OIMB

Wow, that was fast…. Not sure if I can keep up this rate of postings! OIMB stands for Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. It’s located in Charleston, which is near the mouth of Coos Bay. I’ve been here doing some eelgrass monitoring for the past 3 days. I’m here by myself to get things organized for the rest of the summer. It’s a little hard to motivate yourself to get up at 4:30 and hit the foggy mud flats solo, and so I’m looking forward to a field assistant next week, as I don’t think its healthy when you genuinely think the seagulls are talking to you.

Its been foggy and a bit blustery for the past two days. My first day out was much more pleasant, one of those days when you feel ridiculously spoiled to be at this type of work. This was probably related to the lifting of the fog and my various visits from passing critters. The osprey didn’t seem to mind that I was standing right next to his prey. I only heard the splash as it bombed into the Bay, flying away quickly with a little fish in its talons. The seal and otter passed consecutively, checking me out as I counted swirling blades in standing water.

The tide wasn’t that low so unfortunately I had to make do with touch as opposed to sight as I quantified the percent cover of eelgrass and macroalgae in my quadrats. I’m trying to get a handle on the amount of macroalgae associated with eelgrass in these habitats – and this site has a ridiculous amount: thin sheets of ulvoids and many open-coast species that drift into the estuaries. I also count the density of eelgrass shoots in the quadrats – I’ll do this monthly this year to determine seasonal cycles of eelgrass in the Bay.

As the tide began to rise, and passing boats and animals left their wake I started to feel seasick with the rippling incoming wavelets – a perfect curl for fairy surfers! Luckily I finished my measurements along the transect line just in time for the flooding tide to hide the bottom from my view.

I’m tired (most likely attributed to a splendid day of climbing at Smith Rock prior to this trip) and am heading home for the weekend tomorrow morning to recuperate for next week and fetch my field help.