Alaska; Day 2
Jun. 10th, 2011 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
draggonlaadyLeanna and I took one of the skiffs over to Fossil Beach and spent several hours wandering around, playing in tide pools, and generally enjoying good weather and pretty surroundings.
Tides in this area (Saginaw Bay) are impressive. By which I mean sometimes 22 foot changes between low and high tides. There was one area we played around at that had a vertical drop of about 10 feet. At high tide, this bank is entirely underwater. At low tide, pockets and shelves on this drop become little tide pools, creating a sort of display stair of pools, like something a museum would set up but that you would never expect to find in the real world.
Tide pool critters abounded; some I was familiar with, like common stars (quite common, this one had lunch in progress) and blood stars; some were entirely new to me, like sea cucumbers. Sea cucumbers were present in outstanding numbers, and varied from tiny to enormous. It was nearly impossible to walk without literally wading through them, as they were actually stacked several layers deep in places. Sea stars were also plentiful, and we found one sunflower star (much larger than common stars, and with 18-21 legs instead of 5), but couldn't get to it for good pictures.
Another new critter for me was the salp. These are free-living tunicates, and may be found singly or chained together in groups. Wiki has a lovely picture of an impressive chain, and more info. The longest I saw on my trip was 4 chained together.
Other fun sights of the day:
Tubeworms (red trumpet calcaeous worm? dwarf calcareous?)
Red sea urchin
Crumb of bread sponge
Chitons of various colors
Limpets
Snails
Sculpin and Greenling fry
Crabs
Clams; I'm particularly proud of this shot of a clam's "mouth" just after it sprayed me with water. (I LOVE this camera!)
I have no idea what these slimy critters are, but they were kinda neat.
There were also, of course, some fossils on Fossil Beach.
While Leanna and I were playing around, the otter crew netted 4 otters. All of today's otters were female, which made the crew very happy, as not only had they made a big chunk of their goal in one day, up until then they'd only caught males. The girls were not as big as the brute from the night before, ranging from 42 to 55 pounds.
Dinner was pork chops with a delicious creme something-or-other sauce. Sorry, I suck at the recipe thing.
Tides in this area (Saginaw Bay) are impressive. By which I mean sometimes 22 foot changes between low and high tides. There was one area we played around at that had a vertical drop of about 10 feet. At high tide, this bank is entirely underwater. At low tide, pockets and shelves on this drop become little tide pools, creating a sort of display stair of pools, like something a museum would set up but that you would never expect to find in the real world.
Tide pool critters abounded; some I was familiar with, like common stars (quite common, this one had lunch in progress) and blood stars; some were entirely new to me, like sea cucumbers. Sea cucumbers were present in outstanding numbers, and varied from tiny to enormous. It was nearly impossible to walk without literally wading through them, as they were actually stacked several layers deep in places. Sea stars were also plentiful, and we found one sunflower star (much larger than common stars, and with 18-21 legs instead of 5), but couldn't get to it for good pictures.
Another new critter for me was the salp. These are free-living tunicates, and may be found singly or chained together in groups. Wiki has a lovely picture of an impressive chain, and more info. The longest I saw on my trip was 4 chained together.
Other fun sights of the day:
Tubeworms (red trumpet calcaeous worm? dwarf calcareous?)
Red sea urchin
Crumb of bread sponge
Chitons of various colors
Limpets
Snails
Sculpin and Greenling fry
Crabs
Clams; I'm particularly proud of this shot of a clam's "mouth" just after it sprayed me with water. (I LOVE this camera!)
I have no idea what these slimy critters are, but they were kinda neat.
There were also, of course, some fossils on Fossil Beach.
While Leanna and I were playing around, the otter crew netted 4 otters. All of today's otters were female, which made the crew very happy, as not only had they made a big chunk of their goal in one day, up until then they'd only caught males. The girls were not as big as the brute from the night before, ranging from 42 to 55 pounds.
Dinner was pork chops with a delicious creme something-or-other sauce. Sorry, I suck at the recipe thing.
