Amanda Gray's Photos

We rode in a van up to the marina at Edmonds, hopped on board a little motorboat owned by UW Fisheries, and met our research vessel, the Clifford A. Barnes, on the other side of the breakwater.

The Barnes is a cute little guy, outfitted with a crane, a tiny lab, a galley, crew quarters, science team quarters, and one head (a/k/a toilet). He rolls like crazy, even on tiny waves. (Unfortunately, it was a sunny, clear, calm day when we went out, so

This was the scientific motivation for the cruise: there's going to be a new seweage outfall (the "brightwater" project) located here, at Point Wells. We went out to record data that will form a baseline that oceanographers and environmentalists can use later to determine (quantitatively) the effects the sewage outfall has on the local marine environment. The presence of this Chevron refinery is one of the reasons why Point Wells was chosen.

The pedagogical motivation was to get all the students out on the water and familiar with the tools that oceanographers use...

The CTD Rosette is a handy tool of the physical oceanographer, a 500-pound collection of sensors and water sample bottles. Most of the components on this one were made by SeaBird Electronics (who also makes many of the components that the seagliders use).

The cool thing about the CTD Rosette is that it takes a number of different measurements -- conductivity (to determine salinity, just like we talked about in electromagnetism), light transmission (to determine the amount of particles in the water), fluorescence (to determine the amount of chlorophyll, ie, phytoplankton in the water), temperature, depth, distance from the bottom, visible light from the surface -- and sends all the data back along the conducting cable that the crane uses to lower and raise the hulking thing in the water. We watch the profiles of that data in real-time as the CTD is lowered, and then use that information to figure out where to take water samples on the way back up. Simple and elegant!

I'm pretty sure I played with something like this in the sand box in pre-school. The sediment grabber is a simple device, the sort of thing that shows up in Engineering Statics homework assignments: it's open as it drops to the bottom, because there's no force on the handles; when you pull up on the handles, it closes, trapping a chunk of mud and gravel (sediment) inside. Then you haul it back on the boat, dump the contents in a big box with a mesh bottom, and wash away the mud to reveal the biomass -- usually flatworms. (Ugh. I am so not a biologist.)

There were 4 differnt plankton nets on board the Barnes, but I was only present for the deployment of two: the small phytoplankton net, a 64 micrometer mesh that caught mostly arrow worms, copepods, diatoms and dino flagellates, and the zooplankton net, a 355 micrometer mesh with a cap that can be triggered so only zooplankton from a certain depth is sampled. That's how we caught a baby octopus and baby jellyfish.

On the way home, we passed West Point, the current sewage outfall site. Look for the "light house" -- the thing that looks like a radio tower -- to recognize the point. We also passed by the marina at Shilshoe and the old sea lion "haul out". It's a big iron cage on a floating pier that the sea lions like to hang out on; back when they were camping at the Ballard Locks to eat the returning salmon, people used to catch them here, then haul them down to California. Usually by the time the trucks got back to Seattle, the sea lions had gotten back, too.

This was the first time I've ever been through the Ballard Locks. The most interesting thing about the locks is the way they work: close a gate, bring water in, open a gate, let water out. It's that simple! I tried to record a movie on my little digital camera of the Barnes' ascension, but I haven't retrieved it from the camera yet.

Everyone knows about the fish ladder at the locks: that's how the salmon -- and sturgeon, and some other species of fish -- return to the freshwater spawning rivers they were born in after a couple years out at sea. But how do the little fry get out of those rivers? Through the white chutes next to the ladders.

Everyone has their first time through the locks, and the folks who work the locks are used to giving instructions to people who are freaking out. They also posted a good piece of advice, for those observant enough...