Seal Training - The Field

So, Harbor Seal Training, this time out in the field!!

We went out to Drakes Estero, which is behind Point Reyes Station.

Boy, I have to say, they sure are cute. And they kind of move around like inch worms on crack. Snicker.

And the red animals I learned about in the training are quite distinctive.

You can read about my secondary follow up training also at Drake's Estero, that completes my full training, at Marty and my Adventure Blog. This details more of the process.

Click here for our seal adventure entry!!

Or read it below:

Adventure - Heather

Description: Wherein we set out to fulfill Heather's training in seal counting, at Drake's Estero.

(Marty's Report):

Now, I wouldn't normally go play voyeur to seals, but my Wife Unit has taken up volunteer work with the park service that watches over the seal populations. Apparently, seals, because they are near the top of the food chain (they are predated on by sharks and the occasional orca, and coyotes will go after the pups), the health of their groups indicates the health of the ecosystem. So the park folk need people to go keep an eye on them, which means schlepping out to relatively remote spots on the Marin coast, and doing the schlep work ofenvironmentalism: counting them.

We got up early--well, historically 7am is early for Heather, but with recent morning shifts with Baker Places, she no longer thinks the crack of dawn smells like ass. We got our morning coffees from Javaholics on Balboa, ourneighborhood joint where we are recognized by the regular barristers, and where we've spent many Sunday mornings. Heather, who used to be so snooty about the imbibing of the "blood of the bean" ("battery acid" in her pre-fallen vernacular), now has surrendered to the dark lure of a caffeinated life. And since I've fallen off the wagon after a period of righteous abstinence, we sin together.

So fortified, with me in Zippy's driver seat (see here for a full account of our meeting and naming of our current vehicle), we headed up through the morning fog, over the Golden Gate, and into the Green and Verdant Lands of Marin. I don't remember if the fog and overcast continued for the whole drive, but it certainly was there at the coast, as we drove across the rather bleak lands to the north of Pt. Reyes. This the route I'd driven once before with James, out to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. But we went to the parking lot at Drake's Estero, a long empty beach next to bluffs, that lead to a sizable inlet about a mile south of the parking lot.

We arrived at the same time as Heather's mentor. To do this volunteer work, you have to go with an experienced counter to each site, and in the case of this site, twice. Heather had made it out once, but hadn't been able to find anyone to take her out again. I counseled her to email the mentors and offer to take someone out for dinner if they'd go with her to the site. I don't know if she did that, but she emailed and Ruth responded.

So when we pulled up, Ruth and her cousin Bruce had just arrived in the empty parking lot, the colors of the ocean, beach, and scrubby hills washed out into different shadings of gray. They greeted us warmly and functionally, which was a nice tone for the whole outing, everyone there to do a job, and therefore not much reason to be very chummy. We got the gear together, consisting of lunch and some binoculars and, um, unioculars, and started down the totally empty beach. I was reminded unpleasantly of the 6 hour whale watching tour Heather and I did, through a world of gun metal and sweatshirt grays, sans whales. And vomiting and nausea only second to skydiving. I averted my eyes and walked on.

Then we cut up and started what seemed to me to bushwhack through the tall grass, but Ruth seemed to be seeing a path. Either way, we ended up cresting a bluff and heading down to the observation point, about a quarter mile away from the sand spit where the seal colony had "hauled out" (I'm learning all this new seal terminology). Meaning, the place where they like to squirm theirunarticulated worm bodies up onto the beach and plop down for a good nap.

While Heather and Ruth and Bruce busied about with the setting up of tripods and scopes, and then the first round of counting (which Heather can describe in detail--basically it's a clicker and trying not to count), I dug out a novel written byNaguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian Nobel Laurette for Literature from the 80's (I think he's deceased). Heading off to Egypt next year, I've been wanting to go prepared, so I got a random novel of his from the library and started it up on a cold-ass hill next to a gray ocean, with a lot of sand. So not much difference, perhaps.

It's a strange book so far, reminding me of Marquez' and Allende's books, allegories about suffering which strike me as at least tedious, if not self-indulgent. I'll keep plugging away at it, if nothing else than for anthropologicalreasons, but as a personal experience it's not doing much so far. (When I got home I returned to reading my delightfully trashy Elizabeth Peter's novel aboutEgypt, written by a modern British woman. Telling, I suppose. I've not found yet a way to relate to such novels. It almost feels like I'm having to translatedevelopmental levels, which is a strange process.)

Then I napped, finding a relatively unbumpy 6 foot stretch of grass, until Heather stood over me and accused me of not be adventurous enough. I got up and ate while they clicked away, and then checked out the environs and seals through the scopes. Initially the contraptions confounded me, till I saw how they are focused, at which point the experience of watching the seals took on an amazing quality. The clarity of the image was so great that I felt almost that I was hovering above the critters.

And what strange critters they are. Heather says they are schizoid, meaning they don't really have much use for each other, not even touching like the seals at Pier 39 do. Watching from afar, it seems like just a group of vaguelydistinguished dark shapes, but "up close," they're squirming and worming around the sand, including one who was, for no known reason, flopping around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail, but more befuddled about why. Not that a dog knows why, it just pretends it does for the audience.

My adventurousness, however, was drawn at actually counting the critters, despite Heather's seeming idea that it would be fun. There were maybe 700 of them at several "haul out" sites, I was told. OK, good for the frisky buggers.

From there, more bushwhacking, and a walk down along the beach, where we saw cormorant babies up in the Cyprus trees, and a little golden finch in abeachside meadow. Oh, and a mangled headless seal corpse.

When we got back to the parking lot, I got a cup-o-joe at the 12 dollar hamburger joint on the beach, we said goodbyes to the mentor and cousin, and headed back off through Petaluma, stopping at the cheese shop that probably everyone who's gone along the Petaluma-Pt. Reyes Station route has stopped at. I say, I do like cheese.

(Heather's Report):

Poor seals. Either popular and cute or called silly worm-like creatures.

But Marty is correct. They are the best population to count (since it's rather hard to have regular volunteers to count sharks or such) to find out what might be happening in the ecosystems "below" them. Bad fish year, the seals will be affected. Bad plankton year, the fish will be affected, thus affecting the seals... you get the idea. Including human impact, even hikers, oyster farming, possible environmental pollution, etc.

Since I've been toying with this whole environmentalism idea, I had decided to volunteer somewhere to get a taste. Unfortunately, my taste was like a tiny appetizer since it's just been a rather crazy time considering right when I signed up to volunteer is about when I got hired at Baker Places for relief work. And out the window went my time and many possibilities to finish out my mentorship/training. Bah.

But I love being out there, the few times I made it. Drakes Estero is apparently a very hard site to count, huge and with several "sub-sites" that are difficult to see even with the scopes. It is a heavy pupping site as well and pups can be hard to differentiate from the other seals when they get a little older, which is very quickly. 700 at this site is, from what I've heard, low. I take it there can be over a thousand at this site.

So how do you count a thousand seals, let alone 700? You don't. Well, you don't actually count them. We have little clickers for counting. So you learn to take in groups of seals at a time visually and as you (try) to look at each seal in the grouping, you don't attach a number, you just click your clicker which keeps count for you. It was very hard in the beginning for me. Plus having to recount to double check and being so slow at it and then losing your current "grouping" and having to start all over again.

This time, I was a bit more swift and able to hold the groupings in my head more consistently. My counts were similar to my mentors which was a bit gratifying. My first time out I was usually off by a hundred and there were only 350 or so last visit.

But all that aside, Drake's Estero is an extremely gorgeous area, to me anyway. It's quite wind swept and scrub bushy, see out across the hills and ocean. Quiet. I like quiet. I like that sort of quiet that's more quiet in the back of your brain not just in your ears. There's no city buzz in the background. There is only the wind, nature sounds, the seals (they make the occasional snortling (that's half snort, half chortle) and mewing sounds from the pups). There's something calming to me about being there.

I don't know if I'll get to go out again this season, considering the craziness of my work schedule and the fact that the season is winding down but I'm hoping to continue the work in some form or another (maybe raptors next year!!) and possibly looking into classes on conservation.

Just All UP

March 15 - 30, 2009

So I'm slowly getting full swing into work, managing to find shifts to fill in my days but dang, the early morning schedule is very hard for a very non-morning person like me.

And I'm starting to hate the hip hop class. The current routine I really hate and I and the only guy who is totally wild in his movements are always getting singled out to "correct". Bah, I guess I'm just not one for "set" type dance. Or I have an issue with authority. Hahhahahhaaaaa!!!!

Human Flight!

March 14, 2009

We went out to do an adventure in an indoor wind tunnel, basically a big ass vertical wind tunnel in which you can do "free fall" sky diving. Wow, I was addicted right off the bat and now am plotting how to get back there...

You can read my report from Marty and my Adventure Blog. Although currently the video isn't working.

Or Read Below:

Adventure - Marty's Dad, Steve

Description: Experience indoor sky diving, wherein one can experience the free-fall aspect of diving without the death part.

Check out our video at the end!!

(Heather's Report):

Steve, Marty's father, got it into his head that he wanted to go do some indoor skydiving and invited us along, his treat, which was extremely, very nice of him. He came down Friday and we hung about, going out to eat Indian food at my favorite place, Tasty Curry in the Inner Sunset and then to the Planetarium at the new Academy of Arts and Science. I hadn't been to a planetarium in years and years and so it was great fun to go and allow myself to be all girlish-kid delighted in the whole thing. Plus I love astronomy so double bonus!

The next morning, fortified by scrambled eggs and veggies and my usual Marty-brought-Mocha, we launched in separate cars (since it would be easier for Steve to drive back to Sacramento from the East Bay) towards Union City, around a 45 minute drive. Okay, I don't think I even knew of Union City existing in California. Maybe I'd heard of it in other states. But, yes, we do indeed have a Union City, which I didn't see much of since the building for iFly (yeah, really) was right off the highway. But it sort of smacked of Fremont where we bought Zippy, lots of Mall-like installations, like those big groupings of outdoor shops (meaning not like a whole indoor mall) - theater, various restaurants, Best Buy, Borders, Michael's Crafts, that sort of thing. These places always seem to have a vaguely depressing quality to me, a separation of community, which must exist somewhere in the area but is not inherently visible.

The building itself was oddly shaped and much smaller than I thought it would be and for some reason, taller, which doesn't make sense because you'd need tall for a giant vertical wind tunnel, right? I guess I wasn't sure what I was expecting. But it was a narrow rectangular building, long on front, thin on the sides. The observation/launch deck was the second floor, the blue part, while the tunnel ran right up the middle of the building from what looked like underground to the very top. That squarish part in the middle of the open part is the tunnel. Apparently it took about $8.5 million dollars to build the entire thing, I think it was said about $6.5 million for just the wind tunnel. These tunnels are a fairly new design, safer and apparently the best for simulating free fall. Apparently even the military adopted it over their old design they use for training their jump troops. Skydivers also use it to work on free fall flight skills for competitions as well.

And then of course, there are the folks like me, Marty and Steve, coming for the "oooh, indoor skydiving!" bit. Most have never been close to jumping out of an airplane, so this is a fun, safer and cheaper option for folks like us. Well, Steve has jumped out a perfectly good airplane about 30 times and Marty and I did a tandem jump a long time ago. I vividly remember that jump. One, I have a fear of flying so the old tin can with wings we took off in was extremely scary to start with. Two, yeah, jumping out of a... well, not perfectly good airplane, but it was keeping me in the air so that was good to me. Three, the absolutely incredible nausea from having the adrenaline caught up in my torso after the chute went off and cut off the blood flow to my legs (apparently adrenaline needs the entire body circulatory system to process through). Not to mention the abject fear throughout the whole thing.

But this seemed much safer. No plane to start with. A large mesh where the instructor stood to adjust your basic flight stance. Someone to control the wind speed. No falling to one's death if the chute doesn't go off. Well, I guess if the power went out you might be in trouble but I imagine there are back-ups and back-ups of those. So I went forth mostly willingly. The only thing I was worried about were all the warnings that you shouldn't go in if you've ever dislocated your shoulder or had other severe shoulder injuries. I tore my rotator cuff in my left shoulder years and years ago kayaking in college (in the pool no less, after I was tired from learning rolls over and over, pulled up with my paddle when I should have hip snapped). I've never even really been bothered by it after it healed up until about a couple of months ago when I notice that my shoulder has been bothering me. Years and years later, for no apparent reason. But hell, I was willing to risk it.

So I flopped forwards into the air tunnel. My first little "flight" was just getting used to the environment, having the instructor stabilize me in my "free fall" posture. I felt I caught on fairly quickly. Marty and his dad thought I wasn't having fun but that was just because I was concentrating on all the instructions before hand and trying to adjust "on the fly" as it were. I felt completely fine with the experience. However, when I got out though, I was shaking all over and my legs were jelly. I attribute this to a body memory of the original tandem jump I did and that fear stuck in my body. It took almost the entire round of other people going for their first and second rounds to be able to calm myself down. But by the time I got up for my second round, I was feeling fine and eager.

The second time around, the instructor gives more time to stabilize on your own and then takes you by an arm and leg and whoosh, up you fly into the top of the air tunnel and down and up again and then with a wild spin in the air. By that point, I was howling with laughter and wanted to go again about five more times. We got to watch our instructor do some crazy stuff in the chamber. Folks might say oh whatever and poo poo it but you have to have some damn fine control to do the stuff he was doing in a confining cylinder like that. Full on dives to the "floor" with a last minute stop over the mesh, that sort of thing.

By the time the day was over, I wanted to take on a career as a body flight instructor. Or a sky dancer. Even though my shoulder was having some problems and I had dreadlocks in the wisps of hair that were poking through the helmet. I'd go again in a heartbeat. They do teach you how to do extra stuff the more you go. You can even train to be an instructor through various programs. I probably wouldn't end up doing that but I am interested in flying upside down on my head.


(Marty's Report):

So today was indoor skydiving day. Yesterday was Hangout With Pop and Heather Day, which was just as good as floating on a 100mph column of air in the boondocks of the East Bay (Union City, anyone? Does anyone not think it's somewhere near Daly City?)

Dad came down yesterday afternoon. We had planned for a 1:30pm meeting at my house, after Heather and I met with our couples' therapist. (I think we've done probably 3 1/2 years of couples therapy, with maybe four or five therapists, and it's really paying off. I wouldn't want to be married to anyone else.) But apparently Mom, having been thrown off Grandpa not being able to go (he had to sit on a grand jury), but nonetheless kicked him out at 10am, after cooking him a breakfast so he couldn't make excuses about how long it was taking to prepare the cereal. So Dad got to sit in his car on our street for a few hours, drinking coffee and watching the goings ons of 4th ave.

Heather had gotten tickets to the Planetarium, so we went to our favorite Indian joint (Tasty Curry, best Indian in SF, well, at least the nicest proprietor), where we had a big old table full of nan and entrees, and dosed ourselves up on highly sugared and caffeinated chai. That's one of my favorite parts of the place, the big tub of free chai.

We took a quick tour of the natural sciences museum--Heather's getting tired of my criticisms, so I tried to keep them at a minimum--hitting the aquarium (my favorite are the alligator gar, though the leafy sea horses are ridiculously cool) and the living roof, then going to the planetarium show ("Fragile Earth"). We agreed that the best part was when it simulated the whole room rising up through the roof of the museum, and swooshing around the roof, then lifting up and off over the city and finally into the heavens. I'd seen it before, though, so I allowed myself to drift off... or tried to, because Heather kept squeezing my hand each time I twitched (signaling a switch from waking to sleep state, apparently a common sign for me), so the show became a bit like a sleep deprivation torture.

Then we hung out at home and, as my Gpa likes to say, "hooted and scratched." We covered the bases, from movies to nuclear power to our parrots (a hard topic to avoid when they are laughing and chortling in the background, or on your head). Then we watched "Serenity," which Dad hadn't seen before, though for Heather and I it was perhaps our fifth view through. It's funny how with most films, once is enough, but with some, you can watch over and over. And it is an odd quirk of my character that the one's I love over and over are the genre films (I've watched "Live Free or Die Hard" about five times). Shrug.

Boy, it was cold last night! We slept on the futon in Heather's room, and got the cold air from the window seeping down on our heads. I said to Heather in the wee hours that it felt like camping.

Then today we got up at about 8am, and Dad and I went for the coffee run while Heather began some cooking behavior (what a good wife!). More hooting and scratching around the kitchen table--and I must say, I love have guests around, most of all in the morning. There's something deeply soothing and reassuring to me about having folks poking around in the AM, and with whom you can reconnect after a night of being dissolved into the dreamtime.

We headed off in separate cars (Dad was leaving after the adventure), and made our way down through the Peninsula, then over the San Mateo Bridge to Union City. I don't think, if we'd not gone to "skydive" there, that I might have even known that UC existed, not to mention actually having gone there. It reminded me of, well, every other American suburb I've ever been to. Except with a place where you could parachute on a big fan.

I told James Thursday about this upcoming adventure, and said there was an option to do the flying without the grate that covers the fan, the Super Adventure Option. He understands my humor, and was not afraid.

We got to the place, which was a custom built facility out front of a standard later-model shopping center, and went in to register. Eventually, after watching the earlier crews float around, we got into flight school, a quick video, then suited up and entered the chamber. They sealed up the doors and turned the fan on, and off we went.

I was nervous, as usual in these situations, more for the embarrassment factor than any fear of harm. Which is a little silly, given my minimal investment in being a good indoor flying, uh, person, but there it was. So I stepped up to the door after pop had did his turn, and it was tense such that the instructor kept trying to get me to take the right posture. It looks on the video that I eventually did, then after a minute he took me to the door and I climbed out.

The sensations were so strong in my body, like every cell and organ had gotten a little dose of adrenaline and was kind of humming inside with it. Then there was the wait for our second turn, where the instructor took us floating up higher into the wind tunnel, which was pretty cool. Though time did seem to slow down, so the minute that went by very quickly sitting on the bench, kind of slowwweddd down when you were actually doing it.

And that was that! We'd done it, we'd not fallen to the (almost) fate of Charlie and Grandpa in "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (when they almost floated up into the fan with the super bubble gum). Heather had pulled her shoulder, which she injured years ago, and I popped my right shoulder, which is still a bit achy.

Dad, the stalwart Northern European descended dude, survived just fine.

Planetarium

March 13, 2009

Today was the usual every-other-week appointments with the "treatment team", my Rosen Bodywork and then Couple's Therapy. Then back to the house to meet up with Marty's father, off to Indian at Tasty Curry which I adore, then to the new Academy of Arts and Sciences to wander for a little bit and then go to the last show of the day at the Planetarium.

I hadn't been to a planetarium in a long time and I delightedly thrilled to go to this one.

Then home, chatting in the living room and then watching Serenity, to show it to Steve, and that must be my.... fourth time watching it? Rockin' movie!

First Day Back

March 12, 2009

Well, my first day back to work, starting off with shadowing at Jo Ruffin Place, was not too traumatic. Suckitude. But not hugely horrible. I, at least with all that crap on my resume, know what I am doing. Just need training on the particulars of the site.

Then I went to my hip hop dance class where a classmate set his pants on fire. That's hot dancing! Apparently he had some matches in his pocket of nylon and it got too frictiony with all the gyrating and suddenly went flying to the bathroom after the things went off in his pants. Nice, eh? I tried very hard not to laugh and then always wondered how that physically could happen considering there ain't much oxygen in someone's pocket. Hmmm.

Then I went home and started creating extremely funny ecards with Marty's head. Oh my gods, I just about howled and cleared my lungs out. Jib Jab is a very funny site and I got quite involved in creating these cards, which are pretty easy to do.

View Here if not working!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Then I added James and well.....

View Here if not working!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

New Hire Orientation

So, I had my new hire orientation at Baker main office for the relief counselor position, an hour or so of signing paperwork.

And a sort of "Duh" type "training" about "don't have sex with clients" and "you'll get fired if you make any controlled med mistakes", blah blah, crap. I barely refrained from periodically laughing, yawning and rolling my eyes.

But as I was proceeding through the whole thing, I started feeling panicky and sick to my stomach. Gah. I really don't want to be in this field. But one must make money. And I only have the mental health field on my resume. Where's my sugar daddy?!?! Waaaahhhhh!!!

Flying Spaghetti Monster

March 8, 2009

So I was having this discussion/argument of basic human nature with Will. Not sure how it got started. I think we started around the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is some whacky response to some whacky anti-evolution thingie in Kansas or some such. Read the wiki entry.

It probably devolved from there into an argument of some kind about the basic nature of mankind. This often happens with between me and Will and the different beliefs about good and evil and does humanity have major suckitude or what?

And, well, I can't believe I was arguing for postive side of mankind, pointing to learned behaviors of fear, that fear is not a basic human trait.

Me, positive and all that crap. Hahahaha, well, that's a first. Although I say I often hate people, I guess I have to say that I'm starting to be a recovering pessimist. Hmmm. Interesting....

Seal Training - Part 1

March 7, 2009

No, not SEAL training...

Signed up for the Point Reyes Harbor Seal Monitoring volunteer work. Basically our "job" is to go out to certain area and count Harbor Seals at their haul out sites (where they come up onto the beach in droves and lay about in the sun), noting various seal types (Harbor Seals but possibly Sea Lions and Elephant Seals), how many Harbor Seals - adults and pups, (apparently pupping season is about now), live ones, dead ones, any disturbances (hikers, predators, etc).

Today was our first training, learning about Harbor Seals and how the counting is going to go. Apparently there are so many seals at particular points, that you have to use a clicker. Look through the binoculars and sort of take in groups of seals and click away as your eye glances over each seal body. Apparently you just can't keep the count in your head when seeing numbers like that. And they can get up into the top hundreds, even a thousand or more animals.

I learned that Harbor Seals are pinipeds (flippered critters) and do not have articulated spines like Elephant Seals or Sea Lions. Apparently this type of spine allows a piniped to bend the spine and sit up, like you see most seals doing. As Harbor Seals do not have this type of spine, they are kind of like worms, sort of inching and flopping about but cannot bend their bodies to sit in half.

I also learned that we have the highest concentration of "red" animals in the world. This phenomenon has been showing up lately of animals with rusted red colored fur. They aren't actually sure why it occurs and it doesn't seem to affect the animal in question other than having more brittle whiskers than normals seals. They do think it might have something to do with iron and the fur, although not from within the seal. Well, the iron that is. Whatever is in the seal that makes it easy for the iron to glom onto the fur. Or something like that.

The next step is to actually go out into the field and see the haul out sites with the trainers and then do a secondary, final training with a senior counter/volunteer.

Bring on the Seals!

Coraline

March 1, 2009

Just saw the movie Coraline which I thought was quite a creepy film with disturbing imagery and implications. I mean, those buttons for eyes.... ick.

Something to me about not being awake. Or being so blind to everything around you. Bleh.

Just.... *shudder*.