A week ago today, on Valentine’s Day, I accompanied two students from the Natural History Club to Seacliff State Beach. Catie and Ryan, on behalf of the NHC, want to take charge of a now-empty glass display case at the visitor center and turn it into an exhibit of some sort. I became an official…
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Cleaning up
In the wee hours of Sunday 12 August 2018, the F/V Pacific Quest ran aground near Terrace Point. Over the next 24 hours she broke apart and began leaking diesel fuel into Monterey Bay. Fortunately most of the diesel was removed from the wreck, but the boat itself continued to disintegrate, with a lot of…
Flotsam
This morning I went out on what will probably be my last low tide of the season. We don’t get any good (i.e., below 0 feet and during daylight hours) until November, so it’s time to hang up the hip boots for a few months and work on other things. I had planned to go…
$hit happens
Very early in the morning of Sunday 12 August 2018, the F/V Pacific Quest ran aground near Long Marine Lab. I found out about it because the lab facilities manager sent out a global e-mail telling us that a boat had wrecked and telling us that the seawater pumps had been turned off just in…
When geeks get new toys
For several years now I’ve been lusting for a good compound microscope. I wanted one that I could call my very own, and thus justify allowing people to use it only after they have been trained by ME in how to use it correctly, and I wanted it to have certain features that the old…
Update
Remember that gull we rescued last week? After my husband took it to Native Animal Rescue here in Santa Cruz it was transferred up to International Bird Rescue‘s San Francisco Bay Area center in Fairfield. I e-mailed and asked how the gull was doing and whether I’d be able to witness its release back to…
Building a reef—out of yarn!
The Seymour Marine Discovery Center is currently hosting a satellite reef of the Crochet Coral Reef project. Back in the fall, about 350 UC Santa Cruz students and community volunteers began crocheting creatures real and fanciful with yarn and other materials. Satellite reefs have been built all around the world, in this project that unites…
Half a year
I have now been concussed for six months. It has been a long half-year. My brain has done a fair bit of recovering, and at least the constant headache is gone. It still hurts when I overexert my brain and I’m still easily overwhelmed by visual and auditory stimuli but overall I feel that I’m getting…
The downside to Indian summer
Autumn along the California coast can be spectacular. With the cessation of northerly winds and coastal upwelling, ocean and air temperatures rise. September and October typically offer the sunniest days of the year. Summer tourists who shiver in their jackets in July might be surprised to know that in September the natives run around in…
A third of a year
In addition to being the autumnal equinox, today also marks the four-month anniversary of the car accident that left me with bruises, some cracked/bruised ribs, and a concussion. All of the physical injuries have healed by now, except for some residual soreness when I push on the left side of my rib cage, but the concussion…