We have now settled into our final destination with the Three Seas Program: Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island, Washington. On Monday the 28 of March a group of us were met by Sal and Chris at the ferry dock and driven to the lab just in time for dinner. The first few days were spent moving into our dorms and dive lockers, and getting checked out for diving by University of Washington. Unfortunately the 44 degree water is quite a bit colder than what we grew accustomed to in Panama, and even colder than the low 50s we experienced the last few days of Nahant. But it is worth suffering through the chill to be able to dive in this new location among the kelp, fish, and inverts. Yesterday we started Conservation Biology, our first class of the semester, and like all Three Seas courses we jumped right in. We have the opportunity to work in groups and present the lecture topics including climate change, ocean acidification, invasive species, fishing, pollution, and species range shifts to the class, and discuss papers of our choosing. Our class will also conduct a subtidal mapping and natural history survey of a location in the water next to the lab to form a baseline focusing on the Zostera beds.
The monitoring program we start this year will be continued by future Three Seas classes, allowing long term data to be collected to note any changes to the baseline. We are learning how to use the knowledge gained in previous courses to protect and preserve our oceans and planet.
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