This week in the office didn’t seem to have much spare time. It was mostly spent wrapping up loose ends on the communications side and doing background research for the Sea Grant final presentation (that is on Friday?? Man this flew by quick). It was so busy that there was only enough time for two cinnamon bun break trips this week at Fishtail Cafe!

Before we go any further in this blog, these buns must be discussed. Fishtail Cafe is in the Aquarium Village, located roughly a 45 second walk from the Marine Reserves office. Which makes it super convenient when you’re running low on coffee and can’t be bothered to make more back at your apartment. It all started on a normal day probably 4-5 weeks ago now… We had heard from the other ODFW employees that Fishtail was a pretty alright cafe, not bad but nothing special. I had eaten there once and had exactly that experience. But as I walked in to get a refill of coffee, one of the waitresses walked by me with a cinnamon bun, glazed over with icing, that barely fit on their mid-sized desert plates. I don’t reckon I could have palmed it with one hand. At that moment I knew I had to have one. The waitress explained that they make them in house every week and they almost always run out. She heated mine up and brought it out, making sure to let me know that there was extra butter if I needed it. Let me assure you this bun did not need butter. Each bite just melts in your mouth and the icing just tops it off. In proper cinnamon bun fashion, each bite gets better as you go around the spiral. With the last center bite sending you straight to heaven (or to the hospital with the amount of butter they must use in each one). Without a doubt the top 3 cinnamon buns I’ve ever had have been the last 3 from Fishtail Cafe. Who would have guessed the Aquarium Village in Newport Oregon would have the GOAT of cinnamon buns? I messaged Zach and told him he needed to experience this for himself. From then on it has become tradition. They know us by name and refer to us as their “boys” or “honey”. We don’t even have to wait to be seated, we just go to our same spot every time! Its fantastic. This week it was our favorite waitress’ birthday. We gave her big ol’ hugs and told her how much we would miss this place and their cinnamon buns. They even said they would hang up a picture of us if we get one framed, proper regulars! If you don’t believe me take a look at this bad boy (cinnamon bun, not Zach):

At $4.50 each, these buns have been a dangerous investment for both my buns and wallet. 

Now that the important stuff is out of the way… The large majority of the remaining time has been spent in the office doing various office activities:

1. I’ve created a new photo organization protocol for the Marine Reserves team. Now all of our photos from research, community events and landscape photos can be nicely organized in separate folders on the server. Yay!
2. I worked with the ecological monitoring team to fact check all of the blog and social media posts I’ve written over the past 8 weeks. Now almost completely edited they should be ready to go out into the world! Stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter at: http://oregonmarinereserves.com/ (One last shameless plug)
3. Read a bunch of articles on campaign planning, evaluation and the importance of community engagement in preparation for my poster and presentation. Next weeks blog post will probably be on that subject.

AND AS IF I ALMOST FORGOT. YA BOY WAS IN THE FIELD THIS WEEK. As much as I enjoy the process of communications, I love to be out in the field interacting with people and the environment. Doing that kind of work and being in those situations are what drives so many people to this field. This summer I had high hopes that most of the work that we would be doing would be community engagement out in the field. We got a taste of it in the first couple of weeks and since then it has just been office work. Which is important, just not nearly as exciting. So when the opportunity came to get out in the rocky intertidal zone and survey sea stars for wasting disease… I was 100% on board. So bright and early, we threw the ODFW rubber boots, bibs, gloves and measuring tapes in the back of the ODFW truck and headed toward Otter Rock Marine Reserve. After a quick stroll to the rocky intertidal we set up shop and got into some science. Searching through kelp and tidal pools just gets your inner kid so excited.

Zach and Nina down and dirty in the intertidal

When ya boy gets out of the office

Hello? Did someone say Sea Grant product placement?

Lesson #1 from the Rocky Intertidal: Surveying is all about getting comfortable

Getting to spend the whole morning with wicked friends doing wicked science! There isn’t much more you can ask for. It was some much needed time in nature to get you mentally ready to take on presentation week.

Last note: Alexis partaking in the epic program Take 3. It’s a program a friend of a friend started in Australia that is a campaign for awareness of trash in our oceans. It’s super easy and gets people involved by taking 3 pieces of trash with you whenever you go to the oceans, waterways or anywhere. It’s an epic program and I hope it starts catching on in America. Find out more at www.take3.org!