Bird Island in Animas Bay (Photo By: Natalie Testa) When I was in kindergarten, I was given an assignment on what I thought I would be doing when I was a hundred years old - my answer was that at 100 I would be swimming with the dolphins. Somewhere along my path to swimming with dolphins as a centenarian, I found myself as an 18 year old high school student spending my last Spring Break of High School on a field study in Mexico, learning about the ecology of the Sea of Cortez and camping on the beach with a hundred other high school seniors. For those that aren’t familiar with the beautiful deserts of Baja, there’s a lot more to the peninsula than the annual Baja 1000 race - there’s incredible ecosystems that have rich natural histories, and a beautiful, shining azul sea. To say that I fell in love with the Sea of Cortez would be an understatement: I will spend the rest of my life longing for those uninhabited red rocky shores enclosing beautifully clear blue bays. A beautiful bay I sailed to near La Paz The field study was part of the Marine Ecology class offered by my high school and taught by none other than Mr. Randy Hudson, one of the best teachers I’ve ever taken a class from. Hudson sets himself apart by using storytelling as a teaching tool- he transports his students around the world and through the oceans by interweaving his own experiences with scientific concepts. This method of teaching has not only helped me learn about the science of the ocean, it also has greatly inspired my own teaching methods. That said, Hudson puts his students through the ringer. The class kicks off with the nitty gritty of ecology - literally nitty gritty sand- as well as other abiotic factors like ocean currents around the world and plate tectonics. This class featured lots of tedious memorization of classification systems that had me and my friends up late studying for hours before the tests wondering when we would EVER learn about the living parts of the ecosystem. Although my childhood love of marine mammals is what drew me to the study of oceans, I have come to appreciate the value of the non-living factors that support and sustain the diversity of life. Hudson’s teaching style helped our class construct a more holistic picture of ecology by first teaching abiotic processes — rounding out our understanding of the subject one building block at a time. After we established a strong foundation in our understanding of ecology, we moved on to the reason that I was in the class: the LIFE of the ocean! In learning about the living factors which make up the marine ecosystem I learned to love ALL of the life I could find on the coast of Southern California all the way down to Baja Mexico, from the giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera – which is the best algae on the planet) to the abalone and other sea snails that thrive in the intertidal to the green sea turtles that I would eventually get to work with in grad school. While learning in a classroom is great, the cherry on top of Mr. Hudson’s Marine Ecology class was the Baja Field Study: that week-long trip to Las Animas Bay in the Sea of Cortez during Spring Break which brings together every aspect of the ecology class. In Las Animas I had the opportunity to snorkel with sea lions, bathe in the sea, and watch the sun rise over the bay and set over a harsh desert. Between the beauty of our surroundings, the cooperative learning atmosphere, and the strong sense of accomplishment I felt at the end of each day’s study, I knew that field work was something I wanted to pursue and this helped re-affirm that marine science was my path. It was then that I decided that I would attend UC Santa Barbara for college for a degree in Ecology and Evolution. I attribute a lot that makes me the fisheries scientist I am today to standing on a beautiful beach facing the Sea of Cortez. My love of the Sea of Cortez has taken me back time and again – I returned twice in college as a group leader for the very same field study I had attended as a student, and in my first year of grad school I went to La Paz to go sailing with a friend. I can’t explain my love of the Sea of Cortez, except that given any opportunity to go, I will take it. This incredible sparkling body of water has appealed to marine scientists for decades, and I happen to share my love of it with one of my favorite authors: John Steinbeck! WAY BACK in March of 1940, aforementioned author John Steinbeck and a marine biologist friend of his, Ed Ricketts decided that they would go on a research trip to the Sea of Cortez. Mind you, they packed up with four buddies on a repurposed sardine seinerR called the Western Flyer (remember that, it’ll be important later) and sailed to the Sea of Cortez for an epic six-week journey where they traveled all over the Sea in pursuit of exploration. They explored 21 locations and collected THOUSANDS of specimens, of which 40 had never before been documented. In this time, Steinbeck and Ricketts recorded their thoughts on life, the universe, and of course, biology and put them into an incredible book titled Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research. What’s so incredible about this book is that it’s made up of two parts: the written story and the scientific appendix. The story transports readers to an exploratory adventure in Baja California with Steinbeck’s characteristic sense of place and includes scientific information provided by an ecologist. For those unfamiliar with the organisms of the region, the appendix contains pictures and descriptions of many of the species collected over the course of the journey! It’s essentially a user-friendly guide to the intertidal wildlife of Baja. My favorite quote from this book is the opening line: “And yet the impulse which drives a man to poetry will send another man into the tide pools and force him to try and report what he finds there.” Excuse me John, I don’t need you calling out my entire life’s purpose like this! So, in following along with trying to explore the oceans and document what I discover there, in early 2020, I applied for and was hired by Deep Green Wilderness to be the Lead Educator on their sailboat Orion in the Salish Sea. Deep Green Wilderness is an educational organization in the Pacific Northwest which teaches middle and high school students about sailing and ecology. However, the Covid-19 pandemic promptly turned my plan to start my career on its head. Suddenly I was living at my parents’ home in California and working remotely with a team all the way up in Washington State. So, how does one get to know their new coworkers in a virtual capacity? Light internet stalking of course! While checking out the first mate’s instagram, I saw that she had posted a picture of the head (boat-speak for bathroom) on the Western Flyer with the beautiful hashtag “Steinbeck Sat There”. Having just been hired by Deep Green Wilderness, I hadn’t the opportunity to reach out to Kate yet and saw this as the PERFECT time to introduce myself and my love of John Steinbeck. Luckily for me, Kate and I share a passion for science communication and she was NOT weirded out by me sliding into her DMs to ask about her experiences sailing and in grad school. While getting to know Kate, I also got to learn the history of the Western Flyer and how she went from being a research vessel in the Sea of Cortez to sitting in dry dock in Western Washington. Here’s what happened: the Steinbeck and Ricketts journey draws to a close (as all journeys must), and the Western Flyer gets lost to time – it gets sold to a fisherman in Seattle, it becomes a scientific trawl survey boat for the Pacific Halibut Commission, it goes back to being a fishing boat, and in 2012 SHE SINKS! The boat was refloated and then SHE SANK AGAIN in 2013!!! When she was raised from the bottom she was put in dry dock in Port Townsend, Washington where she remained until 2015 when John Greg, a marine geologist, bought the Western Flyer to restore herin the name of his life-long interest in John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts! AND GET THIS! HE started a non-profit called the Western Flyer Foundation whose mission is “to stir curiosity by connecting art and science in the spirit of John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts and legacy of the Western Flyer.” A WILD story right?!?! Basically, I found out that the legacy of a favorite author and super cool marine biologist is being preserved in a unique way and I learned all about it during the Covid-19 shutdown. Thank you, John Steinbeck, for helping me make friends 80 years after setting sail in the wonderful Sea of Cortez. The Sea of Cortez from the Skies
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AuthorBree Gibbs, here. I'm a recent Master's Grad just trying to share what it's like to be a trash scientist (for those who aren't in the know, I'm a marine biologist). Categories
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