Musings of a Citizen Scientist--Time and Tide Wait for No Man or Beluga

This entry is part of a series that describes my participation in the Cook Inlet Beluga Monitoring Citizen Science Project

Sunday September 1, 2019.  Anchorage Small Boat Launch.

The trio of tugs sortie from the float adjacent to the small boat ramp toward the Anchorage wharves as I arrive to begin my two-hour shift scanning the waters of the Cook Inlet for beluga whales.  I surmise the vessels will assist the impending departure of the blue Tote Maritime Lines cargo ship.  Today’s session is one of many over the next three month in the citizen science project to catalog the presence and behavior of beluga under the auspices of the Beluga Whale Alliance and the Alaska Beluga Whale Monitoring Program. The observation period begins in a few minutes at 5:00 p.m. This is my fourth session in eight days at this location and I have yet to spy anyone of the critters.  Harbor seals have been viewed regularly, but thus far no beluga.  Maybe today will be the day! 

Scanning the coastline reveals the physical environment in which today’s monitoring occurs.  Launching anything from the boat ramp would be impossible given the gap between the base of the ramp and water’s edge. The tugs move slowly into the industrial port immediately to the north.  A bit closer, the deep furrow through the grey mud that marks the mouth of Ship Creek lies well above the waterline. The adjacent tidal flats appear littered with fallen tree trunks and root balls—the water-worked remains of once living trees deposited by the eroding shoreline or washed down waterways that enter into the Inlet.  In the next two hours, the incoming tide will fill the boat ramp, inundate the creek channel and cover most of the surrounding tidelands, which when exposed is a mud slurry best described as “part water, part glacial till, punctuated by exposed channels and dead trees.” 

In Cook Inlet, the tide does not so much “rise” as it does “flow” or “flood” On this day, as shown by the graph from the Tides4Fishing website, the second of the two low tides that day was three-quarters of an hour earlier at -4.0 feet.  The next high tide will be at 9:44 p.m. at 33.0 feet, a change of 37 feet in 5 ½ hours--a lot of water movement.  These levels are not quite the maximum low tide for Anchorage of -5.6 feet and a maximum high of 34.4 feet, but pretty close.  The tidal coefficient in red at the top of the chart indicates the likelihood of major currents and fish movements upstream on the incoming tide—two features which factor into beluga behavior.

The  United States Coast Pilot 9 for the vicinity of Anchorage helps put into context what I am seeing:

“Close off the town, the current floods northeast at a velocity of 1.5 knots and ebbs southwest at a velocity of 2.5 knots. One mile off the town, the current averages 2.9 knots. Strong currents that attain velocities of 4 knots or more, at times, in midchannel, and swirls in the area make navigation difficult. It is reported that the flood following the higher of the low waters is unpredictable, especially during the last 3 hours, in the vicinity of the Port of Anchorage wharves.”

The energy of moving this water volume is evident as the dead trees lift with the rising tide and entrain in the tidal rips moving quickly past out observation point.  Each draws our attention, as any out of the ordinary movement on the water is likely to do when scanning for beluga.  Binoculars on the target confirm it is a submerged log; one of many we see that day.  It seems a collision between a boat and the log would leave the boat much worse off from the encounter.  In some cases, when the log may float near vertical, it would appear that the cryptid Loch Ness monster resides in the Inlet as well as the beluga.

These conditions are conducive to observing beluga.  According to NOAA’s 2016 Cook Inlet Beluga Recovery plan “habitat use in the summer months consists of semi-predictable movements of groups of belugas between river mouths and shallow tidal flats in the upper Inlet. These movements are largely cued to physical conditions, especially tide…. Traditional ecological knowledge indicates that daily movements are determined by the ebb and flow of the tide and the related movements and size of fish runs,...”

Soon, we spot three beluga—an adult, juvenile, and calf travelling to the north past the port.  It would seem that ingredients for a sighting were present, just add beluga and the observers to record their transit.  Shortly after the belugas pass, the tugs escort the cargo vessel out of the port and into Knik Arm where it heads southbound for its next destination.  These movements as well as other factors are duly recorded.

It is time to go Belugaing

Perched on the rocks at Beluga Point, I scan the waters of Cook Inlet’s Turnagain Arm looking for any signs of beluga or other marine mammals.  My clipboard with the “Report of Beluga Sighting!” form is wedged in a crack in the rocks out of the stiff breeze that moves constantly across the Point’s rock face.  

The two-hour session yields negative results.  Regardless of the lack of sightings, I practice observation skills that have been dormant since the end of the official count last autumn.  My partner and I see nary a beluga or other marine mammal.  None-the-less, upon returning home, I file the report through the on-line link.  Even a negative report provides one more piece data that may help solve the mystery of why the Cook Inlet Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of beluga whales have not recovered as expected.  

On that day, April 29, most of the action centers near the head of the Arm where the 20-Mile River enters the Inlet.  There, the eulachon (aka hooligan, smelt, and candlefish) ran the gauntlet of marine mammals, birds, and dip netters attracted by the prospect of a meal to enter the river to spawn.  Beluga have been reported and recorded there.

Usually, the arrival of a solitary whale or a pod causes rejoicing among coastal residents.  Summer arrives shortly after sighting that first fluke or breech. But this year, a sense of unease accompanies the first sighting.  Daily reports bring news of deaths of whales along the migration routes.  Alaska alone accounted for dozens, although none were Cook Inlet beluga.. On the day I mountain goat into position among the rock at Beluga Point, the stranding of a young humpback whale farther up the Arm caused a stir of concern and curiosity.  Scientists took tissue samples for a necropsy, a kind of marine mammal post mortem.  This stranding was one of an unexpectedly high many during the annual migrations of various .  They are all part a government-declared “unusual mortality event “or “UME” thst focuses expertise and resources on trying to figure identify the cause. In the vernacular of public administration, any circumstance worthy of attention must be rendered into an acronym or it may escape notice.  This year, they take inevitable notice, acronym or not.   

It is time now time to “go belugaing”   to participate as a citizen scientist with the Beluga Whale Alliance and other groups in this autumn’s expanded count of the Cook Inlet beluga whales.  I can’t help but feel this season’s count takes on a greater sense of urgency.  Something is happening in the ocean.  I am not sure which label applies, it just seems that we are approaching a critical point in ocean conditions that needs for me to be involved.  For me, that is participating in the Count.

Seward Mariners' Memorial

Normally a bustling summertime destination, the onset of winter puts the harbor and town into a state of near suspended animation.  Snow on the mountains bordering the glacially carved Resurrection Bay on three sides seems to freeze traffic in and out of port.   

A lonely fishing vessel, head to a stiff north wind, approaches the entrance to Seward’s small boat harbor. The bright sunlight does little to temper the bone-chilling cold that sweeps the crewmember on deck.  He spies a grey and white lighthouse-like structure standing on the townside bank of the channel.  While it marks the last point of solitude before entering the harbor, the structure’s purpose is a mystery.   From seaward nothing but design hints at its function.  Perhaps a stylized daymark or some other aid to navigation?   But, no flashing beacon emanates from its peak and it lacks the traditional appearance of a hazard marker.  

The boat passes the tower leaving it astern as she exits the channel into the harbor.  Empty slips indicate the many vessels that have hauled out or fled with the shortening of each day’s light. Plastic cocoons some that remain against the elements until spring.  Others just seem to hunker down in aquatic hibernation.

The structure is a type of marker.  It serves as a reminder that the sea can be an unforgiving place.  The low metallic wall declares that one is entering the Seward Mariners’ Memorial. 
I discovered the site about four years ago.  I had seen it on trips in and out of the harbor for years, but really did not give it much attention.  That changed when I visited the site on a quiet winter's day.  It is a wonderful place for solitude and reflection with breathtaking views of the panorama of Resurrection Bay.  I make it a habit to visit the site on my overnight trips to Seward to work as a volunteer exhibits diver at the Alaska Sea Life Center.  During the summer, the Memorial offers a respite from the vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the harbor area.


The site honors the memory of Seward mariners who have lost their lives as sea or who have contributed to the local seafaring history and maritime industry.   And what a colorful history it is.

As the Memorial’s information brochure explains, “since its founding in 1903 as a railroad terminus, Seward’s maritime industry has become a sustaining force in the community.  Seward is a small town.  When word comes that a boat is in trouble or has gone down, locals hold their breath.”  It turns out, history shows, they also rally to respond and provide aid and assistance.  

One wall of the sanctuary features 10 historic plaques each“honoring individuals long departed from Seward’s shores.”  Examining the plaques begs the question “what is the story behind two side-by-side plaques commemorating an incident involving the US Coast and Geodetic Survey Ship Surveyor on October 4, 1927.  The plaques contain only the barest of detail, one memorializes two of the victims who drown when their skiff sank; the other the sailor who lost his life attempting their rescue.  Another makes one wonder what happened in February 1946 when 11 souls were lost aboard the Yukon at Johnston Bay in the Gulf of Alaska?  Visitors to town are likely to know more about the Yukon as an old waterfront bar rather than as a vessel associated with the history of the town and Alaska.  These are but three of the many plaques that hint at a story. 


On my most recent trip to Seward In November 2018, I started to investigate some of the details behind the incidents memorialized on the plaques.  I discovered wonderful archival collection and helpful staff at the Seward Museum and Library.  I will begin to retell the stories behind the incident in the entries to this blog in the next few months.

Please Don't Touch the Coral

What’s wrong with this picture? 


A snorkeler, perhaps intent on getting a better view of an organism, grabs on to coral in order to steady himself. 


“So what,” you might exclaim. “I see people do it all the time and have even done it myself.” 
 
Following the admonition, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” I will not toss a rock of criticism at the diver and will confess, “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Luckily, penance for this transgression is easily achieved—stay off the live bottom in the Hawaiian spirit of “Ola na; papa i pulama ‘ia”  (cherish the living reefs). 

Simply touching corals can cause the problems when oils from our skin disturb the mucous membranes that protect the animals from disease. Repeated handling in popular areas can cause the death of an entire colony.  Small seemingly inconsequential actions can accumulate into major effects.  We may think we are just swimming along, but plowing through the reef like a wrecking ball with fins does even worse damage.  I have seen people do both.  Both behaviors are easily controlled.

The Australian Great Barrier Reef Park Authority observes:

• Although divers and snorkelers have had minimal impact so far, there are times when some divers and snorkelers can get a little too close and may stress the marine life or crush and break corals.
• Most damage occurs as a result of those who are unable to maintain good control in the water (for example, through fighting a current, or trying to get a closer look, or taking photographs).
• By having good snorkel and dive practices, you'll be able to preserve this special world for others to experience.

The Authority’s do’s and don’ts is pretty common sense:

• Practice buoyancy control over sand patches before approaching a reef - test buoyancy whenever you're using new equipment such as new wetsuits, buoyancy control devices (BCDs) and cameras.
• Make sure you are properly weighted before diving near a reef.
• Check that all your dive gear is secure before you get into the water so that it doesn't dangle and catch on the reef.
• Move slowly and deliberately in the water, relax and take your time - avoid rapid changes in direction.
• Avoid leaning on, holding onto or touching any part of the reef - this is particularly important when you are taking underwater photographs.

CORAL and PADI’s Project Aware offers these points:

• Never touch corals; even a slight contact can harm them and some corals can sting or cut you.
• Carefully select points of entry and exit to avoid areas of reef.
• Make sure all your equipment is well-secured.
• Make sure you are neutrally buoyant at all times.
• Maintain a comfortable distance from the reef.
• Practice good finning and body control to avoid accidental contact with the reef or stirring up the sediment.
• Stay off the bottom and never stand or rest on corals.
• Avoid using gloves and kneepads in coral environments.

Coral can fight back if touched as I first learned when I brushed up against fire coral in Bonaire. 

I also think the education approach works best.  At Looe Key in the Florida Keys in 1995, I recall being roundly and loudly chastised by a fledgling divemaster who spied rubberized cotton gloves in my dive bag.  The conversation went something like this:

“You can’t wear gloves, you’ll be tempted to handle the coral if you do.”

“Um OK.  I don’t really plan on touching anything.  I know better.  Sorry, I carry the gloves in my bag more out of habit for working around wrecks.”

“Well, you are not diving wrecks. You can’t wear them on the reef.”

"OK, but if you don’t want people to wear gloves, which I get, why does the dive shop you work for sell them in the dockside store or do you do wreck charters as well?” 

He huffed and walked away.

I think every teen divemaster at a resort practices that ‘I know better than you’ sneer that comes with the zealousness of a newly issued DM certification card and a mission to fight coral molestation.  His point was well taken; it just could have been better made.  A better approach might have been to engage in a conversation and education.

Proverbs of Diving--Swimming with Fins

“A proverb is a brief, simple, and popular saying, or a phrase that gives advice and effectively embodies a commonplace truth based on practical experience or common sense.”—Literarydevices.net 

Just because the sign say "No Diving" we can still use fins.

Scuba diving, like many popular activities, uses proverbs, stories, or myths to transmit commonly held beliefs and conventional wisdom from divers in the know to divers who ain’t.  Today’s proverb—you can only maintain physical conditioning for diving with fins by swimming with fins—is one I have often repeated and around which I have designed my aquatic workouts for the last 30 years.  

A kernel of truth exists in the proverb, one that makes intuitive sense.  A dash or pinch of truth is what makes us accept the myth without really questioning its validity.  The fact that the proverb is uttered by an authority figure—instructor, divemaster, assistant instructor—increases its unquestioning acceptance.  Very often, they merely repeat the proverbs they heard in training.  Keep in mind an “expert” in scuba diving, as in Congress, is someone who knows just enough about the subject to provide advice to someone who knows nothing about the subject.

The Journal of Hyperbaric and Undersea Medicine reported in 2007 that "Underwater swimming is a unique exercise and its fitness is not accomplished by other types of training."    Compared to regular swimming, myswimpro.com explained in the blog post 8 Benefits of Swimming with Fins “If there is one item in the equipment bag for improving technique and performance, it’s the fin!...Fins not only make you swim faster, they allow you to swim and kick for longer periods of time building endurance…the added resistance of fins builds strength and power.  Muscle recruitment is at an all time high under the stress of fins.”  Finally, as the article notes, “swimming fast is fun.”


Advertisement for Finis Edge Fin

Like many divers, I tended to dive more April through October.  Yes, there would be occasional dives off-season from Isla Vista or Refugio beaches or in Vortex Springs on the Florida Panhandle near Ponce de Leon. For a couple of years, I tried to establish a tradition of diving on New Year’s Day to start off the year on the right fin, so to speak.  That tradition only lasted a few years.  Finding buddies willing to forego the festivities the night before in order to dive the next morning proved difficult to the point of abandonment.

I recall my open water scuba instructor mentioning that the combination of muscles used for sustaining a good scuba flutter kick could only be replicated by swimming with fins.  From that moment on, I maintained my diving fitness swimming with fins, either in the ocean swimming along the buoy line at Goleta beach of swimming laps in the pool wearing mask, fins, and snorkel.  

My fins were not full size Scubapro Jet dive fins with booties, doing so might look ridiculous.  (Although in an article on Swimming with Fins on Military.com, author Stew Simon notes “the type of fins you should use while preparing for  (for combat swimming profession qualifications)  is a strong scuba type fin that can also be used for scuba diving.”  Indeed, many of the enlisted personnel trying to make the qualification for pararescue that I encounter at Anchorage area pools use Aqualung Jetfins or Scubapro Rockets. Rather, I had a pair of full-foot snorkeling fins or rubber open-heel body boards fins, such as Voits or Churchills, that did the trick.  Today, I use fins specifically designed for fin swimming.

Four pair of fins from my quiver. Black Hydro Tech,.Orange/Yellow DaFin lifeguard,
Yellow Finis Edge, Green Hydro Tech 2,

California had enough ocean open water finswimmers that I was not the only person doing so.  Swimming in the pool was another matter.  I would fin for lap upon endless lap in the pool at the local health club or at the university.  Initially, to the uninitiated my appearance was something of a curiosity.  I recall my brother telling me the story about being at the health club when a woman he worked with told him in disbelief “there has been some nutty guy snorkeling in the pool for over 15 minutes.”  He replied, “yeah, that’s my brother Jim.”  She started to get that look of embarrassment on her face when he explained “that is how he stays in condition for scuba diving with fins.” 

For two years in the late 1980s, we played underwater hockey at the UCSB pool under the tutelage of Don Canestro.  Being able to swim with fins was a prerequisite to playing, being able to efficiently sprint on the surface and below was the key to playing well.   I became a research diver; maintaining that status required an annual water skills proficiency test including an 800 yard swim in the pool with mask, fins and snorkel.  When I moved away from the coast a few years later, year around fin swimming in a pool became the norm, an activity I continue to this day.  I am convinced that swimming with fins conditioned me to do keep diving.  A few years later, I discovered the joys of underwater swimming with "bifins" and a monofin, but that is the subject of an upcoming blog entry.

Caribbean Dreaming

My Facebook page recently featured a feed to a last-day-of-2017 Sport Diver article, Top Ten Caribbean Islands for Scuba Diving.   I am not much one for building lists.  That reluctance may explain multiple trips to the grocery store every week to get things that I forgot on the initial trip.  The list intrigued me for several reasons, but two stand out.  The first is my love of scuba diving coral reefs and my recently arrived interest in coral reef preservation.  The second is the approaching Alaska winter.  All the other reasons pale by comparison to the first two.

 

The ten islands on the Sport Diver list are highlighted on the map

Note: Statia is a small island in the highlighted smudge adjacent to St. Kitts and Nevis

1. Roatan
2. St. Croix (U.S, Virgin Islands)
3. Cozumel
4. Saba (St. Martin)
5. Grenada
6. Bonaire
7. Tobago
8. Statia
9. St. Lucia
10. Cayman Islands

I have dived three of the islands on the list:  Bonaire, Cozumel, and the Cayman Islands.  The itinerary of each of the three islands was organized by Brandon Cole who does this so friends may join his in the field or orchestrated by a local dive shop.  In my dive travels, I don't normally revisit someplace I have been but I would consider an exception for Bonaire and the Caymans.  If the other islands are anything like those two, I wonder why I waited so long to consider going to the remaining seven.  I tried to get to St. Croix last year, but a couple of hurricanes kind of killed the tourist serving amenities on the island. I wanted to get to Roatan the last week of this coming March, but every place I checked into staying was waitlisted.  I need to get an earlier start.  Instead, I planned trips to Kona and Maui, respectively.  I now understand why people arrange group trips a year or two in advance.


Some people would say "be spontaneous; just go."  The folks admire Columbus' voyage of discovery:  he didn't know where he was going, did not know how to get there, and did using someone else's money.  That strategy works sometimes, but the older I get the more I like to have predictability in the itinerary.  I did the "sleep on the beach in Baja" dive trip 30 years ago.  It turned out swell, but required a detour when high winds forced us to switch locations from Mulege to Loretto. Both had camping spots, so accommodations were not an issue.  I am not sure my sense of adventure is now to be left to happenstance.  Still, with all the tools of the world wide web, I can plan this expedition myself.  Watch this spot for details.

Cook Inlet Beluga Days--First Session at the Point



Suzanne of BWA stands watch.

I stand along the fence at Beluga Point scanning the murky waters of the Cook Inlet’s Turnagain Arm for signs of beluga whales.  I use my naked eye aided by old 10x50 Sans and Streiffe binoculars handed down to me after my grandfather’s passing nearly 40 years ago.  In today’s gentle breeze, the Arm’s waters lightly ripple, a change from the normally wind-driven, white-capped seascape.  The sun shines brilliantly, another departure from the overcast to rainy conditions we would expect at this location this second day in September.  Teamed with Suzanne, leader of the recently formed Beluga Whale Alliance, BWA, I will be on station for the next three hours.  If we sight beluga,  the team will observe and record the time and duration of the sighting, the number of beluga, direction of travel, the formation, an estimate of the age of each whale based on size or color and other behavior and environmental conditions. 

A near perfect day at Beluga Point

Circumstances for sighting the whales--the flooding  tide, time, wind, sunshine, and earlier numerous sighting around Turnagain Arm—fuel my expectations of success.  Sighting beluga would be a great outcome for my first session in BWA’s citizen science initiative, launched earlier this summer.  Except today, the belugas do not put in an appearance.  We see no signs, not even so much as a telltale spout or momentary flash of white as a whale breaches.  But today, the only beluga I will spy is on the interpretive sign for the visitors.  But ours is not a wasted effort.  While I maintain lookout, Suzanne engages the visitors with information about the whales and why BWA is enlisting  citizen-scientists in the reconnaissance effort. For today's three hours, “Beluga Point” should be designated “No Beluga Point.”  



Beluga Point is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its significance as a prehistoric site.  The Point may be the site of the earliest recorded human habitation in Anchorage, dating back at least 10,000 years. It may have been used as a site for hunting beluga.  Nowadays, the Point is a prime spot for seeing them.  I have seen the whales here before today just as have countless thousands of visitors who have stopped here to explore among the rocks and beach or admired the dramatic scenery of Cook Inlet from an Alaska Railroad passenger car on its way to Seward or Whittier.  It is a fine tradition.   Perhaps numerous times I have missed their presence hiding in plain sight indiscernably indistinguishable in the whitecapped sea.  I have also counted them by the dozens starkly stanidng out against the cobalt blue Arctic Ocean as an observer during the Bowhead Whale Aerial Survey Program flights I flew more than a decade ago.  



One of two spotter scopes for the public at Beluga Point. 
This one was out of commission.

So why am I out here on this fine autumn day and how did I end up involved in this effort?  That will be the subject of the next few installments of this blog.  In part, it results from my close up and personal encounter with a beluga whale calf, Tyonek, earlier this year at the Alaska Sea Life Center, which I described in an earlier post.  September 2 is my first day on station.  Others have followed and will continue.