Day Fifteen

Hello there,

Another calm day at sea for me!  However, right when I woke up this morning we were at a station, where there were probably about a hundred dolphins foraging.  When we pulled up our nets, we found out what they were feeding on - we pulled up a bunch of squid beaks, and one tentacle!  It seems as if they were eating the squid and spitting the beaks out. They were little tiny market squid (Loligo opalescens). I kept one of the beaks for a souvenir!

This afternoon we were just transiting between stations so I was able to finish my fifth book while running samples.  But later in the evening when my shift was just about over I made some popcorn and started up the Breakfast Club which we are watching now.

It was a total bummer though because we finally figured out our plans for disembarking on Friday and now I realize that tomorrow is my last day on the ship :(  We are doing our Monterey Bay transect line, and then steaming up to Santa Cruz where we will switch with Miguel and Lauren.  They may have to drag me kicking and screaming off of the boat!  However, I think we will have fun though as we plan to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, see some beaches, and then we plan on visiting the redwoods when we get to northern California.

So that's about it!  Not much to report in the way of excitement for the day!  Hopefully I will have more tomorrow.  Unfortunately I don't have any good photos from today- I took a video of the dolphins this afternoon, but it would probably take hours to upload!  I promise to show it to everyone when I get home :)

Peace,
Shea