Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Padilla Bay


After I finished my Disney internship, I got a job with the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. From late May to mid November, I was able to work with some really really cool people and I was (and still am) so grateful for the opportunity to learn the things that I did.

Officially, I worked for the Department of Ecology as a research technician and I did A LOT of seagrass sorting. To make a lengthy job description short: I collected seagrasses from the bay, sorted them into different species, weighed them, and created a monster database for the reserve to use when I left.

Me helping with sea star and barnacle counts on Saddlebag Island:


Seagrass collections and density counts at low tide in the mudflats:


When the low tide was at night during collections, we played with sharks!


Sneak peak of my seagrass sorting:


On the left: What a PVC ring should look like when it comes out of the oven.
On the right: What happens when I'm left in the lab unsupervised with an oven.
We switched to aluminum rings shortly after this because they can withstand the heat much better.


The reserve received an octopus rescue in the fall and I snuck up on it one night before we went out to the mudflats:



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