Willapa Bay; A Retrospective

Two weeks ago I went to Willapa Bay on a recon mission. Katie Naphtali came along as my companion and field assistant. We walked out to two oyster aquaculture areas that we will be sampling later on in June. I was checking to see how these sites were faring since last year, getting spatially oriented with respect to the different oyster bed types and grabbing the sensors that have been logging temperature and light intensity since last summer. Some of these sensors were fouled – covered in barnacles and algae – but surprisingly, many of them looked fine and were still blinking away, thus indicating that they were still logging.
Quintessential KT pose above.

Pendant Loggers (the sensors)

KT did an admirable job slogging it out in the mud with a nasty cold, but I think I might have given her a false impression of fieldwork – we didn’t have to get down on our knees once and there was no grit to be had under the fingernails. And that was just fine, as we were en route home to Vancouver for a friend’s wedding. Despite some major Burden problems (that’s my vehicle as usual!) we made it back to BC for Genny and Chris’ fabulous wedding. Unfortunately, worked called me back to the States, and I headed back early the next week – the first of many summer road trips to come.