, and are showing them the ropes with our friendly otters.

Do you like sushi? Our crew certainly does. the project staff members ritually dine on sushi between teams.

Between Teams 1 and 2 we went to the Crystal Fish on Lighthouse; between 2 and 3 we tried out Takara in Pacific Grove one day and another evening we used our chopsticks to pick maki and nigiri off of the otter trays at Toyota on Wave St; between 3 and 4 we sampled the fish at Sakuru on Lighthouse; and on our most recent break....we enjoyed sushi 3 nights in a row!! It was a must after we were joined by Shinae Yoon who is a student of Daniela's back at UMASS and a fellow sushi addict. We went back to the Crystal Fish on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday evening brought us back to the resting otters at Toyota. Yummmmmm.......

Farewell to Team 4!

It was an exciting team, and everyone was very patient with the unfriendly sea conditions that we encountered.
Although we didn't have too much in the way of dolphin photo id, we had a lot of great experiences. it was the first team that we tried a night otter survey, and now we know that when the sun sets....it gets dark.

And I never did get the full story about the egg.

Happy Birthday Andy!

Otter Census:

Today Celine, Ashley and Tom joined Tom Kieckhefer on the otter cenus in the slough. We met Tom K at the North Harbor launch ramp in the late morning, and before departing into the slough he shared with us his sea otter collection. He had shells as examples of different prey items, an otter skull, a pelt and in the photo, Ashely is holding a 15lbs weight that illstrates how much food an adult otter consumes in one day!

The crew was up the slough for over 4 hours and the counted 69 otters for the day, and one sickly sea lion up at Kirby Park.

Do you recognize this team leader?

Teleconference with Tom Jefferson:

Even though Tom, our co-PI, couldn’t join Team 4 in the field, he joined us remotely today to explain his part in the project. You can read back to last team’s entries to learn more about the dolphin biopsy study.

Thornyback ray:

While Ashley and I were observing otters in Area 11 from the wildlife viewing deck, we observed a Hermann’s seagull picking at what appeared to be a piece of garbage that had washed up onto the muddy shore of the slough. After the gull had moved on to something more exciting, I tromped down through the pickleweed to pick up the garbage. However, it was not trash at all, but rather a dead and rotting carcass of a thornyback ray! Later, when Nick picked it up, we found some hooks and line that may have snagged the animal and eventually led to its demise. We’ll have to check with Sean to be sure.

North bay dolphin survey:

This morning we departed from Moss Landing Harbor and headed North with Sean, Andy, Nick, Ashley and myself aboard the Astirix. For the past couple of weeks, we’ve had poor luck in the north part of Monterey Bay, at least in the dolphin department. It could be the greater amount of boat traffic between Moss Landing and Santa Cruz, or they could utilized this area later in the day, or in the evening when the seas are usually too unfriendly to conduct a survey. Anyways, we still have to go north because it is important to determine where the volunteers are not. Also, we may find that the dolphins that we do encounter in the northern part of the bay are different individuals or that the dolphins display different behaviors in this area.

I’ll have to look at our data to confirm my hunch, but it seems that whenever we depart north, we motor all the way up to the cement ship, past Manresea Beach, and don’t encounter dolphins until we are almost back to Moss Landing Harbor, passing Pajaro Dunes and the north part of Moss Landing State Beach for the second time. Sure enough, that’s what happened today. After collecting lots of balloons on the water, Andy was the first to spot ourdolphins today (HE BEAT SEAN!), and we saw around eight individuals. Ashley kept track of our position and dolphin behavior on the survey log, while Andy and Nick observed the bowriders. I got a few good shots of Joker and her calf, the mom of the lesioned calf and some excellent photos of Octagon.

A Day off update from Tom:

Day 6 was the “Day Off” for Team 4 – a day for Anna, Peter and Sean to recharge their batteries and for the rest of us to see some of the sights of Monterey.

Andrew, Nick and Peter went scuba diving off Carmel State Beach. This location afforded them a fantastic dive in and around the kelp forest. The end of the dive had its own excitement provided by a shortage of air, lots of entangling kelp
and a goodly distance from shore. All was well in the end with the divers both tired and exhilarated. Celine joined the divers vicariously, watching from the car park/beach, while spending some time in the sun at the seashore.

After returning to the house to drop off Peter, dive gear and get cleaned up a bit, Andrew Nick and Celine went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Andrew and Nick capped off their day with a drive down the Big Sur Coast and KFC in a turnout watching the sunset.

Celine stayed downtown to further enjoy the aquarium and then explored some of the wonders of Cannery Row and area.

Ashley, joined by her mother who drove in from Fremont, spent much of the day at the Aquarium and then they pursued the delights of shopping in the Monterey area, getting all manner of good things to equip Ashley for the beginning of her second year at University of California – Davis. (For Peter’s information they were shopping at TARGET.)

Gail and Tom delved into the mysteries of the MST (Monterey Salinas Transit) and, having mastered same, got an early start to the Aquarium by bus. Attendance at the aquarium was delayed somewhat due to the sighting of the Starbuck’s Coffee shop on Cannery Row in which the banana bread was calling loudly to us. After about four hours of Aquarium, we were off to Fisherman’s Wharf followed by downtown Monterey, some great Mexican food and a bus ride home.

In the afternoon Anna and Peter joined Sean at Elkhorn Slough to help with his shark and ray study – trapping, tagging and releasing batfish, rays and guitarfish. While Sunday was a beautiful day the mud on the bottom of the slough was up to their knees and extremely sticky.

Everyone was ‘home’ by 19:45 (get used to the 24 hour clock when doing otter and dolphin sighting reports) at which time we all had an excellent pizza thanks to Peter for the dough and to Celine for the finalization and baking.

A good day had by all.

Mmmmmmmm Passionfish!

This restaurant is turning out to be one of my favorites. I had the duck for the second time in a row and Tom and I both agreed that the squash soup was divine. Lots of fun, lots of wine, and I couldn’t resist the warm chocolate dessert. Can’t remember the name, but it is not cookie, not brownie, not cake, just warm rich gooey chocolate. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Tough life of a gaper clam:

This afternoon, Tom and I were observing a foraging otter in Elkhorn Slough, just east of the Route 1 bridge. We watched this young male dive down and come up without prey nine times in a row. On the tenth resurfacing, we saw him with an ENORMOUS gaper clam. Probably eight paws! I was so amazed, looking at the clam through my binoculars, that I forgot to snap a photo.

Coastal Clean-Up:

Today Celine, Andy, Tom and I were on the otter team. Before starting our observations in the harbor, we decided to take a stroll on the south side of Moss Landing State Beach. Turns out that today is California’s annual Coastal Clean-Up Day, organized by the Ocean Conservancy, We all agreed that it would benefit our otters and dolphins if we rolled up our sleeves and pitched in.

We were provided with two sets of bags- one for garbage and one for recyclables and we took along a data sheet to keep track of select items that we found such as cigarette butts, food wrappers, boating materials etc.

Along the beach, we encountered all types of debris. Some of the more interesting items included a children’s flip-flop and a full bottle of Corona. There were a few dead marine mammals as well including a harbor seal and a very bloated sea lion. We also found LOTS of balloons, which are extremely harmful to marine wildlife. After 90 minutes of combing the beach, we turned in 25lbs of waste! Hopefully our efforts, combined with others across the California Coastline, made a significant impact in cleaning up our marine habitat.

No dolphins today:

We were out on the water just long enough for me to snap these great photos of Celine, Tom and Andy. After that we had three great “ID” shots and were done for the day! Actually, the wind was pretty strong today and we left the channel to find a Beaufort 4. There was no way, with the wind and the tall swells that we would be successful at finding dolphins. And even if we did find them, I doubt I’d be able to take many good photos before ralphing over the side of the boat.

Instead, we took a field trip up to Ano Nuevo, which is a great place to see elephant seals! It’s a little too late in the season to see all the adults out for the summer molt, but we did arrive at the shore to find a juvenile hauled out. One of the docents provided us with TONS (well, perhaps a quarter of a ton) of information about these enormous pinnipeds.

Ice Cream Rodeo:

This has certainly turned into a tradition! I must attest to the fact that Lappert’s ice cream tastes it best when riding on the back of our brave stallion. Almost everyone hopped on this time- Peter, I promise we’ll get you on the horse before the end of October.

After the ride was pub games accompanied by lots of laughter. Gail and I enjoyed a quarter spinning marathon, while the boys played….some boy game that I don’t know the name of.

Day 3 update from Nick:

Dolphin watch today, we were told that on average it would take about an hour to find the dolphins. Unbelievably the dolphins were at the mouth of the harbor. The dolphins were observed for about 40 minutes, traveling very fast and hurdling through very shallow surf. Unfortunately the sea state got the better of us very soon so the observation had to be aborted early.

Skipper Sean took us up into Elkhorn Slough via the harbor, during this journey Pete spotted a dead otter and it was agreed that it should be recovered and Monterey Bay Aquarium and the California Department of Fish and Game should be informed. Upon recovery, it was clear that the otter had only just died in the last 1/2 hour or so (it was still warm), so all details were recorded, logged and handed over.

Day 2 update from Nick:

Pete, Nick, Andy and Celine went to Elkhorn Slough to look for a rogue otter that had been approaching people too easily. We did not find the otter but the wildlife, in particular, the birdlife in the Slough is in abundance. Stopping for lunch at ‘Hummingbird Island’ was a treat and surprising to find how territorial hummingbirds were (flying direct at us without any time to duck!)!

In the afternoon we ventured down to Moss Landing to observe the Sea Otter activities, including foraging, grooming, traveling and playing, there was a large population (50ish) in a raft together which was great to watch. Apart from seeing seals, sea lions (and if your name is Andy, a beaver!), an added treat was to observe 2 otters who had never been observed feeding in 3 inlet tunnels that had significant tide flowing through, these otters were going up into the tunnels and came out to feed right at our feet, and watching them crack open the clams with a rock on their chest was cool and cute!