Hello everybody and welcome back to the blog and week 2 of the internship. Earlier this week I learned a lot about what one of the lab members does with clams. After collecting them he’ll dissect them, separating the gonads from the rest of the clam. He’ll then dry both parts separately in a low heat oven for a few weeks. Once that’s done they get ground up into a fine powder and stored. I actually got to help with grinding them up. It was really difficult at first but he gave me some advice and I fixed my technique and got through the next couple of samples pretty easily.
The next day I got to learn how to use a program called ViQi. First they go through and take pictures of the sea floor in a very specific grid pattern. Once the pictures are in the program, people go through and hand identify everything present. This is done in hopes to train an AI to scan and analyze a picture and identify everything for us. I’ve been helping with this by identifying two main species of clams and inputting the information into a spreadsheet. The species are Mollusca Myida Chaceia ovoidea and Mollusca Myida Parapholas californica.
Then on Friday I joined the class to go on a four day camping trip to Santa Cruise Island. The boat ride over was amazing and I got to see some common dolphins and a whale. The first night we traced to an isolated camping spot on the island and stayed out there for the night. Some of the class helped make burritos and then we went scorpion hunting with a black light and ended up finding a couple. In the morning the class went out to do a lab on muscles but I unfortunately wasn’t feeling well and stayed at camp. Once they got back we ate, packed up, and then went back to the ranger station. After getting our bunks figured out I helped make dinner which was salad, tri tip, and muscles they had collected earlier that morning.
Early the next morning I went out and helped with a Hermit Crab Lab. I got out on a team with to other girls and we were going along a 17 meter line across some little tide pools collecting shells meter by meter. We would log everything we found and one of the main things we wanted to see was what the shells are used for, and what species. We found that most of the shells had hermit crabs and the most popular species was Tegula shells. Once we got back we just chilled before making spaghetti dinner that was really good. After dinner I went out with the students and we went stargazing, it was absolutely beautiful and so fun to hang out with everyone.
On the last day we packed up, cleaned, ate then left. We walked about three miles to the boat, which I enjoyed a lot, and swam some before the boat actually came. We got to see some adorable Lepord Sharks and some people jumped off the pier but the fun did have to end eventually as we left to go back to the mainland. Overall I had a lot of fun and learned some new things along the way. I hope to get to know everyone a bit better as we all learn and I have to give a shout out to Alexis for being such a good person and now a good friend.
Pictures
Grinding the clams
Beaches
One of the cool scorpions
Hermit crabs!
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