This week I finished up pressure counts and interviews at Cape Perpetua. I am honestly going to miss spending time in this area, I have witnessed so many amazing and strange things here over the past month. Highlights from this week include trying to give surveys while grey whales spout in the background. At first I tried to use the whales as an excuse to talk to visitors…”hey do you see the whales out there, oh by the way would you be willing to take a quick survey…” This worked well until I had to start taking 2 minute breaks in the middle of the survey while we gawked at the whales. Whales have a strange power over people, I saw a family of 4 resting in their car until one of them spotted the whale and at first I thought there was an emergency the way all 4 of them immediately burst out of the car and sprinted to the nearest lookout.

This week I found several people to survey with a lot of interest and stake in marine reserves decisions. One man I talked to comes up to the central coast every summer to fish and he had helped out with previous ODFW marine reserves research at Redfish Rocks in Port Orford. Another man owned his own commercial fishing guide service in the area. I keep thinking that after 125 surveys I should be able to predict  peoples’ answers based on their demographics and what they tell me about themselves, but people catch me off guard all the time. I was definitely expecting the fishermen to be against marine reserves, several of them have seen them successfully implemented in their home states and see benefits of them if they are implemented correctly.

Outside of work I have been watching as much of the Olympics as I can squeeze into my day. One of my former teammates at OSU and dear friend, Patricia Obee is racing in the lightweight double (Rowing) for Canada in London and another one of my best friends is also there cheering her on. It definitely makes the Olympics seem more real when I have raced both with and against many of the women competing!