Day 4!

Hi! Today was awesome. But first I'll tell you about last night!

I stayed up until about 11 pm typing up my notes--all done! Yay! So, now I'm continuing to catch up on reading and stuff. That's what I did this morning. I guess last night wasn't as interesting as I thought it'd be. Hmm...anyway, moving on.

So, this morning I woke up around 7:50 am. Everybody else was already up. Super early risers! Like, we're talking before sunrise. Super cool. But yea! Then I showered, ate my Honey Nut Cheerios and then read all morning. We had the afternoon shift in the field today, so at 12:30 we went down to Laura's room where we then left for the field!

Note: my new camera has broken :( Each time it's turned on, the shutter has to open and close. Well, the shutter won't close so it doesn't feel like it can reset itself and I can't take a picture. Booo :( So, I called mom and dad and they're going to mail me my old camera, which is still a super nice camera. But, not waterproof. Blessing: dad has a waterproof camera, so when he and mom come at the end of the month I can use his for a little bit (maybe, hehe!). OH! And, I figured out how to mail stuff. There's a mail drop by the office. And any mail that comes to me will be given to Dr. Marsha Green. I warned her tonight that my parents love to send mail...and sure enough, she handed me a couple of letters. Thanks, Emily and Mom, Dad, and Cooper :)!!!!

Anyway, so we were out in the field and we got FANTASTIC data! We got a really great before/during/after boat period to plot! Here's a picture after we were done collecting data!

This is me! With the theodolite, which is just a really high powered telescope.

We got back to the condo and I ate a peanut butter (creamy) and jelly (strawberry jam) sandwich with a couple of fresh strawberries and tomatoes and big glass of water (I haven't eaten the passionfruit yet...partly because I can't figure out how. If anybody has advice, please share!!). It was a delicious meal. And then I worked on the data calculations! Between the mapping and the mathy-calculation part: I really, really enjoy the calculation part. It's so interesting to see the extreme differences in "down times" before/during/after boat periods. There was a boat today that was literally on top of a whale--we were so angry. The whale ended up doing vertical avoidance for more than 14 minutes before surfacing nearby. Stupid boat.

Oh my gosh, amazing factoid: for those who watch Whale Wars...my team leader, Laura Laut Van Asyma, is a Sea Shepherd! (I'll let that one sink in for a second). She was supposed to be on the boat right now as the "voice of the Netherlands" but she chose to do this instead and is going to be there next year! Seriously cool!!!!! She's so great.

So, tomorrow we've got morning field work (9 am-noon) and then we're going to work on our group presentation that we're giving tomorrow at 7 pm for class! Also, the speaker last night at the Sanctuary (David Mattila) was super interesting (he works globally with disentangling whales and the genetics of whale distribution (using the mtDNA: they figure out the approximate size of the historical populations based on the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA samples!)...so, he's going to be hanging out at the Sanctuary so I'm going to go over and talk to him about whale genetics :)

I just ate some crackers and colby jack cheese. Yummers! And, some girls are making a food run because the next food run isn't until next Friday! I've got them picking me up a few more things, just to last me (milk, OJ, bread, etc.).

Miss you guys! Hawaii is really pretty.

PS: it's really tough to get a photo of a breaching whale...especially since my (temporary) main camera is my cell phone. Also, during field work, it is scowled upon to use any form of technology other than binoculars and the theodolite. And sunscreen.

PSS: on my day off, I think another girl and I are trying to figure out if we can go ziplining! Or, there's a great snorkel place down the way! We might go snorkeling!

PSSS: Haley'Bug, the shower pressure is in fact awesome and a very important part of one's trip anywhere! If the shower pressure's bad, one feels dirty, which then impacts the pleasure of the trip. Unless you like being dirty, which is not that far-fetched a notion given that humans constantly feel the urge to go back to our primal roots of living in the woods and being all primitive!