Back to work! - February 17, 2014

   Taylor is back from Mexico, and we finally had the chance to go do the monthly survey in Bodega. As mentioned previously, the first survey we did in December was pretty conservative, due to the high tides and the dangerous outcomes that tagged along. This time coming we expected the tides to be almost the same as last time, once we arrived I noticed that the weather was perfect, sunny and a nice breeze. As soon as we hit the beach Taylor said the tides looked a lot better but not as much as we'd like them to be. Meaning, we could cover more of the beach than we did the previous time, not by much but it definitely makes a difference. As usual I was the one in charge of the clip board and writing down the different codes and number of invertebrates she would call out, this being my second time I felt pretty confident, I was much more aware of my surroundings and a lot more comfortable with the beach itself. Other than that everything was pretty much the same, expect this time we saw one Sea Lion! After the survey ended and since we finished early, we decided to go up to bodega head which is about 10 minutes away from the beach. Reasoning behind that is because we really wanted to see a Humpback Whales! Unfortunately after 30 minutes of walking around and trying to spot them, we saw nothing, the view was amazing though. Although this survey wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, I still felt good about getting the work done and being rewarded by having the opportunity to see a Whale for the first time, but maybe next time! Taylor had also mentioned to me that I had the choice of doing the March survey with her, or doing a different event that was similar to the beach survey we do in Bodega, just a lot more detailed and a shorter process from what I understood, I'll have more information later. It is a tough call for me because if the tides clear up by the next survey I'd love to go there one more time to see if this will be the best survey yet, or try something new and leave this journey with trying two different things. Hopefully Taylor can lead me in the right direction because right now I cannot decide!

Time logged for this session: 5 Hours
Total time logged: 18 Hours

Break? No way! - January 13, 2014-February 16, 2014

    Unfortunately the month of January, Taylor had to go on a trip to Mexico, meaning we couldn't do the monthly survey up in Bodega. Luckily, she still had some minor work for me to do that would last me from January until the February survey, with out rushing through it all. The material consisted of various different links to websites that could potentially help me in the long run, when going on a survey with her, especially since it's difficult to do the job while trying to explain the process to someone else through out the whole time. These surveys aren't brain surgery, but they sure do take a whole lot of memorizing different codes, multi tasking, and of course being able to identify different invertebrates. Since a lot of this information was really overwhelming on top of everything else going on at school I took it slow, I had a lot of time until the next survey so I decided to pace myself and actually spend time reviewing all of this information. In one of the PDFs I came across the list of codes that's corresponded with the different species you could possibly come across on a survey, I'm not going to lie, it did scare me a little bit. Page after page, all you could see was codes! So to make it easy on myself I decided to highlight the codes of the different animals we had seen in the previous survey, it made it a lot easier to study them and actually focus on the ones that mattered the most at this particular beach. Along with memorizing codes you have to know how to fill out the spread sheet, it's pretty straight forward, but one little mistake can mess up the entire thing. It was nice to see examples and actual steps on how to fill out the form correctly, keeping in mind that any little mistake you make could effect the data that will be input into the system. Over all, this time was for me to prepare myself for the next survey, to make sure I am fully aware of what is expected from me and to overall have a better explanation of what an actual survey is and how to properly lead one. Obviously I have a long way to go with all these requirements, but for now all I can do is try my best and put in the effort needed to show my mentor that this is what I want, and I am willing to do what it takes to succeed. My next survey is actually tomorrow! Hopefully the tides are a lot better this time and will be able to cover more of the beach, if not, it's going to be another short survey again...

Time logged for this session: 5 Hours
Total time logged: 13 Hours