shrimp survey adventures.

so here are a few details about the adventure I have been on for work this past week..

I went out to barkley sound on a government boat to do shrimp surveys. this job was something totally new to me and I was nervous but really excited at the same time. my initial concerns were obviously motion sickness but I surprisingly managed just fine! I didn't even take one gravol the entire time! yay me! the first day was quite rough but I stayed on the deck the majority of the day to keep myself from feeling sick. from there the days only got more beautiful... as you can see from these pictures.

it was such a great experience and I feel fortunate to have landed myself this opportunity. my typical day started at about 6.30 but I had some time to relax in the morning while they pulled in the first tow. once the tow was in, we sorted out all the different fish by species(I am a rockstar with fish now) and then weighed each species and recorded it. from there, we kept a certain portion of shrimp from our sub sample to take sex and length measurements on. normally, there was 2 different species of shrimp that we recorded biological measurements for and then we were on to the next tow! the days went by surprisingly fast- normally about 8 or 9 tows a day and it was 6.00! each evening we normally docked in a different spot. ucluelet, bamfield, west bamfield- it was awesome! west bamfield was amazing because brady's beach was only a short walk away and they had a cute little boardwalk in the village too(pictures to come)

I learned so much on this trip and the crew was welcoming, entertaining and fun to be around. it is so awesome to have the chance to work in my field and I thank many people for assisting me in scoring this great opportunity. my favourite part by far, was all the wildlife. I learned so much about fish, saw so many different species and managed to apply a lot of knowledge from the classroom in a real life setting. I saw the sea lions in ukee on a regular basis, my eagle friends came by each afternoon, and of course tons of different fish! since I'm not eating meat, I ate seafood pretty much every evening. they would just make me some fresh prawns that we got from the boat that day or a crab or sole that we caught in the grate. it was fantastic!! I felt quite spoiled.

a few more photos and stories to come!

hope everyone has a great week!

--m