"Action shot" of Denis illustrating how he'll carry his feeds while swimming
Last week I used a water bottle at the end of a freediving lanyard with waist strap to carry some water and it worked, but the water bottle did drag a bit as it floated perpendicular in the water and I kept waiting for it to get tangled in something. Today Denis brought his answer to the problem. Apparently it worked very well for him and he had no problem carrying it for his whole swim.
Andrew, Joe & Denis - the boys, getting ready to give 'er
I decided to back off of the distance a bit as my shoulders have been making themselves heard and I really want to be in good shape for the Bay, so I only swam 2km today. Andrew and Denis clocked over 5km and Colene, Michele and Joe did something in between.
The water was big and wavey and energized and the rain held off for the most part until we were done. At lunch us under 3km-ers ate our soup and glared at Denis and Andrew who earned fish and chips and po'boys. Jealous!
This Spring is my third or maybe fourth on the Coquitlam river working with Matt. All sorts of things come down the river and end up in the RSTs (Rotary Screw Traps).
Me posing and looking tough. I do look tough, right?
One year I put my hand into the side of the trap to remove debris, and pulled out a drowned squirrel. That is an example of a bad thing to find in a trap.
But usually you find cool things. Like a Belostomatid aka a "giant water bug" or "toe-biter" (seriously).
These things may look like just bugs, but they actually stalk and eat fish. They have a snorkel on their back end and they wait just under the surface for something to swim by, then they pierce it, inject their digestive juices and suck the whole mess back in. They have something called a Piercing-Sucking Mouthpart. Nice huh? Apparently their bites are extremely painful - Matt can attest to this as can another technician I spoke to who works on the river. You can bet I kept my fingers tucked carefully into the pocket of my chest waders until Matt moved it out of the trap.
My big fat head and a deer getting ready to have a drink
We often see cool things from the trap, like deer, or black bears and sometimes rarer things. Matt has been lucky enough to see flying squirrels and once even a lynx.
We find sculpins that are overstuffed and can barely swim after spending a night in a trap with a bunch of fry. Hellooo baby...
Lamprey. Yes, yes, they're cool but I don't want to touch them. Have you seen their mouths???
Salamanders of course...
Sometimes we open the trap in the morning and are suprised to see an adult steelhead which we try to release as quickly as possible.
But mostly we trap smolts (chum, coho, steelhead), rainbows and dace. They're ID'd, measured and released, with or without a mark.
And we count fry....
Buckets and buckets of fry. Thousands of fry.
We ID chum, coho, chinook fry and look for dye marks.
Well despite all my good intentions of blogging at least twice a week, I have let another week pass without a post. So this will be a brief catch up of what's been going on lately.
Last weekend Joe & I swum 4.5 km again, ramping up from 4 but a little shy of Denis, Andrew and Colene and their 5km. Way to go guys! Matt and the rest of the gang swum somewhere around 3km and got to play with a couple of seals (lucky buggers). At this rate the whole lot of us will swim the Bay!
I'm trying to ramp up my distance very slowly because I'm concerned about my left shoulder as usual. I have a torn bicep tendon that's caused me trouble for years. Last season my physiotherapist started me on shoulder exercises with bands that kept the pain at bay for the season, but they are just so darned boring that I became a little lazy about doing them. Hard to believe, I know, but true. I'm back on track now and am looking forward to seeing how my shoulder performs this weekend. The plan is to swim another 4.5km tomorrow. The lone swimmer had a great post today about how much mileage you should be doing to prepare for any distance. I'm on track to get there in plenty of time so I don't feel bad about backing off a little bit right now to make sure my shoulder is strong and ready.
A few years ago I bemoaned the fact that most of the open-water swimming I did was alone. Looking back I can clearly see I was transitioning from freediving to swimming as my main open water activity and I just would go in and swim 2 - 3 km by myself. It was great but could be lonely at times. I wanted an open-water crew so badly that I think I partly willed it into being! Meeting like minded people that love nothing more than coming out and spending a few hours in the sea has changed everything for me.
Saturdays have become our day and I look forward to them all week long.
On Saturday evening we stopped by
Ambleside beach to see the resident elephant seal that has hauled itself out for it's annual catastrophic moult.
She (I'm assuming it's a she since females moult first) is alone, which is unusual. Either she was separated from her colony due to some mishap or couldn't keep up. The need to moult may have been becoming urgent so she decided on Ambleside, which is a wildly popular beach. Perhaps she made an unfortunate choice.
Thank goodness Fisheries and Oceans Canada have erected a barrier giving her around 400 m squared to herself. They've even installed her own personal security guard that makes sure no one tries to cross over it. When Matt and I visited the barrier was lined with people taking photographs (including us) and kids ooh-ing and ah-ing. She didn't seem to mind, maybe she is used to lots of noise and activity from her colony, or maybe this is a stressful situation for her. I guess only time will tell.
On the way home Matt and I talked about what an alarming description
that is: a catastrophic moult. It's wonderful isn't it?
This
lead me down the path of thinking about other whimsical
naming devices in biology. Like why are flocks of birds so
lyrically and descriptively named? A murder of crows. A murmur of
starlings. The group of ducks we saw while swimming Saturday would be called a raft of ducks. A charm of finches or hummingbirds. We all know a gaggle of geese but how about a flamboyance of flamingos? A parliament, wisdom or study of owls? OK, I know it's overkill, but I just can't stop! A scold of jays, a huddle of penguins, a bouquet of pheasants, a chattering of starlings, a chime of wrens and a ballet of swans.
Scientists are supposed to be, well, somewhat dry aren't they? Who were these natural historians that were moved to poetry? It really illustrates that the early study of zoology was all about observation. I picture these magnificent bearded men, wearing little glasses and tweed suits standing around twirling their walking sticks and pronouncing "Yes, yes, a quarrel of sparrows! An exaltation of larks"!
I guess it is impossible to observe nature and the natural world and not be moved by the heartbreaking perfection of it.
What a difference one week makes. Last Saturday the water temperature was around 9 1/2 C and it was cool, overcast and sprinkling.
Yesterday's water temp was 11 C and the air temperature was 23 C.
Here are a couple of videos illustrating the difference. Last week:
Our tag-a-long seal makes a brief appearance surfacing just behind my feet - you can see why we ended up kicking him all the way, he just wouldn't stop tailgating.
This week:
Although it is not in the video we had another great interaction with a harbour seal at the start of our swim yesterday. He was clearly feeling playful and corralled us into a circle as he popped up and down, around and under us. When we finally decided to get going he swum along with the group, the entire 20 minutes into Whytecliff, turning over on his back under water so he could look up at us, moving up and down the line of swimmers.
When we entered the bay he made a beeline for the scuba divers and their bubbles.
We also saw what seemed like hundreds of surf scoters flying past just skimming the surface of the water. We stopped in amazement as they were so close, a few at first and then a thickening group of them that seemed to never end until the whirring noise of each individual duck's wings merged into one long, vibrant hum.
We saw plumose anemones on the rock walls and sea perch by the hundreds and at the very end of our swim, as we were turning into the first bay we originally started from, a bald eagle perched sentry at the tip of the rocky point marking the entrance. He waited for us to pull up right in front of him to unfurl his wings and, with them completely outstretched, shake his whole body. It was an awesome display.
It was the end of a long swim on a perfect day; my muscles were tingling, the sun was warm on my back. Seeing this raptor standing motionless, his feathers ruffled and lightly blown about by the wind, moved something in me.
After yet another week of problem-solving and stress, obligations to family and work, we'd been allowed a brief, beautiful glimpse into another reality. The veil had been lifted.
Last Saturday was raining and cold and there was a marked lack of enthusiasm amongst the group at the thought of getting geared up.
One of us was back in for the first time after an illness, others had returned from various (work and fun) trips. We agreed to just start out swimming and decide mid-point how much distance each of us wanted to cover. The beauty of swimming Whytecliff is there are many natural stopping points where we can quickly check in with one another - and can exit or continue depending on how we feel, our goals etc.
I felt tired for the first leg of the swim and was contemplating doing just 3km but when I turned to head into Whytecliff bay I realized we had collected another swimmer along the way. Joe was swimming just ahead of me and a harbour seal popped his head up right behind him and continued to swim behind him on the surface. All the way to the beach he would intermittently pop up, look at Joe and then submerge. The visibility was really poor at the surface so I couldn't see him when he went down and no amount of yelling could get Joe's attention, so I just laughed as I followed the couple in. When Joe reached the beach he turned around and started a little when he found himself looking right into the seal's eyes.
On the way out of the bay and around the islet I felt the seal when I kicked, he must have been right below me and I silently begged his forgiveness every time I pummelled him, though I'm sure to him it felt like a little caress. You can't mistake contact with a seal, it really is like bumping into a very large water balloon. He stayed with us all the way into the next bay, waited with us until we hooked up with Denis, and then continued back. Every time I breathed right on the way back I saw Joe and Denis, with the seal in between them, swimming in formation.
The seal must have been feeling particularly playful because he was underneath us the whole time. Both Denis and Joe also reported bumping him with their feet. Well, either he was feeling playful or he was thinking why the hell are they so slow? Maybe he was trying to show us how it's really done.
Regardless, he gave me the motivation I needed. I kept laughing and swimming, swimming and laughing, until next thing I knew we were back where we started. Another 3.9something km in about 1:22 (including seal playing time).
We're on track for our Bay Challenge training and might try the same distance next weekend and then start pushing it a little at a time.
