Pathfinder Schools' expedition in Central Puget Sound. Starting their first science station just off  Shilshole Marina,  they sailed their way accross the sound to spend their first night at Fay Bainbridge State Park. On the second day, they sailed south to the backside of Blake Island and finished their cruise back at  Shilshole Marina at the end of day three.

The students attend an Outward Bound Expeditionary Learning school and have been focused on projects surrounding the Native American Canoe throughtout the school year. In the classroom they hollowed out a tree log, made skim boards out of thin wood and have visited and explored  numerouse Native American sites throghout  the Puget Sound region. This expedition provided a look at the Salish Sea from the water,  focusing on their scientific hypothesis while often relating their experiences on the boat with their previous school year studies.

Day one of three (click to view cruise track image)
Today the students had the opportunity to do some long tacks in Port Madison. The wind was strong and steady, and as we heeled over during lunch, the watch below had a great view of the water as they tasted their afternoon treats. The sampling stations are labeled on this chart. The students were interested in Sample station #2 in particular, as there is a good fresh water input from land runoff and a small stream just on the land side of the site. This area provided the students with both sandy and rocky substrates to conduct plankton sampling (using the phytoplanktong and zooplankton nets) and visibility observations using the Secchi disk. We lost a clip board here, and now some of the data is swimming with the fishes...

Sampling station #1 was  located on the east side of the Sound just at the entrance to the the Ballard locks. Here the students deployed the ponar grab in hopes of collecting bottom sediments and in the process captured a Sea Pen! A difficult, and rare catch for such a small sampling dredge, its litteraly like finding a needle in a haystack!!

This creature has never been collected on a Salish Sea Expedition, and the students were thrilled. The Sea Pen is made up of a colony of polyps, each having a unique function to contribte to the colonies survival. The colony achors itself in muddy or sany substrate, giving a clue as to the type of bottom the sample site was over. The students hypothesis predicted that there would be more plankton in the water column above rocky bottoms vs. sandy or muddy bottoms. As the Sea Pen was found here, the students could deduce that we were over and sandy or muddy bottom, which should correlate to a greater abunce of plankton.

Day two of three (click to view cruise track image)
The group who aboard Carlyn the first night had a peaceful evening anchored in Pt. Madison. As they came to pick up the students who had stayed ashore at Fay Bainbridge State Park those not tending to the helm or breakfast dishes were already planning potential sampling sites for the day. One area that was of great interest to the students was Alki point. This area in West Seattle is in essence, the students backyard. They had come here on class trips, to collect water samples, observerve the ecology and geology of the place and refect on the Native American traditions steeped in the area. This area was first on the  was first on the list for sampling.

Expecting a rocky bottom as described by the navigational chart, the students soon realized that ground truthing this information was important to their hypothesis.Two bottom grabs yeilded substantial mud, this lead the students to decide to add sediment sampling to the suite of equipment to deploy at each site. The students decided to characterize their site descriptoin as having a sandy botton, and otherwise avoided a scientific error they would have not been aware of were it not for their diligence in taking bottom samples of each site.

Day three of three (click to view cruise track image)
On day three the students were ready to continue collecting important data for their hypothesis. Following an evening of beach games and a night hike the energy aroudn their project was growing as the group eagerly chose the Duwamish river as their afternoon sampling site. This was an area they were quite familiar with, and had conducted water quality testing in many times from shore, especially farther up the river from its outflow in Elliot Bay.

The watch that sailed Carlyn home had a great run of long tacks as they guided the boat towards Shilshole Marina. A great trip with many new creatures observed, and one more perspective of the Salish Sea for the students to keep with them as they continue to study the Native American Canoe during their school based expedition.