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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Onamac Beach Monitoring - June 5, 2008

Handhelds in pouring rain

BW's searching in hard rain

Pisaster brevispinous


view of humans from a sea star

Working on Quadrats

John weathering really bad rain


Extensive seaweed at low tide

The very cold, wet crew



22 Camano Beach Watchers and 4 Onamac Neighbors met on June 5, to monitor the beach.

John C., Bill G., Bill B. and Duane H. came an hour early to help John lay out the 2 lines.

Just as they were finishing, around 10:15 a.m., the sprinkles began. As the others arrived, the rain became more pronounced. The group divided into 2 groups to do a North and South Line. Around 11:00 a.m. the wind came up and we had whitecaps rolling in.

Imagine how I felt, while trying to hold onto the paper you can write on in rain, and the wind kept whipping it up over my hand. It was even more difficult to turn it over, because when it did stick to the clipboard the rain made it almost a permanent bond.

At low tide we did see a magnificent orange sea star . And in one of the grids was the smallest sea star I have ever seen. It was the size of my thumb nail.

As soon as the teams were done, we scrubbed the planned outdoor cookout on the beach, and headed for our house (Jan and John's). A good time was had by all. That is, after everyone warmed up.

Written by Jan N., this beach host along with John, June 16,2008

Notes: Onamac has 2 lines established. This date the tide was a -3.9 at 12:34 pm on a very hard rain, windy day. Very bad conditions for monitoring.
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