Oceanography + beach seines

This field trip was all about collecting oceanography data and beach seining for forage fish and also a few bird transects that we didn't get to on the trip before. We headed out to McCarty Fjord and worked our way back to Northwestern Lagoon and Aialik Bay before heading back to Seward. Again, it pissed down rain for most of the trip, but then the sun broke through the clouds on the last day, brightening our spirits and again, we were in paradise.

rocking out in the boat

the Gyre in Northwestern
crazy breakers in Northwestern, right above the morraine

We use a CTD to measure conductivity, temperature, at different depths of the water column at different locations in each bay/fjord.
Yumi & Erica getting ready to cast the CTD

Yumi hauling in the CTD

strike a pose!
Erica...

Yumi...

me..
ya - not sure what that's supposed to be. I was trying to 'vogue'.
Madonna would be disappointed because I definitely didn't succeed in vogueing...

this trip was also about beach seines - we sampled several beaches to get an idea of what kind of fish are out there for the birds to eat. How does a beach seine work? First, 1 person is dropped off onshore with one end of line.

then, the net is unloaded from the boat and the other end of the line is brought onshore
and then we pull.

There are definitely moments, when I think:
it's summer time. my friends Outside are wearing shorts & tank tops. soaking in the vitamin D. and I'm wearing insulated rubber boots, fleece jacket on top of 2 more layers - what the hell am I doing up here in a place where no one boxes up their winter clothes because you have to use them at some point in the summer.
and then I get to beach seine in one of the most amazing national parks and it reminds me of why I love it up here.

Erica loading the beach seine back into the boat.
Yumi measuring the catch.
We fill a bucket with seawater, put the fish in it, and then get them back into the water after measuring them. Almost all the fish survive the process.

bucket o' mostly herring

sculpin

me & Erica pulling up the net

greenling
leaving the last beach