Sunsets over Haro Strait
March 2019 through June 2019
I left Hansee and went to Heaven. (I know I just said Hansee was paradise, but, as I said before, I'm pretty easy-going and easily pleased. Life is full of wonders, etc.) A friend from Running Club had encouraged me to spend a quarter at Friday Harbor doing their Zoo-Bot program, living at the research lab and harassing the wildlife in one of Washington's most beautiful places. I am glad that I took her advice. I had already found my passion for plants and for the Arctic, but the final component of was lacking; I did not yet love the sea, or at least, I did not regard it as superior in any way to the land. Foolish. The ocean is fantastically, impossibly weird, full of unimaginable or undiscovered life forms that look like something out of pulp sci-fi, and live like it, too. It's vast, amazing, mysterious, vital, ancient and ever-changing.
I left Hansee and went to Heaven. (I know I just said Hansee was paradise, but, as I said before, I'm pretty easy-going and easily pleased. Life is full of wonders, etc.) A friend from Running Club had encouraged me to spend a quarter at Friday Harbor doing their Zoo-Bot program, living at the research lab and harassing the wildlife in one of Washington's most beautiful places. I am glad that I took her advice. I had already found my passion for plants and for the Arctic, but the final component of was lacking; I did not yet love the sea, or at least, I did not regard it as superior in any way to the land. Foolish. The ocean is fantastically, impossibly weird, full of unimaginable or undiscovered life forms that look like something out of pulp sci-fi, and live like it, too. It's vast, amazing, mysterious, vital, ancient and ever-changing.
Marine Botany
What's better than plants? Plants underwater. I expected to love marine botany going in, since I loved terrestrial botany and eating seaweed. If you had told me in September of 2017 that I would someday dream of a career with algae, I would probably not have been surprised, although I had never before given the topic much thought. Becoming passionate about a niche, apparently boring subject that secretly forms the basis of our modern lives is very in line with my character, and I admit I have not grown so much as to take an interest in obviously practical things. Still, kudos and thanks to Dr. Tom Mumford, who taught me to love algae and seagrasses, paving the way for my life beyond college. His mischievous smile reminded me of Andres from Costa Rica, albeit without the pranks, and his quiet passion and kindness seemed like a trait common to plant biologists. He memorably quoted John Greenleaf Whittier about our research professor, once admitted to taking home some wakame from a restaurant to examine under a microscope, and had periodically gotten into and out of the aquaculture business. I shall never forget the time at Botany Bay that I saw his wife, also an algal scientist, picking and eating some alga off the rocks, asked her with surprise, "Oh, you can eat that?" and received in response a muttered "You can eat anything." That's a philosophy I can live by. (It's not actually. I'm vegetarian.) His obvious delight in nature was infectious, and I do not think I would have ended up happily employed as I am without his guidance. At present, I take his combination of research and aquaculture as inspiration.
Marine Zoology
Ordinary biology students take invertebrate zoology in Seattle, daydreaming of the sea. I got to take it with the water a minute's walk away, my hands dunked daily in cold saltwater, annoying all the living critters by poking at them, and occasionally, sadly, dissecting them. (Although it is the vivisections that haunt me still --- when they were not quite dead, and insisted on trying to crawl around my petri dishes despite being chopped in half or partly flayed. What's wrong with invertebrates?) I learned my phyla by touching, drawing, manipulating, all far more useful to me than memorizing from a book. If nothing else, the phrase "Mesoglea makes jellyfish jelly-ish" ensures that I will always know at least one fact about jellyfish.
I didn't learn everything, of course. Just a month or two later, I was astounded at the sight of deep burrows dug through the forest in Costa Rica. Land crabs inhabited them. Land crabs! What will they think of next?
I didn't learn everything, of course. Just a month or two later, I was astounded at the sight of deep burrows dug through the forest in Costa Rica. Land crabs inhabited them. Land crabs! What will they think of next?
Left to right: Pisaster ochraceus (purple sea star) surrounded by Fucus distichus (rockweed); some kind of aeolid nudibranch; Cryptochiton stelleri (gumboot chiton), a species which produces the largest chitons in the world, at times weighing over 4lbs.
Research
I killed several barnacles for my research project. I feel terrible about this, and am haunted over this small massacre, which I think bodes poorly for any potential career as a serial killer. Conversely, I managed to raise a large number (hundreds, perhaps) of urchin, crab, and sea star larvae from fertilization to settlement, from infancy to the equivalent of their teenage years. I had never before known a thing about embryology of any sort, let alone the invertebrate kind, but I do love learning about new things. Dr. Jason Hodin, who now raises Pycnopodia, quite literally taught me everything I know about baby deuterostomes. Raising baby urchins is a unique skill, but alas, not a party trick.
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Sunsets
Friday Harbor was a big time for me socially. I have no trouble making friends, but the bonds I formed there are special, like those forged in war or intense bingo tournaments. Now, in 2021, I call Fleur every Tuesday and walk regularly with Marissa, who once broke a Rasputin glass under my car. I have other enduring friends from college, of course, but none who understand the lovely color of a Lime Kiln sunset, or the peace of driving through the fields in the twilight, listening to ABBA and singing along.
Header image: Sunset, South Beach, San Juan Island. Description: two black silhouettes stare into the orange and blue dusk from a rock outcropping.
Image gallery: Sunsets from various points around San Juan Island.
Image gallery: Sunsets from various points around San Juan Island.