Now that school is back in session, my adventures will be limited to the few weekends that I can afford to get away from classes/research. I thought I would post some pictures of my most recent field work expedition before I get too entangled in day-to-day stresses of student living. The last field location of the survey season was Rockaway, OR-- a very small town on the Northern coast.We had outstanding weather! It was warm and sunny for 2 of the 3 days we surveyed...very unlike the Oregon coast.
This is the typical scene for many of the coastal towns in Oregon....houses in hazardous areas. The second shot shows some riprap revetment placed in front of the hotel to prevent the dune from further eroding.
Because of all the sunshine and warm temperatures, our monitor on the jet ski kept overheating and shutting down. We thought of many ideas to alleviate the problem, ice packs, mini-umbrellas, and of course, aluminum foil! However, this idea also failed and the problem persisted.One of the days we also had a very large wave event with waves reaching ~7.5 feet! We decided to attempt the survey anyway and luckily, I was a part of the support crew on land! This allowed me to get a few nice shots of some waves...
A funny thing happened on the third day of field work...we were sitting in the car watching the survey crew on the water and out of the mist came hundreds of people! They looked like zombies as they slowly marched towards us. I still have no idea what they were doing, but as they got closer it turned out that they were a bunch of children on a field trip or something...
The picture below is the Tillamook Bay jetty with the bay inlet on the right and the ocean on the left. This inlet is notoriously dangerous for boats when crossing the bar. One day this week when we were launching the survey boats, the Coast Guard was actually towing in a fishing boat that had capsized while trying to get out! 
