Three weeks in Rhode Island

After 9 days on a boat Lou and I spent the weekend climbing around Lake Tahoe with Eric the last weekend of June. Good times. Then on Monday I boarded a plane headed for Rhode Island. It is a hot, humid state in the summer.
Shaara and I were there for three weeks to process some sample for our theses. We worked really hard, but managed to have a lot of fun too. First the work part
We are both using vertebrae to find out how old a few different species of skates get, and some other life history stuff too. The process is, first decalcify the vertebrae in capsules shown above.Then they go in the space machine, above, for 18 ish hours. It is really called a Autotechnicon, but looks like something from the show "Lost in space". The samples are agitated as they sit for two hours in each of 9 different baths, a dehydration and embedding process.

After the "space machine" each vertebrae is embedded into small wax cubes.
Once embedded we can section them. The top is a what is left of a sectioned vertebrae and the bottom of the photo are the sections.

This is Shaara on the sectioning apparatus, aka sledge microtome. We both spent a lot of hours standing here.

Next vertebral sections go through a multi step staining process. And the finished product....Hundreds of stained vertebral sections ready to be aged.It may be that I have a lot of time invested in them, but I think they are cool to look at. I will spend the next year working up the data and counting growth bands so that one day I can graduate and get paid to learn about sharks. Now the fun...
We got a tour of a long line fishing vessel . This is the sword part of a swordfish. Then there were the shark tournaments. The Dunkin Donuts cup clues you in to the fact that we are on the East coast; the shark being weighted is a common thresher. Lisa (that's her in the photo, Shaara and I stayed at her house while in RI and she taught us everything we know about the histology process described above) and other biologist at NMFS go to sport tournaments for sharks to collect samples every summer. Most of the fishermen let the biologist get samples and measurements from their sharks, which allows biologist to keep an eye on changing trends.
If I could design my ideal job it would be Lisa's, but on the west coast. She gets to work on sharks all the time, go out on boat's regularly for tagging & surveys and gets to see a lot of really cool stuff.
Shaara and I got to help out at a tournament on Martha's Vineyard, (and at this smaller one in RI). It was nothing short of a cultural experience. I would definitely do it again. One thing that was really reinforced while at the tournament is how miss-informed the general public can be. Don't believe what any activist group tells you until you look into it yourself, otherwise you aren't getting the whole story or may be told completely untrue things.
This is a common thresher. The large organ out closest to the head is the liver. Sharks have a huge oily liver to help them maintain neutral buoyancy in the water.
This is the tournament at Martha's Vineyard. After biological info is collected the sharks are fillet, mako and common thresher are good tasting. We were really busy at this tournament moving from one animal to the next. The white bucket on the first table is what the liver is weighed in, often the liver fills the bucket.
All samples have to be properly labeled, this is a short-fin mako. Those teeth mean business.
The tail!
The crowds!
The sunburn! The tournament on Martha's Vineyard has a minimum weight limit of 250lbs (this is above the legal limit) I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing this is one of the mako's that didn't make weight.
After three weeks we headed to Montreal for the American Elasmobranch Society meeting. We spent an afternoon in Boston to see some history before getting on the plane.
The USS Constitution. If you are in Boston it is a must see. Especially if you are married to Louie. Yes, there was a thunderstorm for most of walking tour of the city.
No, we were not dressed for rain.
The cannons took 12+ men to operate with 15 feet of recoil. The hull is three layers of wood thick giving the boat the nickname Ironside.
Once in Montreal I spent my time listening to the talks on sharks and at the bar. I got to meet a lot of the big names, other students, and learn about some interesting work being done. We had fun, and several good microbrews.
There is a nice park in the middle of Montreal I got to a few times. Our last day we spent exploring the city and hiking around the park.
Shaara, Lewis and I at the viewpoint in the park. It is pretty flat around Montreal, we are standing on the tallest hill in sight.

Tourist photo moment.

On our exploring we did see some wildlife, and since we had the time and digital memory I had to take their pictures.

Shark Tagging

Three weeks ago I got to join the National Marine Fisheries Service out of San Diego for their shark survey. It was 9 days on a commercial boat with the crew and 5 other scientists. We did two sets a day,4 miles of long line gear to catch Thresher, Mako and Blue sharks. A few times we did a set after dark too.
IT WAS AWESOME! I had never been on a long liner before, I liked that mode of fishing. I got to see a ton of super cool things. I got to do everything from baiting hooks to tagging sharks. It was the coolest thing to bring an animal up on the line, tag it, measure it, and then release it and watch it swim away. Some of the bigger animals would hang out by the boat for a little while with their tagged dorsal sticking out of the oceans surface. A few of them even attacked the cradle after getting back in the water. One particularly large Mako tried bitting the boat several times. The largest shark I helped to restrain was a beauty, 2.3 meter Mako. Even the really small animals are very very strong. So while two men held down the head and mid-body I was in charge of just the tail, the last 2 feet of the animal. Despite my greatest efforts the shark had no trouble lifting its tail up 5 inches or so raising me along with it. My 130 pounds of pressure didn't count for much.
I didn't ever think I would get the opportunity to tag sharks, there just aren't very many people that do that kind of work (it cost a lot, there is a load of paperwork involved for many species, and it is very competitive). The experience of tagging sharks is one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I just love sharks, seeing them, learning about them, seeing more of them, actually getting to work on live animals. AMAZING, FANTASTIC, FUN, AND WOW!
There is a lot more to say about my trip, but I will let the pictures and videos take care of that.
This is a Thresher shark, the first big shark we got. They use their tails to stun their prey, so for their size their teeth are actually really small, but their tails are incredibly long.
This is the first shark that I tagged, it is a young Blue shark.
This is another young blue, not the most original name, but fitting.
In action, tagging a blue shark.
Two of the deckhands spent every spare minute fishing. This is a flying fish they caught, just one of the other cool things. The first night out we watch a sea lion chasing the flying fish around the boat for 30 minutes or so, the sea lion never came close to getting one.
Here is a satellite tag getting put on. It is a pop off tag, which means in a few months the cord attaching it will be cut and it will float to the surface. Data is transmitted via satellite every time the shark surfaces, but if the tag is retrieved they can get a lot more information.Mako shark with sat tag happy to get back into the ocean. You can see where the data from the fish we tagged of the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) website.
Go shark and send back lots of data!
This is a shot of John and I enjoying the sunny southern CA weather in between sharks. The weather in southern Cali is pretty nice, even on the water.
The big ones have to be brought up in the cradle. It can be a bit tricky.
This is a big blue shark, Prionace glauca.
Once they shark is in the cradle and brought on the boat we put a pvc hose in their mouth to provide oxygen. The eyes are covered for two reasons, the first is to protect them, the second is to protect us if they cant see us it will be harder for them to aim a bite.There are the big ones like the two above and then there are the great big ones. We estimated this Mako to be 280 centimeters. There was never any question that it was too big to bring on board, but they were still able to get a satellite tag in!
Beautiful animal!

Another Beautiful Yosemite Climb!

Our most recent adventure took us back to Yosemite once again. We figure we will get as much mileage out of that park as we can while we are so close to it. Unlike our previous trip where we got completly skunked by the weather this trip was full of clear skies and 80 deg afternoons. We got an early start on saturday and were the first party to get to After Six but a long shot. This was an absolutley beautiful climb with lots of good 5.6 pitches. It was so much fun we decided to decend and do it again only to find four other parties on the route. What a mess! The belayer was litterally pulling there follower up the first pitch with and second party leading directly behind them literally pushing the said followers butt up the rock. I fully regret we did not get a picture. Needless to say we moved on to bag some fun short cracks on the numerous othe great walls. If you can lead 5.7 crack all you need for After Six is a set of cams 0.5-3, double on 0.75,1,2 and sneakers to walk off. I would recommend a little snack and some water because the view at the top is great and why not hang out and enjoy it. We were able to get car to car with a party of three in 4.5 hrs. Our good friend, Eric, tagged along.

Chalking up on the pitch one. What a great climb!


Lou, totally excited after placing our newly purchased #3 cam for the first time ever. The largest we own. Always good to be breaking in new gear.

Eric and Jasmine looking good with an awesome view of the Valley.
Jasmine rocking the last pitch of After Six on lead. She has been working on her trad leading skills and comfort level. Look ma, only 4 pieces in 80 feet.

Day two of climbing. Eric vs. Bush. Unfortunatley the bush won, eric was forced to go around but not before tearing out a few branches and throwing a sling around it for pro. Eric has also been working on his leading skills.

Eric, making good time on lead...post bush.

Fun Facts Quiz: Round 2

Melanie has correctly answered the quiz once again. She is looking like a pretty good candidate to be recieving a baked goodie!
The answer to the questions are as follows...

Sharks: maintian their neutral buoyancy throughout the water column by regulating the amount of squalene, an oil with low specific gravity, is in their liver. As they move to different depths their bodies produce more or metabolise off the oil as necessary to adjust to the new depth.

Rock Fish: These fish maintian their neutral buoyancy with the most intuitive method. They have gas bladders that they can fill or drain air from in order to adjust to different depths.

Halibut: Throwing this fish in the mix was someting of a trick question. Halibut are a ground fish, like flounder, and rarely rise more than a few feet off of the sea bottom. They have no need, and hence no method, of maintaining neutral buoyancy. They must actively swim up in the water column and as soon as they stop swimming they sink to the bottom.


It is time for round two of the animal fun fact quiz. In the ocean an animal can expend a lot of energy moving from one depth to another. Fish have developed unique and really cool ways of maintaining neutral buoyancy at different depths efficiently. We are going to make you work a little bit at this one. It is a multiple part question. The question for this round is: name the primary method rock fish, shark, and halibut use to maintain their position in the water column.

Happy fact finding!

Liquid Sunshine

We had been planning to climb in Yosemite over memorial weekend for a long time. Pete and Lane made the trip down from Portland to join us. Mariah decided to join us and two other friends, Eric and Kris from Santa Cruz. The forecast was 30% chance of rain Friday and Saturday. Usually that means fewer people and afternoon dampness. So we drove across the state and got into the park just before dark.

Here is most of the crew enjoying Bridal veil falls without any crowds just before dark. The mist is all from the falls.

We arrived in camp, set up and started telling stories and laughing. Routes for the next morning were decided and bags were packed, to bed we went ready for the great day that Saturday would be.....
We were woke up in the middle of the night by liquid sunshine, no good, no good. Here is the crew in the drizzle facing the change in plans. Since the rock was wet we headed to Mariposa grove for some tree hugging and hiking.Still smiling even though the drizzle had increased. These trees are called the bachelor and three sisters, or something like that.
This is the biggest tree in the grove, quite a site. Hug a tree.
The hiking was fun, we saw every tree we could, hugged a few and had a snowball fight. Returning to the valley it became obvious that it had been raining all day there too. The view was still nice, the clouds had lifted enough to see El Cap.After dinner we went to inspect some climbs. The cracks all had running water in them, it would take a solid day of sunshine to dry things out and the forecast was for rain rain rain. So we decided to get up early and head to Pinnacles, because it doesnt rain in the desert. It rained all night, some of the tents were sitting in water by morning, which made leaving a bit easier. We got a glimpse of halfdome on the way out of the park, there was snow on top! Lou and I were really bummed not to climb, but it was cool to see the park in a different condition.
To our disappointment the rain didn't let up as we drove west, in fact as we got closer to Pinnacles it got worse. Plan C, to the Fraurer house for dinner, margaritas, and an intense game of Monopoly.
Monday we finally managed to find a craig covered in sunshine and climbed until dark.
It was wonderful to see Pete and give Lane a few more hugs before he heads back to Panama. And now we know that 30% chance is a good chance of rain.Jaz climbing next to the waterfall. Great spot, amazing views, a waterfall, some practice smearing, it really doesn't get much better.

Weekend in the City

Lou and I spent a weekend in San Francisco with my Grandparents. My grandparents took a cruise through the panama canal from Florida and hung out a few days in our area. It was great fun to be ride the cable cars, tour the city and hang out with the family. The weather was amazing, but we never did get a good view of the bridge through the bay fog. We had lunch on Pier 39 and watched the sea lions battle for space on the floating docks. It is an entertaining site.

Going down the last hill on the cable line to the bay. Alcatraz in the background and another cable car coming up the hill.
Cable car Power house. It is worth the stop.
Jasmine and Grandpa Fred.
We also enjoyed the china town shops, filled with enough trinkets to last a life time. We tried some items from a bakery. I can't say I would recommend anything we had. Lou and I also wandered around Union square. We were surprised to see shirts, pants, and skirts for well over $1,000. None of which had diamonds or other precious gems attached. Ridiculous!
Before my grandparents headed south to Santa Barbara we spent a day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and a tour of the lab. It was a fun filled visit.