Monday, July 19, 2010

return to the jungle...

Well...it's the time again...time for surf zone zippin', crab pot line dodgin', and motion sickness pill poppin'. Yep, it's time for nearshore surveys.  This week, we headed up to Long Beach, WA to tackle 1 of 5 surveys we'll complete to track the movement of sand, which Army Corps is dredging up from the Columbia River and piling onto Benson Beach as an experiment to combat erosion.

guns and roses awaiting the day

benson beach

north head lighthouse


the crew sets up

setting up the computers

teamwork to measure the echosounder arm
heather and me ready to rumble

But it wasn't all work...during down time we got to check out some hiking trails in the North Head area. 

 heather near north head

 north head lighthouse

Next up...Reedsport. We left mid-week from Long Beach and drove ~7 hours to Southern Oregon to conduct our second year effort of surveys at the proposed location of Oregon's first wave energy buoys.  Unfortunately, the waves and wind were up and the Coast Guard closed the mouth of the Umpqua River to all non-commercial vessels.  No problem...we'll just launch from the beach.  With a little help from some quad runners more than anxious to tow jet skis through the dunes we were able to get the work done. Never a dull moment.

being towed

we made it!

after getting to the open beach, we took it to the water

launch of guns...

 salt water to the face. yum.

...and he's off
  launch of roses

yikes
no easy task.
We also got to check out the freakin' awesome sand dunes in Southern Oregon.  We went from lush forest to desert-like scenery in a  matter of seconds. Amazing.
sand dunes
 dune!
jeremy and heather

Because the job of supporting the jet-skiers can get a little slow, I brought along bocce to pass the hours...
bocce!

 heather tries from the truck

eyeballing the shot

jeff's a natural